“It is bad of you to lie,” I replied. “I have the staff roster memorized and there is no master of falcons.”

“At another of Her Highness’s estates,” she clarified.

I didn’t believe her. “Then what do you do here?”

“I followed Maram.”

The way she said it, plainly, obviously, as if she had nothing to hide, made me believe her. When I said nothing she folded her arms over her chest.

“What?”

“Nothing. But you can’t linger here. Maram won’t be back today, and there are others who may come through. They can’t know you visit her.”

She stood over me for a moment, examining me in the way that all people who lived in or near the Ziyaana eventually learned to do. Prying, peeling, as if her silence alone could pry out my secrets.

“I understand why they chose you,” she said at last.

My eyes widened, bewildered. “What?”

But she didn’t clarify, only gave me a roguish half grin. She bowed and there seemed no mockery in it, and then she left.

The sun had long set when Maram returned to the abandoned suite. I hadn’t expected her—the setup Idris and I shared would work for her as well as it worked for me. And yet return she did, just after I’d turned the lanterns low and prepared for bed.

“I can’t sleep out there,” she said as I turned up a lantern.

“We can switch back,” I said, and she shook her head.

“Stay with me awhile,” she said. “I’ll have to tell you about today.”

I called for tea and the two of us found a seat around a small table within the bedchamber. I watched her as she talked and outlined the most important events for me to remember.

“You and Idris have done quick work—I did not expect … so much,” she said, cradling her glass.

I smiled, thinking of Idris. “He had the lesser challenge. Idris is easy to love, and favored among the makhzen.”

“The implication, I take it, being that I am difficult to love,” she said dryly. But I could see the small cracks that signaled she was serious.

“No,” I said contemplatively. “They don’t know you. They don’t know—or they didn’t know—where you stood.”

“Where I stood?”

“Some might imagine that you stood to gain from the destabilization of the makhzen and from the death and kidnapping of their families and allies,” I said.

“I would gain from those things—status among the Vath, stability in my claim as heir. Respect from my father.” She barked out a short laugh. “But I am not as strong as a High Vath. I cannot stomach it.”

“That isn’t weakness,” I pointed out, frowning. “That is a conscience. Something few in power remember to hold on to.”