The servants filed out obediently. At the wave of Maryam’s hand, the guards closed the doors.

“Stand up,” Maryam said. She stood herself, smoothly adjusting the heavy weight of the silk shawl draped over her shoulders. She stepped down from the dais.

Mehr stood as Maryam walked over to her. “Why did you send the servants away?” she asked.

“Because some things aren’t for their ears,” Maryam said. Her skirts, diaphanous layers of netting and embroidered cloth, whispered against the floor. Closer now, Mehr could see the tension lining her face, the way her hands bit into the slippery weight of her shawl.

“You didn’t bring me here for privacy,” Mehr pointed out. “You brought me here to humiliate me.”

“How bold you are,” said Maryam, venom in her voice. “Things change, Mehr.”

Crossing the last bit of distance between them, Maryam roughly took hold of Mehr’s chin. She stared up into Mehr’s eyes without blinking.

“Look at you,” Maryam said softly. “Every year you grow more rebellious. You think I don’t see the look in your eyes? I know what you are, Mehr. I’ve accepted that trying to improve you is a pointless task, but perhaps you’ll pay me some heed when I tell you this: Your stubbornness is putting us all at risk, especially Arwa.”

Mehr could feel the sharp bite of her stepmother’s nails. She didn’t try to pull away. She told herself the pain was nothing.

“You don’t understand politics,” Maryam went on. “And why should you? Your father has kept you sheltered, as is right and proper. But I am your father’s other half. I share his burdens, and I know too much. I cannot allow you to continue blundering about in ignorance, harming us all.” She lowered her voice. “The Emperor, praise his name, has sent messages to his nobles across the Empire. He believes their efforts to drive heathens out of the Empire have been … lacking. He has asked them to search out your mother’s people in earnest and force them to the edges of society, where they rightly belong.” Maryam was still holding Mehr in her grip, nail to flesh, keeping her pinned fast. “Mehr, by the Emperor’s grace, you were born an Ambhan woman, and the walls of your father’s household shelter you from their sight and from harm. But even you are not so well hidden that your heathen rituals may not draw … attention.”

Mehr’s mind was full of noise. Her jaw ached.

“Why has the Emperor’s hatred grown so suddenly?” she whispered, forcing the words out through the grip of Maryam’s hand.

“It isn’t for us to question the Emperor,” Maryam said sharply.

Mehr bit down on her tongue to hold back an audible wince of pain as Maryam’s nails dug in deeper.