Quill sank into a hazy silence, nothing akin to the angry, lonely torpor that usually accompanied his migraine attacks. The prince’s exploits kept him fascinated for an hour or so, after which he slept deeply rather than drifting in and out of a painful waking state as was normal.

Gabby returned later in the evening and held his hand as she told him of Daula’s thirtieth birthday. It seemed that Sakambhari, the tree goddess, resolved to give Daula a musical instrument that would create the most beautiful music in the world. But Sakambhari warned him that if he used it for a vain or prideful purpose, it would give him extraordinary pain in his head.

The corner of Quill’s mouth twitched. Gabby waxed lyrical about the lovely music that Daula created with his new instrument.

Finally he opened his mouth. His voice was gravelly and brittle, but he ignored it. “Tell me his instrument was a pipe, Gabby.”

If Quill’s eyes hadn’t been covered by a wet cloth, he would have seen his wife’s dimples. “It might have been,” she agreed. “Indian musicians create beautiful music with their…pipes.”

By the next morning the pain was decreasing and Quill didn’t vomit once in Gabby’s presence. Unfortunately, Mamarah Daula was unable to control his pride, and his glorious pipe dealt him one brutal headache after another.

In retrospect, Quill’s attack lasted precisely the same duration as those that had come before it. But its severity was lessened. Quill didn’t fool himself about why. He took Gabby’s comfort, her sweet fragrance and sweeter voice, the wisp of a silly story that she held out for his enjoyment—he took them and knew that he was undeserving. In the black middle of the night he stared at the wall, his stomach contracted not from nausea but from self-loathing. Gabby, lovely Gabby, deserved a man whose body had the same provocative beauty as hers, a man who would—but thinking of that man caused a harsh clenching of his muscles. He’d kill such a man before he let him near Gabby’s intoxicating body. Her flesh was his.

By morning, Quill had achieved the Herculean task of putting his gaping, bewildering guilt to the side. He justified it thus: Ladies did not truly like sexual congress. Everyone knew that. Gabby was undoubtedly shocked by his migraine, but she would learn to relish days of freedom, without the presence of her crippled husband to question her movements. In the end it would be best for her.