As Isha began to forge a new friendship—a skill that had always come easily to her but seemed like magic to Jaya; her best friends were made from words—Jaya walked up and pressed the room key into her hand. Isha barely glanced at her as she said, “Thank you.”

“I’ll be up in my room,” Jaya murmured as the round-cheeked, pale-skinned girl prattled on about which teachers were the best and which meals Isha should be wary of in the dining hall. Jaya got the feeling her jaw muscles were well exercised. “Text me when you’re ready to eat.”

Isha nodded absently and then launched into a battery of questions.

Jaya walked up two more flights of stairs, feeling slight misgivings at leaving Isha, even though she knew she’d be perfectly safe. She couldn’t help it; the need to protect Isha had been ingrained in her since she was young and they’d wander the palace grounds together as children.

Homes didn’t get much safer than palaces—with bodyguards and grounds guards and shifty-looking men who tailed Appa and never took off their sunglasses… They were told to call them “uncles,” but someone had once told Jaya they were highly trained bodyguards. And when she was younger, they’d even had chained tigers along the borders of their land. (The tigers ate ninety pounds of raw meat at each meal. It hadn’t escaped Jaya that she’d weighed exactly that much at that age. She didn’t go anywhere in the vicinity of the tigers again after that realization.)

So, yes, palaces were safe. But even so, Jaya was constantly alert so Isha wouldn’t fall in one of their many ponds or wander off into the forest beyond their property. When Isha leaned too far out a high palace window, eager to study a parrot perched in the mango tree outside, it was Jaya who grabbed the back of her tunic and pulled her back in, refusing to let go until her sister’s feet touched safe ground once again. While Isha flew down the marble stair banisters when Amma wasn’t looking, Jaya would run behind her, one hand out just in case Isha needed her.

Isha was as unburdened by fear as Jaya was cautious. Even though they were only two years and two months apart, Isha seemed so much younger, so much more naive. As the eldest, it was Jaya’s responsibility to make sure Isha was always safe. And earlier this year, she’d failed completely in that duty. Bodyguards and tigers didn’t guarantee safety against every danger facing a royal family. Not even close.