“Ah, Shehzadi, you break my heart,” he said, wincing dramatically.

“Shut up,” she snapped, the smile gone. “I’m still furious with you.”

“You should be,” he said, giving out a long sigh.

“Nothing else to say?” she snapped. She took a step toward him, wanting to fight.

He looked away, hand knotted in his curls, jaw clenched. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. Face contorted, he looked . . . heartbroken.

Like she had broken his heart, somehow. She couldn’t explain it—he looked . . . raw. The anger seeped from her, replaced by a soft tenderness.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, voice neutral: not angry, not forgiving.

He sighed, taking the peace offering.

“To force the Badshah into spreading the medicine faster and further,” he said. “When you were sick, the people were getting worse, and I couldn’t do much, alone. Besides, even together, we had hardly made a big difference.”

A plausible explanation.

“Why do you care so much about my people?” she asked.

“Ever noble, no?” Asfandyar replied with a half-laugh, all empty-arrogance and self-deprecation. She frowned.

“You can doubt me, but people are people,” he continued. “I don’t want to see anyone suffer.”

“You should have told me.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I should have told you. I’m sorry.”

“Hmm.”

She wondered if she should believe him.

He was here now though.

“It’s why I found out what was causing it, if it’s worth anything,” Asfandyar told her. “I knew something strange was occurring: illness doesn’t spread so fast, all of a sudden, especially not in the mountains in the summer, not like this. And then I got to thinking . . .”

“So you did all that because you’re a good person?” she said, giving him a difficult time. Asfandyar shook his head, shrugging, not even bothering to agree.

“No, I’m not,” he said. “But sometimes I try to be.”

And he looked at her in a way that said: Sometimes for you, I try to be.

But he didn’t say it, and Durkhanai told herself she was imagining things now. Her heart was like clay, always molding to different shapes: angry and sharp one instant, soft and watery the next. She couldn’t hold being angry with Asfandyar anymore.

“Right,” she said, wrapping the loi around her tighter. “And you thought you’d be the hero, chasing after me with a loi, and all would be forgiven?”

Finally, Asfandyar grinned.

“It worked, didn’t it?” he said, raising his eyebrows at her. She rolled her eyes but couldn’t help her laugh. How horrible. She detested him, truly.

What an unholy, insufferable—but she couldn’t finish the thought. She couldn’t finish the idea because she knew the blame was all hers. “Zyada mat bano,” she said. “Don’t gloat.”

“Besides, I wanted to speak with you,” Asfandyar said innocently. “Did you ever receive word from the Wali of B’rung?”