“Ambassador,” she tried to tease. “Are you following me?”

She offered a soft smile with all the energy she had.

He sigh-laughed, rerouting to walk beside her. “Why, of course,” he replied. “Where to next?”

“Surprise me,” she dared, raising a brow. He smiled, but his eyes were sad.

Durkhanai suddenly felt that she had missed something. She hated to be asleep when everyone else was awake. She could tell something was wrong, but she didn’t understand what, as though they were suddenly communicating in a dialect she didn’t fully understand. She could understand the emotion but not the meaning or the context.

Asfandyar wasn’t saying anything. He sat down, resting his head in his hands. She wondered if the concern was for her health.

“I’ll be good as new soon,” she told him.

But, no, it seemed to be something deeper. He looked like he wanted to say something, guilty almost. Like he’d broken her heart. Or like she’d broken his.

He looked up at her, and his face was entirely too raw.

“I don’t understand,” she said finally, catching his eye.

“Sometimes we see what we want to see; sometimes we see the truth,” he said. “But only if we are lucky are the two the same.”

She still didn’t understand, but he didn’t elaborate. She wanted desperately for things to be okay between them. Something had happened.

“Have you noticed any strange behavior from n Palwasha-sahiba?” Durkhanai asked, trying to bring them both back to their alliance. “In case she goes out again. We must find out what she was doing—who she was meeting.”

Asfandyar shook his head. “Nothing. And no word from the Wali of B’rung yet, either, I assume?”

“Nothing.” Durkhanai had told the postage officer to inform her first if any mail came for Palwashas-sahiba, and to bring it to her before alerting her of its arrival. But nothing had come.

“Time is running out,” Asfandyar said.

“I know.” She felt like a river flowing toward a waterfall: inevitable, uncontrollable. They had just two weeks left to find out who was truly behind the summit attack, and while they were getting close, it wasn’t enough.

They needed proof. But Durkhanai’s mind was spinning.

“I visited Mahd,” Asfandyar said. “He’s doing better. I sent him your regards.”

She wondered why he had done something so deeply intimate, something that tethered them together. She knew she should admonish him for being so public about their friendship, or whatever it was between them, but sick and sleepy, she couldn’t be bothered anymore.

“And the rest?” she asked. “I have the privilege of medicine,” she added. “But many don’t, so you must still go out and distribute without me.”

She needed her people to be strong if war truly was coming. Asfandyar nodded again, but he was like a wilted flower, lifeless.