“No.” He gave another lolling shake of his head. “Opium.”

“Opium causes this?” I was unsure. “Why were you smoking opium?”

Bao opened his eyes and grimaced at me. “To dull the pain of thinking you were dead, Moirin! They grow it in Kurugiri; it’s everywhere. But I stopped after seeing you in the meadow, because I had to know.”

“Enough!” Hasan Dar caught Bao by the front of his tunic, yanking him partially upright. “If that’s what ails you, you’ll live,” he said grimly. “You’ll want to die for a few days, but you’ll live. Tell me, are there other assassins coming?” He gave Bao a shake. “Tell me everything you know!”

I winced, but I couldn’t blame him. My lady Amrita’s life was at stake, and mayhap Ravindra’s, too. “Please, tell him anything that might help, Bao,” I said. “Trust me, you definitely don’t want the Rani Amrita’s death on your conscience.”

“What is it with you and royal ladies?” he complained, squinting at me. I had the urge to shake him myself, but Hasan Dar did it for me. “All right, all right! One moment! It is not urgent yet.” Bao gestured feebly toward the north. “They will wait a few days until they’re sure I failed, then they will send another. Not one you expect. Divyesh Patel is his name, and he will come by day. His weapon is poison.”

Hasan Dar lowered him. “You’re sure?”

Bao managed to nod. “Put a guard on your stores now. Alert your kitchen staff. Don’t let them admit any strangers, don’t let them serve any food or drink that hasn’t been under lock and key. Sooner or later, Divyesh will approach one of them.”

“Oh, I will do better than that!” Hasan Dar looked thunderous. “I will personally taste every dish that is prepared for their highnesses until this poisoner is caught.”

“No, no, my friend.” Amrita had entered the room unannounced, attended by several more guards. She looked ashen, but resolved. “I brought this danger on myself, and I will not allow you to risk yourself. I will taste my own dishes, and Ravindra’s, too.”

“Highness-” her commander protested.

She raised one hand, silencing him. Reluctantly, he acquiesced with a bow. She frowned at Bao. “It is the opium-sickness that ails him?”

“So he says,” I replied.

Amrita glanced sidelong at me, raising her brows. “I take it you did not sense his presence as he approached this time.”

I shook my head. “No. Kamadeva’s diamond, and… well.” I could not say aloud that the overwhelming relief of Naamah’s grace had distracted me even from the approach of my own divided diadh-anam, but it had. “No, my lady, I did not.”

Her mouth quirked. “I will send for the physician, eh? Perhaps there is something that may help your Bao through the worst of the pangs.”

“That would be good,” Bao said through gritted teeth, shivering violently. “Thank you, highness.”

Roused from sleep, the bleary-eyed physician came to examine Bao and confirmed it was opium-sickness. “Very little will help, I fear,” he said apologetically. “Give him peppermint tea to soothe his stomach when the vomiting begins. Beyond that…” He shrugged. “Your system must cleanse itself, young man. How long has it been since last you took opium?”

“Two days,” Bao muttered. “I think.”

The physician patted his shoulder helpfully. “Expect to feel like dying for a few more, then. But it will pass.”

After ordering a second bed brought into my chamber, as well as clean linen and sleeping attire for Bao, who was sweating through his woolen tunic and breeches, the Rani Amrita returned to the hidden room with her escort of guards.

She took me aside, first. “I must admit, I feel a bit foolish, Moirin,” she murmured. “If you had known your Bao was coming, I would not have made the offer I did, nor would you have accepted it, I think.”

“Then I am glad I did not know,” I said honestly.

“You do not mean that!” Amrita admonished me. I smiled at her. She tilted her head and reconsidered, flushing slightly, not entirely displeased. “Or… perhaps you do, eh?”

I touched her cheek and stroked it gently, letting my fingertips linger against her skin. “Out of the kindness of your heart, you gave me a very great gift, my lady, and Naamah’s blessing is on you because of it. I hope you are not sorry for it.”

She shook her head. “Not sorry, no.”

I smiled again. “Well, then. Nor am I.”

This time, Amrita smiled back at me, looking tired and worn and beautiful. “You are more than a little bit of a bad girl, Moirin. Go and tend to your bad boy. I think you must deserve one another.”

When she had gone, I turned back to find Bao regarding me with half-lidded eyes, dark crescents glinting in the lamplight. “Ha!” he said. “I knew it.”

I pointed a finger at him. “You do not have leave for blame, my stubborn boy. You let Jagrati make you her toy.”

“You would have, too,” he said. “I saw it. Only-”

“Only my lady Amrita refused to allow it.” I knelt on the bed beside him, tugging at his sweat-sodden tunic. “So. If nothing else, we have established that I have far better taste in royal ladies than you do. Although I must say, your wife Erdene still loves you, and she proved helpful in the end.”

“Did she?” Bao smiled faintly. “I’m glad.”

“Yes.” I tugged harder, to no avail. “Lift your arms, won’t you? Else I’ll have to summon Hasan Dar to aid me.”

Bao shifted obligingly and lifted his arms, and at last I was able to ease his soaked tunic over his head, removing it.

I caught my breath.

There were new markings on his corded forearms-fresh, stark, and unfamiliar. Vivid black tattoos inked onto his skin in a complicated zig-zag pattern that forked like lightning, each turning marked with a symbol in a strange alphabet. Remembering old tales, I wondered if they were part of some charm or spell that further bound him to the Spider Queen.

I traced the pattern. “Bao? What is this?”

“What?” He glanced at his forearms. “Oh, that.” He shrugged. “It is the path through the maze to Kurugiri, Moirin.” He lifted his right arm a fraction. “This way is up.” He let it fall, and lifted the left. “And this is down.” An involuntary shudder racked him. “Do you think it will be helpful?”

I kissed him, reckoning it was best done before the vomiting began. My diadh-anam sang happily within me, reunited with its missing half.

“Yes,” I said. “Oh, yes!”

SIXTY-FIVE

Bao was miserable for days.

He trembled and shook, racked by bone-deep pains. He tossed and turned and sweated, unable to find ease, unable to sleep. There was vomiting and worse, as though his body sought to expel every foreign substance within it along with the dregs of the opium he had smoked for months.

It was perhaps the most spectacularly unromantic lovers’ reunion in the annals of history.

Still, he had done something no one else had ever done. He had walked away from the Spider Queen and Kamadeva’s diamond of his own will, breaking the spell that bound him to her.

And he had brought the secret of the path to Kurugiri with him.

Hasan Dar was cautiously elated. The entire palace remained on high alert, watching for the Falconer’s elusive poisoner. Guards in civilian clothes were posted over every storeroom, watched over every well, accompanied the Rani’s cooks to the market. Meanwhile, the commander took counsel with the Rani and her clever son, trying to forge a plan that would take advantage of the maze’s key.

Bao’s presence was kept a secret that we might not alert our enemies to his betrayal. Let Tarik Khaga and Jagrati think he had failed, that he had been captured or slain, and the nature of his tattoos remained a mystery.

In between bouts of agony, Bao told Hasan Dar everything he knew about Kurugiri’s vulnerabilities.