the time comes, I will do what queens have always done.”

“Your mother didn’t,” Gem says, the heat in his tone making me look

up to find him pacing the thick carpet in front of Needle’s bed.

“Yes, she did.”

“If she burned in this tower, then how did—”

“She didn’t burn,” I say, stomach lurching. I’ve known the truth for a

long time, but it sits differently now that I know it wasn’t only my mother

who wished me dead but my father, too.

Gem stops pacing, and turns to me. “But you said—”

“She set the fire, but she didn’t burn.”

NINETEEN

ISRA

“SHE …” Gem shakes his head, and keeps shaking it, as if doing so will

cause what I’ve said to make sense sooner or later.

“She set the fire.” I lift my hand to my throat and feel it ripple as I

swallow, finding myself comforted by the rush of my blood beneath my

skin. “One night, when Father was reading to me before bed, Mother came

in to light the little lamp I liked to leave burning while I slept.

“Baba had mentioned something about a strange smell in my

bedroom earlier, but neither of us knew what it was until my mother threw

the lamp at the curtains. Apparently she’d soaked them with oil earlier in

the day. They went up with a rush that sucked all the air from the room. I

can’t remember what my mother looked like, but I remember seeing her

silhouetted against the flames, how white her nightgown looked next to all

that red and orange.”

“Why?” Gem asks, his voice breaking.

“She had decided the royal family had to die. Together,” I say, piecing

together what little I remember with what Baba told me of that night. “As

soon as she lit the curtains, she ran from the bedroom. She locked me and

Father inside, and went to set another fire in the sitting room. Father

slammed his fists against the door and begged her to let us out, but she

wouldn’t. She … She said she loved us, but that fire was the only way.”

My brow wrinkles as the unfamiliar piece of the puzzle fits into place.

I don’t know if it’s seeing my bedroom that’s helping my memory, or the

fact that I’m telling the story aloud for the first time, but I can suddenly

hear my mother speak, as plainly as if she were in the room right now. I can

hear the tears in her voice, the genuine grief over what she felt, for some

mad reason, she had to do.

“I didn’t remember that last part before,” I continue, “but I’m sure I

heard her. It was right before my nightgown caught fire.”

I press my fingers to my lips, concentrating until I swear I catch a

whiff of smoke. “I screamed for Baba, and he ran back to the bed and threw

me to the ground before the fire could touch my skin.” I point to the spot

on the floor, only a few feet from where I now sit.

“My head hit the stones beneath the carpet and … everything went

blurry. I don’t remember much after that, but I know soldiers arrived and

broke down the bedroom door. Father gave me to one of them and went to

find my mother. She was in the music room, but she ran out onto the

balcony when she saw Father and the guards. Baba said she refused to

come back inside. When she realized her plan had failed, she leapt over the

parapet, down onto the top of the first roof, and threw herself from the

edge. I heard her scream as she fell.

“My father and Junjie took her body to the rose garden the next

morning.” I glance at Gem, who stands frozen on the other side of the

room, as horrified by the story as the people were in the days after my

mother’s suicide. Suicide was always expected of her, but not like that, not

anywhere but in the garden.

“They slit her throat and spilled her blood on the soil.” I drop my

hand to my lap. “According to the terms of the covenant, the queen should

do that herself—make the first, fatal cut before the royal executioner

finishes the job—so it wasn’t the way things were traditionally done, but it

was a suicide, and the covenant was satisfied. The city had been running

low on water for months, but that very day, the water came surging back

into the underground river at full force. For the next three years, the

harvests were so abundant, Father had to have additional granaries built to

contain the bounty. He named one of them after my mother. Not the

greatest honor for a queen, but it was all he felt proper for a woman who’d

tried to burn her family alive.”

Gem curses. It’s a Desert People word, but there’s no doubt that it’s

a curse.

“She was mad,” I say, defending Mama out of habit. “My father and

mother were married for almost twenty years before she became pregnant.

I was a complete surprise. Mama was forty years old when I was born.

Needle tells me the gossips say she was strange before my birth, but

afterward …”

I sigh. “She started to talk about leaving the city. She even took me

outside the gates once when I was four. It’s one of my earliest memories.

We were spotted by the guards and brought back inside almost

immediately, but … My father couldn’t trust her after that. He moved us

both to the tower. Father said Mother didn’t mind. Court life had always

been a misery for her, and going out into the city center gave her fits. She’d

get so upset, she’d forget to breathe, and faint dead away on the street.”

“Was she sick?” Gem asks.

“Not in body,” I say. “Father said the illness was in her mind but that

she seemed happy in the tower. He never thought she’d … do what she did.

I didn’t, either.” I lean back, resting against the mattress. “I don’t

remember much about her, almost nothing, really, but I remember feeling

loved. I’m sure, in some part of her mind, she did what she did out of love.”

Gem crosses the room, his steps soundless on the thick carpet. He’s

learned to be as silent in his boots as he is in bare feet. He has adapted well

to my world. If only I could have the chance to see if I would adapt as well

to his. I already miss the desert, the wind, the moaning of the dead trees.

I’d never be alone in my sorrow out there. There would always be the wind

to commiserate with.

“I’m sure she did,” he says as he stops in front of me. “It’s not hard to

believe.”

I look up, up, up at him in surprise. “It’s hard for most people. It was

hard for me when I was little.”

“She was trying to spare you a life spent preparing to die.”

“We’re all preparing to die.”

“Not like this.” He squats down, resting his hands on my knees. “You

know it’s not the same.”

“I know,” I whisper, running my fingers over the ridges on the backs

of his hands, down the top of each finger, tracing the places where his

claws go to hide. They’re solid, sturdy chambers, like a second set of bones

on top of the first, barely contained by his thick skin. I’ve felt them before,

but I never expected them to look like this, so … natural. Not scary at all,

really.

I lift his hand, studying the tiny puckers above his fingernails that

must open in order to let his claws out. “I would like to see your claws.”

“No.”

“Please. Show them to me,” I say. “I want to see what gave me the

scar on my shoulder.”

Gem fists his hand before pulling it from my grasp. “I wish I’d never

touched you,” he says, dropping his eyes to the floor. “I wish I’d never

come here.”

“I’m glad you came, and I’m glad you touched me. I wish you