Page 154 of A Forgery of Fate

“No.” She took the bun from him, wiping dirt off its surface with her sleeve. “Just a bunch of girls who don’t like my hair. It happens.”

Her face was swollen in spots, and bruises were already blooming on her arms where the stones had hit her. Yet she acted as if the greater crime was that her lunch had gotten spoiled.

“I know what it’s like,” Elang started. “My face—my real face—has earned me many enemies.”

“Your real face?” She looked up at him, eyes bright with curiosity. “What are you, a demon?”

“No—” He started to laugh, but Shani, who had turned invisible, flitted to his side.

This would be a good time to kill her,the demon reminded him.

Not yet.He wouldn’t admit it, but now that he’d met his match, he was curious about her. She wasn’t anything like what he’d expected.

You only have a minute left until your potion wears out.

Still he hesitated. Truyan was eyeing his silence. He could tell her the truth, let her see his face. But then what? She’d run in terror. She’d never want to speak to him again.

There came a twinge in his chest that he’d never felt before. The stirrings of a pulse.

He clutched at it, letting out a gasp.

Your heart is your home,his mother used to say.Until you understand that, you belong nowhere.

Finally, after all these years, he knew where he belonged.

Truyan had observed how pale he’d gone. “Are you all right?” she asked.

He inhaled a deep breath, noticing for the first time that unlike other humans, her presence didn’t make the air reek. She brought a freshness to the air, like a garden in spring.

“I have to go,” he said. For the first time he could remember, a smile slid onto his lips. “Try not to forget my face.”

But Ihadforgotten his face. Shani’d made sure of that, at least until today.

Scene after scene from my own past—and Elang’s—flashed by. I saw him during the ensuing months, finding excuses to meet me. Never as the same person. Sometimes he was a peddler on the street who gave me an extra-large bowl of the noodles I liked so much; others he was a street musician or a government prefect. Often he sent Shani to leave gifts for me and my family. Silver coins that my sisters might find on the street, a pair of winter boots along the gutters of their room, a box of oranges under our blankets. As the memories continued to unspool, one in particular snagged at my heart:

“It’s been a year,” said Shani one day, confronting Elang in his garden. “I take it you’ve decided to let the krill live.”

He sliced off a sanheia thorn with his nail. “I won’t killher.”

“So you’ll let Nazayun win?”

“He won’t.” Elang took another flower. “Her art is improving, and she’s been learning to trust her visions. I have faith that she’ll be ready for the Scroll soon.”

“I’m not talking about the Scroll,” said the demon tartly. “You seem to forget that if the curse isn’t broken—”

“I don’t care about the curse anymore.”

“Because you care forher.”

“Yes.” He resented the stumble in his breath. “Something she must never know.”

For her sake, it was best if Truyan didn’t even like him. Better, if she despised him. He’d make sure of that when she met him as his true self.

Shani hopped onto his arm, curling her talons against the trim on his robes. “You surprise me, Your Highness. I never would have taken you to be a romantic.”

Ordinarily Elang would have chided her for her insolence, but today he was quiet. “Can I count on you when the time comes, to do what must be done?”

“You mean, can you count on me to carry on with the mission if you falter?” Shani didn’t bother mincing her words. “What? Look at how you’ve lapsed already, whenever you’re with that blue-haired thief. Grinning and telling jokes and acting like a madcap fool. It’s not a blight on you, Elang’anmi. You’re half-human, after all.”

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