Chapter 43
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Forty-Three
The party was moving outside when Ellie and Adam returned to it. They found themselves herded from the salon with the rest of the boisterous guests, entering an adjacent garden where lanterns hanging from archways spilled abundant light over lush hibiscus flowers and golden trumpetbush.
Music kicked up, tabla and sitar picking out a lively beat. Laughter bubbled up into the star-studded violet sky.
“Where are Constance and Neil?” Ellie wondered aloud.
Adam’s mouth twitched with suppressed humor.
“Never mind—don’t answer that,” she warned him.
Adam raised his hands innocently. “Wasn’t going to.”
Ellie groaned. “But now you’ve put the notion in my head.”
“I didn’t say a word!”
“You didn’t have to!” She flapped a hand at him. “Give me something else to think of.”
Adam nodded to where Constance’s uncle and a few other gentlemen were puffing on their cigars. “It smells like Balaram’s smoking some really nice stuff over there.”
“That’s what you have to offer? Tobacco? Tobacco isn’t going to make me stop thinking about my brother and… things… that I have absolutely no wish to think about!”
“I’m gonna go have a smoke.” Adam’s eyes glinted with mischief. “After all, I did win our bet.”
Ellie threw up her hands. “I never took your bet!”
“I’m gonna cut way back,” Adam assured her as he backed away. “Promise.”
“Black lung!” Ellie shouted after him.
“Just one!” he called in return, and then let himself be pulled into the circle of men.
Ellie shook her head—and then startled to realize that Padma stood beside her.
Constance’s grandmother glittered with jewels, looking every inch the princess. Mr. Mahjoud had returned to join her, a looming and distinguished presence at her back.
He treated Ellie to an irritated frown—probably because she and Adam had sent him off on a wild goose chase.
“When are you leaving for Korea?” Padma asked lightly.
The garden tipped sideways as Ellie tried to catch up with her words. “Why would I be going to Korea?”
“There is that little matter of George Bates,” Padma replied.
Ellie’s thoughts shot back to Borthwick’s revelation in front of the temple of the Brahmastra.
He’s welcome to whatever the Joseon is hiding…
But Padma had been miles away when the colonel had spoken those words.
Suspicion flared. “How do you know about that?”
Padma’s expression was serene. “I make it a point to stay abreast of these matters.”
Anger snapped through Ellie with a quick heat. “How long have you known about it?”
Padma met her glare without a hint of apology. “Longer than you.”
The anger burned hotter. Ellie reminded herself that they were standing at the edge of a party. If she started shouting, people would notice.
“Then would you kindly tell me why you didn’t say anything about it?”
“You needed to focus on the Brahmastra.”
Ellie’s fists clenched. Her head pounded with the effort of restraining her temper. “That wasn’t your decision to make.”
“Wasn’t it?” Padma returned coolly.
Ellie controlled herself with some effort. There were more important things she needed from this conversation than to let Padma know how furious she was. “And what else do you know about Adam’s father?”
“He is searching for a place that the Chinese call Mount Penglai.”
Ellie’s stomach twisted at the words. She knew what Penglai was… and what George Bates must be seeking there.
“You don’t have the funds to make the journey on your own,” Padma declared flatly. “Your money—such as it is—is tied up in London. Mr. Bates never had any to begin with.”
Ellie’s fury was a hot, electric wind roiling inside of her. “Are you blackmailing us?”
Padma’s expression was as placid as a lake in winter. “I believe that I am offering to assist you.”
“Because it serves your interests,” Ellie accused.
“This is a war, Jhia,” Padma snapped. “The men who crush nations under their boots are stealing our own history to help them do it. Did you come here to fight that? Or would you rather go home?”
“That isn’t fair,” Ellie pushed back.
Padma’s eyes flashed with dark, powerful rage.
“Neither was what was done to my country. One million dead in Odisha alone, in a single famine, because the Raj destroyed the systems that would have cared for them, offering us telegraph wires and trade restrictions instead. I left because I could not raise my children in a place that reeked of death, and I have never forgiven myself for it. But I am here now, and I will do whatever is necessary to protect my people—along with others like them across the world who are crushed under the boot of empire.”
Ellie could not disagree with her. She understood justice. She had fought for it on her own battlefields all her life—but her own anger lingered.
“I do not appreciate having my strings pulled,” she warned dangerously. “I won’t be a puppet. Not for anyone.”
“I am not asking for a puppet.”
“What are you asking for, then?”
“Soldiers.” Padma’s lip curled wryly. “Not that I expect either you or Mr. Bates to be very good at following orders. So let us make it warriors, aligned in a cause… if we are aligned, Jhia.”
In the garden around them, children chased across the paving stones, their laughter ringing out into the night air. A group of older women gossiped over tea. Lanterns glittered amid branches heavy with fragrant blossoms, framed by a building with centuries of heritage.
What would it mean if all of that were lost? If men like Borthwick or Lord Aldbury used the powers of the past to sweep it into oblivion so they could remake the world in their own image—for their own benefit?
Ellie couldn’t stand aside and watch that happen. She would never feel right doing anything less than her utmost to stop it.
“I want what you want,” she replied. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll be your tool.”
“I’m not asking for tools,” Padma corrected her. “I’m asking for allies.”
“Then I need to know that you will never hide something like this from me again,” Ellie snapped.
“I won’t promise you that,” Padma returned without a hint of apology. “My interest in this goes beyond the personal. Borthwick was the more immediate threat. He had to be dealt with. You might not have had the strength to recognize that, if I’d given you the choice.”
Ellie shook her head, shocked. “How can you expect me to accept that?”
“I don’t,” Padma replied simply. “I expect you to talk to your man about it.”
Ellie involuntarily glanced at Adam, who stood smoking and laughing with Constance’s uncle and his friends.
He caught her look, and his easy expression narrowed to one of concern.
Padma’s mouth curved dangerously. “See what he has to say, and then you may give me your answer.”
Her air of martial authority fell into a regal ease as she walked away to join a cluster of aunties gathered by the music.
Mr. Mahjoud gave Ellie an ironic nod before he followed her.
Ellie’s head spun.
Adam joined her, looking to where Padma now laughed with the other women. “What happened?”
Ellie gripped his arm as though its solid strength could stop the world from spinning around her. “We need to talk.”
Adam slipped an arm around her waist and steered her inside.
They passed through the maze-like halls of the palace, dodging wandering guests and busy servants, until Adam pulled open a door carved in square panels studded with brass.
He guided her inside, and Ellie found herself in Vijay’s royal library.
The collection was enormous. Shelves lined the walls to a height of two stories. Cabinets and reading tables were packed with treasures. Cases for scrolls and carvings lay beside tomes with gilded spines in Odia, Hindi, Sanskrit, Arabic, English, Latin, and Greek.
Ellie could have lost herself there for years. “Did you know this was here?”
“Just pulled a lucky door,” Adam replied.
Ellie traced her hand over the spines, drawing comfort from them. She had been hunting for this room since she had first come to Nandapur—but she couldn’t throw herself into exploring its wonders. Her heart was too heavy with a bigger burden.
She hated what she would need to say next—but she did it anyway.
“Padma believes that we are going to Korea.”
Adam leaned against the closed door, his posture deceptively casual. “Where’d she get that idea?”
Ellie came closer to him. “She already knew about your father.”
There were a hundred questions Adam might have asked her. Ellie sensed the significance of the one that rose to his lips first.
“What’s he looking for?”
“Penglai Shan,” Ellie replied. “The land of the immortals.”
The myth of Penglai was Taoist, most well-known through Chinese folklore.
It spoke of a mountainous island said to be home to sages whose wisdom had raised them beyond the confines of ordinary flesh to a state of spiritual and physical perfection that granted them immortal life.
The method of that transformation varied depending on what version of the story one heard, from a godly elixir to the fruits of a holy tree or more abstract concepts of spiritual energy.
The location of Mount Penglai—if such a place existed—had long been a mystery. George Bates apparently believed it lay to the north in the kingdom of Korea.
Korea had its own myths of immortality and of mountains that hid powerful secrets. They were less well known in the West, but that knowledge could be learned—and might conceal a powerful truth.
Ellie had never met George Bates. She knew him only by his reputation… and by the shape of the scars he had left on the heart of his son.
“We don’t have to go.”
Adam moved to the window and stared out into the darkness. “It wouldn’t be any different than what we’ve done before. He’s just another bastard in a suit.”
The forcefully casual words cut at Ellie like a knife.
She crossed to him and put her hand on his arm. It was stiff with resistance.
“No, he’s not,” she countered gently.
His facade broke at her words. A shudder moved through him, and his face fell into lines of rage and fear. The words tore out of him roughly.