Chapter Twenty-One Lady Fingers
Chapter Twenty-One
Lady Fingers
Poppy was sitting at the window, watching a pair of hawks circle over the field, when the doorknob rattled on the other side of the room. She spun around and, when Hasan walked through, jumped to her feet.
“You lived!” she said, and for once, she didn’t have to fake the emotion in her voice. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
Then her eyes fell to the knife in Hasan’s hands. Her stomach knotted. She touched the scab on her throat involuntarily. “What’s that for?” she asked, hating how her voice wavered.
He took a step toward her, then another.
Poppy scuttled back, but her borrowed salwar was several inches too long.
Her heel caught on the excess fabric, and she tripped backward, hitting the hardwood floor with a muffled thump.
Hasan crouched beside her swiftly. He caught her wrist and squeezed hard on one of her pressure points, causing her fingers to splay. Her stomach churned.
“Stop,” she begged, wrenching her arm back. His grip was too strong, and the bones of her wrist popped as she continued to struggle. “Please, Hasan.”
The sound of his name—his given name—seemed to have some effect on him. He froze, staring down at her.
Zeyar appeared beside Hasan, helping him pin Poppy’s arm to the floor. “Do it now,” he ordered.
“Wait,” she said. Her mind was racing faster than her pulse, searching for the right combination of words to stop the nightmare. “Wait, please. Richard won’t want me back if I’m damaged—”
“Then he shouldn’t have tried to pull a fast one on us at the museum,” Hasan said. His voice was tense, stretched thin as though he were holding something back. “Now we have to do things the hard way.”
He put the edge of the hunting knife to the base of her thumb.
“No,” she gasped. All her eloquence and rationality crumbled into panicked pleas. “No, no, please—”
Hasan began to make the cut. Her soft skin parted easily, a line of red welling to the surface. She had to stop him, had to offer the men something they wanted more than her thumb.
“Paranjay!” Poppy yelped, remembering suddenly. “I can get him back for you. Just stop! Listen to me.”
Hasan stiffened, but he didn’t push the knife down any farther. He and Zeyar exchanged a glance, as if silently coming to an agreement. Hasan turned back to her, eyes narrowed, not removing the knife from her hand. “How?”
“Let me up, first,” she said. “Can’t we talk about this like civilized people?”
“No,” Zeyar barked. “Talk. Now. Or Hasan will finish what he started.”
She bit her bottom lip, staring at the blade.
She had so few cards left to play, she was loath to flip them over.
But if she held her silence, then she wouldn’t even have fingers to hold those cards.
Taking a deep, ragged breath, she said, “Okay. Fine. Do you remember how long it took Richard to respond to your letter?”
“I knew there was something wrong about that,” Hasan said.
Poppy bobbed her head eagerly. “It might sound far-fetched to you, but Richard doesn’t truly care for me. He has been plotting to marry me only to inherit my father’s office as viceroy, and then dispose of me once he’s gotten what he wants.”
Her voice trembled as she spoke, all the rage and devastation from her engagement night rising to the surface. Hasan scrutinized her face, but she refused to look away. After a brief standoff, Hasan glanced at Zeyar, whose face was still blank.
“Continue,” he said.
“I have a plan.” Poppy rushed forward, tripping over her words. “Richard thinks he can oust me, but I won’t give up so easily. I intend to outmaneuver him and become heir to my father’s office.”
Hasan and Zeyar shared another look. This time, they didn’t bother to hide their expressions from her. They wore their disbelief in their raised eyebrows and closed mouths.
“And how,” Zeyar drawled, “do you intend to manage that?”
Poppy lifted her chin slightly, doing her best to project confidence despite being pinned to the ground. “By allying myself with you.”
Silence followed her proposition. For a moment, both men stared at her. She held their gazes, not letting her eyes wander down to the blade pressing against her stinging thumb.
Zeyar cracked first, his lips twitching. A small muffled noise escaped the back of his throat, and then he and Hasan were laughing, their shoulders shaking. She stared at them both in disbelief.
“You’re laughing.” Poppy glared. “The future vicereine of this colony has just offered to ally herself with you, and you’re laughing.”
This, for some reason, only made them laugh harder. Zeyar’s grip on her arm loosened, and she wrenched it free, cradling her wounded thumb. Her face burned, but she sat upright and crossed her arms as she waited for them to stop conducting themselves like children.
Finally, they managed to rein themselves in. “Be reasonable,” Zeyar said. “You are a woman. A Virian woman, besides. This colony has never had a female, non-Welkish viceroy in its history. Richard will be viceroy, and you will be his marchioness.”
Defiance streaked through Poppy. We’ll see about that. “Why should he be viceroy?” she demanded. “I am my father’s child, not he.”
“Isn’t it enough to be his wife?” Zeyar smirked. “You were found on the streets, and now you wear silks and walk on the arm of the nobility’s golden boy.”
“It was enough for me,” she said, “but then I found out what he was planning.”
Hasan’s sharp eyes gleamed with interest. “So this is about revenge, then? Tit for tat?”
She paused, considering that. “Yes,” she said.
“But it’s also about so much more. This is my home.
I have been exiled once, and it led me to lose everything.
” Poppy set her jaw. “I will not be forced out again. Not when I have worked so hard for this. What qualification do I lack?” She held up her fingers as she counted, “I am well educated, well read, well spoken. I can do arithmetic twice as fast as most of the sons of the First Families. The only skills I lack are physical prowess, but marksmanship and self-defense can be learned, and I am a quick study.” She squared her shoulders and straightened her spine.
“I would make a better ruler than most.”
“Why ally with us?” Hasan pressed. “If you are so qualified, why not just ask your father to name you explicitly in the line of succession?”
“It will be contested,” Poppy admitted. “A viceroy’s word does not become law just because he says so.
All legal motions must be voted upon in the House of Representatives.
Even if the motion to make me the official heir passes there, the Council of Lords must vote on it, too, before my father can finalize it with royal assent.
And it will certainly fail, because the lords and most of the representatives have the same old-fashioned mindset as your brother.
” She tossed a disapproving look in Zeyar’s direction.
Zeyar tucked his hands into his pockets. “You can impugn my character all you wish, Miss Sutherland. It will not change the fact that, to society at large, you are not a suitable successor. And you have no manpower to force the issue, either, which is why you wish to ally with us, is it not?”
She nodded. Zeyar may have been obstinate, but at least he saw the plan clearly. “Richard has his police force. You and Hasan have your gang. We are evenly matched should this contest of wills turn violent, though I hope that it doesn’t lead to that.”
“What do we get in exchange?” Hasan pressed. His mouth curved in a half smile, as though recalling an inside joke. “This isn’t a charity.”
She couldn’t tell if he was pulling her leg, but a spark of hope ignited in her chest. “I’ll give you your brother back. And I would turn a blind eye to your future smuggling operations.”
“That’s not good enough,” Zeyar said. “We could likely negotiate the same things from Montrose once he gets a couple of your fingers.”
She clearly wouldn’t get anywhere with him; his mind was set. She turned to Hasan.
He was silent, studying his reflection in the blade, deep in thought. Then, he spoke, still looking at his reflection, his expression neutral. “It’s a family business,” he said evasively. “I don’t make the decisions alone.”
“Take her thumb,” Zeyar said. “Enough dallying.”
In that moment, she made a crucial mistake: She thought Hasan would defy Zeyar’s order, so she was entirely unguarded when he snatched her hand, unable to draw back before he pressed the knife back to the thin cut he’d made earlier.
As he dug the blade in deeper, she shrieked.
Her hand burned with pain on a level she had never experienced before.
“Stop!” Poppy played her last card, the one secret she’d thought she’d take to the grave. “I have powers, just like you!”
Hasan’s hand stilled. Her blood trickled down her wrist and over his fingers, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Before he could resume cutting, she spoke, the confession rushing out. “I can control water,” she blurted, “but it causes me intense pain each time I do it.”
Hasan’s jaw dropped, then snapped shut just as quickly.
She relished his shock. She could see his mind racing behind furrowed brows.
“So that was what you meant in the museum, when you said I was like you.” His eyes narrowed.
“That day in the cell. You made the pipe burst. That was why you looked ill. You’d overextended. ”
“I don’t know how you can use your powers without hurting yourselves, but if you showed me, then I could help you.
We’re in the midst of dry season, on the verge of a drought—surely you could benefit from having your own, exclusive water source.
Richard may be a Welkish man, but even he can’t give you that. ”
Hasan stared at her for a good second. She held his gaze evenly, until finally he turned to Zeyar. “We should—”
“No,” Zeyar said, “the only thing we should do is go and talk about this privately.” He looked intently at Hasan as he stressed, “As a family.”
Zeyar’s meaning was clear: He wanted to discuss it somewhere Poppy couldn’t hear them.
Relief flooded through her as Hasan lifted his knife away from her skin.
She squeezed her eyes shut, the sight of her blood coating the blade making her ill.
Between the hunger, the stress, and the smell of rust in the air, she thought she might faint.
But she couldn’t get woozy. She couldn’t be weak.
Hasan pulled her to her feet by her good hand, eyeing the gash in her thumb. His expression was almost inscrutable, but the slight downturn of his lips betrayed his conflict. “I’ll send someone to have that bound,” he said. “Put pressure on it for now.”
She wrapped her fingers around the wound, pressing it shut. Her flesh cried out in protest, nerves screaming at the touch, but she maintained a tight-lipped smile until they left, determined not to let them see how visibly shaken she was.
When the door had closed behind them, she slumped back down, trying to steady her breathing as she waited for them to return with their verdict.
She tried not to think about all the ways that could have gone better.
She had done her best with what she had, but the thought brought her no comfort.
If Poppy had failed to persuade them, she stood to lose far more than just her thumb.