Page 26 of A Thousand Painted Hours

She gave me a small smile. “Not yet.”

Tanveer offered me his arm. I reached for it, such an ordinary moment, but our eyes met, and I suddenly smelled something immensely delightful—forest and earth and something cool—that swept through my body and pooled in my belly. I wanted, all at once, to touch his face, his mouth. I thought of kissing him.

Kissinghim.

It could not have lasted more than a second or two, but I saw it strike him, too. The knowledge that things were different.

And then we looked away. We didn’t speak, but marched as we were meant to do, into the courtyard with the other youths. I was aware of his body next to mine, his ribs against the back of my hand, his leg moving beneath the fabric of his trousers.

The ceremonial moment passed, and he let go. I joined the side of the English while he took his place on the side of the princes. I dared not look for him, but pressed a hand to my stomach, trying to quell the strange sensation. If he was no longer my friend, I could not bear the world, and yet this seemed to change everything.

It was many long moments before I looked back toward him, and saw him staring my way with the same aggrieved recognition.

Something had changed. Something wonderful and horrible.

Hours later, he found me. “You must come. I have something to show you.”

For a moment, I hesitated, a little wary with this new Tanveer. “What is it?”

“A surprise.” His grin, so familiar, flashed. The strangeness dissipated, and it was only my friend standing there in a plain white tunic and pajamas, his eyes glittering with excitement. “Very well.”

“Cover your head.” He gave me a thin peach scarf, embroidered in white along the edges. “It’s very hot today, and you are unused to it.”

So I did as I was told, and out in the sun, I was glad of the head covering. I wished for looser dress. Although my outfit was not the fussy layers I’d seen on many other English females today, I still wore too many layers for the climate. I felt my face getting hot. What could I get away with discarding after this?

In the deep shadows of the hallways it was cooler. I followed Tanveer through a maze of turns, passing beneath archways and doorways leading mysterious places, and minor courtyards. Everywhere servants swept the tiles or watered a pot of bougainvillea or stood sentinel over some unknown thing or another, all of them bowing deeply as we passed. “You have many more servants here than in Nainital,” I whispered.

He merely shrugged. “It is my father’s palace.”

His father, the maharaja, who was royal in a way I had not quite perceived before. It made me feel suddenly uncomfortable, for Tanveer, too, was royal, while I was not. Seeing this world through that filter, I saw the wealth gleaming in every detail. The inlaid walls and well-tended fountains; the armies of servants, even Gurdaya’s jewels and the maharani’s emeralds.

“What?” Tanveer said. “You’ve gone very quiet.”

“I did not quite understand how high ranking your father is.” I looked up at him, and it was so odd to look up! “And you, I suppose.”

He gave a little shake of his head. “He is but a nine-gun salute. Our lands are small.”

“In comparison,” I said with a lift of a brow.

“True.” He smiled. “But I am still myself, Elsie. And you are the granddaughter of an earl.”

Which was true but seemed quite immaterial, considering. “My father is a second son, and a bureaucrat.”

“And I am a second son, so unimportant. Even more so now that my father has taken yet another wife. Soon there will be a tribe of sons running through the palace.” He already had a passel of siblings from a collection of mistresses.

“Well,” I said, “When you put it like that, I suppose neither of us matters at all.”

He laughed at my droll humor, and we continued our long trek through the palace. Up one direction, then down another, through a courtyard where a fountain poured water into a blue pool. My greedy eyes filled up on all of it, on bright winding vines, on trees in pots casting lacy shadows on the ground, on elaborate tile work. I paused to run my fingers over a post inlaid with triangular mirrors. “It’s enchanting. Like an illustration inA Thousand and One Nights.”

He looked around, nodding. “So it is. Will you draw?”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course.”

“Good. I think you will draw this, too.” He gestured toward a less splendid hallway, and we left the enclosure of the bright walls for awooden door that led down a shaded path to an area of outbuildings. In the distance, I saw stables, and an elephant splashing in a shaded pool. “This way.”

We walked down a dusty path lined with yellowed grasses, and finally to another outbuilding surrounded by a high wooden fence. Tanveer opened the gated door, and I followed, blinking in the dimness. He secured the door behind us. I stood still, waiting for my eyes to adjust. The room was cool, with windows cut high in the walls. A half door led to the fenced area, and sun poured through, spilling on the dirt floor. It smelled of hay and dust and something I couldn’t quite name.

He was already approaching with a creature in his arms, which at first I thought was a puppy.