Sleep evaded him.It wasn’t because of the rustic conditions.Neil had camped in rougher spots over the years at various excavations.He had learned that if he worked hard enough during the day, his body didn’t much mind where he put it down for the night.He worried about the girl, Vanika.He worried about what it might mean for that horrible man, Borthwick, to acquire the power of the most powerful weapon in India’s history.
He worried about Ellie and Adam.Were they safe?What had they thought of his supernatural revelations earlier that afternoon?
And he worried over his argument with Subhas by the Shiva lingam.If Neil followed his passion to learn and discover, would he inevitably end up harming people?
I am one giant knot of worry,he thought absently as the rain shimmered down through the night.
Constance slept deeply on her bedroll beside him.Her features were soft, her dark hair curling against her neck.She was the one person Neil wasn’t worried about—even though he was sure she would do something reckless before this adventure was through.
She would be reckless, but she’d find a way to pull it off.Neil was oddly certain of that.
Tomorrow, they would reach the ruins.Would Neil be expected to magic his way into knowing what that place had been and where to find what they were looking for in it?
He had no idea how to do that, which left him already feeling the weight of how he would end up disappointing everyone.
It seemed like Neil had been doing a lot of that lately.
He pictured Sayyid’s warm eyes drawn with pain as his friend revealed how Neil had hurt him, over and over again, by failing to acknowledge the differences between the two worlds they lived in—English and Egyptian.
How do I fix it?Neil had pleaded.
Join the revolution?Sayyid had wryly returned.
Neil wasn’t sure what use he’d be in a revolution, but he had to find some way to work against the terrible old patterns that shaped the field that he loved.Labeling himself hopeless and giving up was the coward’s way out—no better, really, than ignoring that the injustice existed.
Subhas’s words from the ridge echoed through his mind.It is not enough to steal our present and our future.You steal our past, too.
All of that had stung… because it was true.
The Adrija leader was also awake, firelight flickering over his skin on the far side of the cavern.Subhas’s shoulders were bowed with the weight of all the troubles he carried.
With an uncomfortable determination, Neil picked his way through the sleeping bodies to join him.He frowned at the rain as he struggled to figure out what he wanted to say.
Subhas spoke without looking at him.“I apologize for this afternoon.”
Neil startled.“You don’t need to do that.”
“Just because you’re English doesn’t mean you’re one of them.If I paint you with that brush before I’ve given you a chance to show me who you are, I’m no better than they are.”
Neil rested his arms on his knees, gazing back out at the forest.“I came over here to apologize to you.”
Rain glittered beyond the overhang, tapping out a steady rhythm against the trees.Subhas shrugged.
“How bad is it?”Neil carefully pressed.
“All the hill tribes have ever wanted is to be left alone—but we’re a problem.This forest…” Subhas nodded at the shadowy wilderness that lay beyond the low red firelight.“It’s full of wealth.Lumber.Minerals.We’re in the way of that.The Raj will either move us or lean their weight against us until there’s no other option but war.And that would give them the excuse to kill us.”
Neil tried to imagine what it would feel like to know that the most powerful empire in the world wanted you and the people you loved out of its way.
He couldn’t.
There were scars on Subhas’s chest.The man was built like a warrior and held his rifle in a way that made it very clear that he knew how to use it.Yet Neil had no doubt he would be a pure terror in a university classroom as well—or a courtroom.“Is that why you’re studying law?”
Subhas scowled.“That’s what His Highness Vijayrama Devi would tell you.But I haven’t found a law yet that the English can be bound by.”
“Would it be better if India were governed by Indians?”
Subhas’s fierce expression fell into uncertainty and exhaustion.“I honestly don’t know.Most of the nationalists think India’s future depends on industrialization—joining the rest of the great economies of the world.That means resources, and as they’re almost all higher-caste Hindus or wealthy Muslims, I cannot hold out much faith that they will put the welfare of a few hundred poor hill folk over the needs of a new nation.”
