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“Stall. Do not bring her back here immediately. Anything could... Disrupt him. For God’s sake, wait until he can at least eat something more adventurous than oatmeal.”
“If you say so.”
“Idosay so. I absolutely say so.”
“All right.”
She thought back to just a few days ago. Before she had come here. When Cairo had called her and asked this favor of her. The way that his voice had made her feel. The way that she’d anticipated seeing him.
For some reason, she didn’t feel quite that way now.
It was probably because she was still getting over that rush of adrenaline.
Her body couldn’t withstand the rush of adrenaline she usually got from speaking to Cairo on top of it.
“I need to go find him. I have to distract him,” she said.
“You don’t need to do that. Don’t push him anymore for the day.” But she didn’t want to push him. She wanted to check in with him.
“Trust me. You hired me for a reason.”
“Because I needed someone who could keep a secret.”
“Yes. But also, I assume, because you know that I can help?”
“That too.”
“Then trust me.”
Now she was going to have to try and get Riyaz out of the dungeon.
She made a decision. Then she realized it was one he might not understand. Given his statements about food. But she wondered. She wondered if he was just still withholding things from himself. She knew that he slept in the dungeon. What was the real reason for that? She knew that the transition from a life as a prisoner to a real life must be very difficult. She understood it, at least in a limited way.
But she decided to go to the kitchen and get cupcakes.
There were some made with spice cake and cream cheese frosting. And some that were chocolate with chocolate frosting.
She grabbed both, and went straight to the dungeon. He wasn’t there.
She began to hunt around the palace.
The last place she looked was the throne room. And there he was, standing in the back of the room. Just looking.
“Hello,” she said.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“You do not know everything, Brianna. I hope you are now humbled.”
“Mm. Sadly not.” She stared hard at him, daring him to smile. He didn’t. “I just gave your brother an update on the situation. And I thought that maybe we should talk.”
“Why would you want to talk to me?”
“Well, it’s my job to talk to you, Riyaz. Also, you’re the only person in the palace that I really know. So if I’m going to talk to somebody, it’s all the better that it’s you.”
The look he gave her was nothing if not suspicious. And she lifted the tray she was holding in her hands aloft. “I have brought you something nice.”
