'Zubaidit,' she said softly, 'come with me?'
They went inside to the dark house. Mai paused, after she'd slipped off her sandals, to light a lamp with which she illuminated their progress down a corridor to her private rooms.
'Are you crying, Zubaidit?' she asked as she slid the door aside. Priya was sitting comfortably beside the baby's cot in the darkness, and she nodded but did not leave the baby as the two women quietly walked past her and into a narrow storeroom with closed cupboards and shelves stacked with bolts of silk.
'A little.' Swallowed tears made Zubaidit's voice hoarse. 'It was cursed good sex, I have to tell you, not that you really want to
know, and it hurts to know that was the one and only time. He's a holy Guardian now. You can see he loves her. But I swore my oath to the goddess years ago. I know my path.'
'Well,' said Mai, 'I'm sorry. Or not sorry. However you wish it.' She kissed the other woman's cheek before turning to the second cupboard and opening it.
She had hidden the chests in plain sight, stacked among her other chests and fripperies. Easy to pull out, they had so little weight she could stack three in Zubaidit's arms and easily carry the other two. Such a small thing, to mean so much.
Peddonon and Joss were deep into a serious conversation, heads down, not touching but standing close together as Peddonon sounded irritated and Joss regretful, when Mai and Zubaidit returned. The men broke off as the women set the chests down on the ground. Mai went into the garden shed and returned with a wedge and a big hammer, which she handed to Peddonon.
He bit his lip. Then, with a set of neat blows, he shattered the locks. They watched her unwrap the chains and, one by one, open the chests.
Uncle Hari's cloak was first. She hadn't meant it that way, but it seemed appropriate. There was something unsettling in the way they slithered and twisted out of their cages, and yet their flare and flash caught at her heart like banners rumbling in a bright joyful wind. Twilight-sky; blood-red; earth-brown; seedling-green. Last rose night, sewn with stars fallen deep within a cradle of black, its corner brushing her hand with a shiver of memory. It's the ones who can't let go — of fear or anger, lust or greed, vanity or pride or power — who are most at risk of becoming corrupted.
Then they were gone, vanished into the darkness.
On their wings the Guardians took their leave. They were no longer truly part of that world where fussy babies slumber restlessly, and reeves sing bawdy tales on the porch, and a young woman contemplates her future, which after all looks like a series of gates, one after the next and no two alike. Hard to say what lies beyond each threshold.
We must be ready for anything.