The Library of Fates(67)

His voice was all I could think.

I turned to him, watching him carefully. I reached for the dagger in my satchel, wrapping my fingers around it.

“What did you say your name was?” I asked.

“I didn’t.” He grinned. “But you seem eager to find out.”

My eyes narrowed. All I needed was confirmation. The moment he affirmed that he was, indeed, who I suspected he was, I would do what I came here to do.

My heart was racing, but I was resolute.

“What do you say we get out of here? I know a place by the water where we could get a glass of wine, maybe talk. Away from these . . . kids.” He sneered at the crowd as though they all were beneath him.

“I asked you your name,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady.

He inched closer to me. “I’ll tell it to you,” he murmured, leaning in, “as soon as you tell me yours.”

I was so deeply thrown off, I couldn’t respond. All I could do was stare into the eyes of sixteen-year-old Sikander. It was him; there was no mistaking it. His teeth were intact, and his hair was long and dark, but I could tell from the way he moved, from his eyes, the entitled way that he spoke, that it was him.

I collected myself. “My name is Amrita,” I said to him through gritted teeth. “Now tell me yours.” The satchel was in my lap, my hand tucked into it, my palm sweaty from gripping the dagger so tightly.

He grinned, but before he could respond, I heard another voice.

“Sik! Stop antagonizing her. Ugh, he can be so annoying.” Thea sat down beside me and put an arm around my shoulder. “I see you’ve met my new friend,” she said to him. “And this is him, the man we’ve all been waiting for: Sikander.”





Thirty-Three



“LET’S GET OUT OF HERE.” He directed this at Thea, but she answered as though he had addressed all of us.

Thea rolled her eyes. “The induction assembly is in an hour. We can’t just skip it, Sikander!”

“What’s going to happen? Are they going to kick us out?” He raised an eyebrow at Thea, who simply rolled her eyes again.

“It’s the first day of school.”

“Since when has that ever stopped you?”

As they went back and forth like that, I realized that Thea and Sikander had a familiar and intimate rapport. They were friends, and I could see from the look on my father’s face that he felt excluded.

Thea must have noticed too, because she stepped back. “Sikander,” she said, gesturing to my father. “Meet your roommate, Chandradev. Chandradev, Sikander.”

“Good to meet you.” Sikander turned to him. “I’ll let you decide. Stay here for the induction assembly, or go explore the city. With me as your guide. What do you say?” He grinned and looked at my father expectantly.

I was startled by his friendliness, and his closeness with Thea made me question what I had to do. I had known that they had all once been friends, but seeing it before my eyes was startling. I had come here to kill Sikander, but when I saw the way he joked with Thea, his eagerness to befriend my father, I wondered for the first time whether I had it in me to kill another human being, much less someone my parents were once friends with. I wondered about how my actions—if I killed Sikander—would affect Thea and Chandradev.

But it was more than that. I reached to feel for my dagger in my satchel and imagined stabbing Sikander with it, as I had once considered stabbing Nico that day on the hilltop. Except that was survival—a moment of desperation—and besides, I hadn’t actually gone through with it. For some reason, in this environment, with a friendly Sikander joking with my parents, I couldn’t find in myself the urgency to kill another human being, even if it was him.

Chandradev shrugged nervously. “Yeah, let’s get away from here,” he said, and Sikander got up, slapping him on the back.

Thala pulled me aside. “He was right next to you, and you did . . . nothing?”

“I . . . wanted to make sure it was him.”

“Look at him!” she exclaimed. “How could you not know?”

“I can’t just go around stabbing people,” I hissed.

Thala grew serious. “You have to act fast,” she said, her voice low.

“How can I . . . I can’t kill him in front of his friends,” I whispered to her.

She looked me in the eye, her voice almost a growl. “Remember what he did.”

Her words stunned me. As though I could ever forget. But before I could respond, the others turned to look at us.

“So . . .” Sikander glanced from me to Thala. “Are you two coming?”

¤

It wasn’t that difficult to sneak past the campus guards, because Sikander appeared to actually know all of them. He joked around with them before handing them some coins, and when he asked if they could get us a taxi chariot, one of them ran out into the street to hail us one.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“The Shipmakers District,” Sikander told him as we all stood behind him on the street.

I looked around at the massive thoroughfare before us, so opulent and awe-inspiring that it took my breath away.

“The Avenue of the Gods,” Chandradev said as he glanced up and down the street. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”