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managed to kill them both, but she had killed the pale woman and sent the big man, most probably, to
the gallows. Which would have been quite enough…
Only there had been a grave error.
Somehow the brown man too lay dead.
And this was not at all what she had planned. In killing her tormentors she had also
managed to slay her savior. And then, before she could even absorb this news, had come the equally
dreadful realization that someone knew what she had done. Someone was on to her, knew her true
identity, that the castoff from the orphanage was the blood sister of a rising politician, the rejected
ward of a great house, a survivor of the allegedly unsurvivable Cawnpore.
This would not do.
Now she sits in a pony cart. Another one, yes, only this time she is jostling her way
towards Cawnpore and not away from it. She is surrounded by squirming, chattering girls but she
does not really hear them. Her eyes are fixed on the distance, on a misty fortress which she does not
remember and yet she must have spent the first five years of her life somewhere quite close to this
place. Perhaps on the other side of this hill, or maybe the one over there.
Another homecoming, she thinks, and her mouth twists. She does not bother to hide the
expression. No one ever pays attention to her, do they? Her invisibility has been both the blessing
and the curse of her life.
Between her feet is wedged a pot of curry. It is a perfectly fine curry. Anyone in the
procession might take a bowl without fear. But in her pocket is a vial of brown liquid. The liquid
she now sees she must administer carefully, at the last minute, to make sure it finds its true mark. For
she is clever, far smarter than any of the people in these cursed carts could ever know.
She will not make the same mistake twice.