I was so busy watching the show I didn’t notice the orange wisps of my father’s magic thawing me. Lingering snow on our cloaks sizzled into steam. When I turned around again, everyone’s attention focused on me.
“This must be Adraa.” Maharaja Naupure crouched, and now even I was taller than him. It didn’t help. “Pleasure, little miss.”
Here, I was supposed to say “Pleasure” and maybe add a “thank you for inviting us.” Silence. I would give them silence.
Mother frowned.
Maharaja Naupure continued to stare. “You are a pretty little thing, but I’m sure you know that, huh?”
This man obviously only had a son. “Pretty”? Really? He knew how many stairs I had just climbed, right? Where was my compliment for surmounting his torture? I glanced at my mother. She bit her lip, probably scared of what might tumble from my mouth. My mind buzzed with all sorts of retorts. My parents hadlied.So I accompanied a shrug with something special: “I know.”
Mother took a quick, sucking breath as if preparing a spell, but Maharaja Naupure barked out a laugh. “That’s right. A pretty girl should know.”
What? What kind of response is that?
Maharaja Naupure swung toward the stairs and yelled, “Jatin! Don’t keep our guests waiting.”
A muffled thump echoed from upstairs. My throat dried, but my hands began to sweat. That thump was him, the boy, like a real monster in the depths trying to scare me.
Naupure guided us to the open room on the right. A prayer table cloaked in red stood before us. Tapestries in various colors covered the nine-sided room, every paneled wall praising a different god or goddess. Mother grew up on Pire Island, where they have long given up the idea that the gods bestowed our magic. But even though her eyes lingered on the tapestries uncertainly, Father had taught me enough about each peering face. I knew it would be under those eyes that we would spill our blood. I quickstepped to my father and tugged his hand.Please let him understand my concern. Please.
He nodded. “Adraa’s a little nervous about meeting Jatin.”
Betrayal. White-hot betrayal. I dropped his hand like it had scalded me.
“Of course,” Naupure said, just as I cried out, “No I’m not!”
Mother’s eyes seared into me. Our alliance, however short-lived, had fallen.
“I’m sorry. She’s normally not likethis.” Mother pointed to the spot next to her. “Adraa, come here.”
I obeyed in a fumble of pink-and-orange skirts that I tried tostraighten as I sat down next to her. I didn’t know what to doanymore to get out of this. To rebel even further would mean punishment. Or maybe I was past that. Maybe whatever I did—
“Have you come into your magic yet, Adraa?” Maharaja Naupure asked.
And just like that, the anger died. “No, sir.”
“She will, of course. She is a year younger than Jatin, if you remember,” Mother said quickly.
“Oh yes, I remember.” He peered at me, inspecting.
“She has her Touch. Adraa, show him.”
I automatically turned my left hand over, palm up, and placed it on the red cloth. The fabric was itchy, with little barblike tufts instead of nice velvet softness. Why would anyone buy an itchy tablecloth? The Naupures were monsters.
I displayed my Touch, a small marking that had flourished upon my left wrist. It was a reddish branchy swirl the size of a silver coin, darker than my brown skin. It held the only true indication that one day I would become a witch, and therefore was one of the only things that gave me hope as I crept closer to age nine. One day, if I was powerful enough, the design would spring up each arm, wrapping itself up to my shoulder like those of my parents, Maharaja Naupure, and half the country. Like a plant, I must nurture my Touch. I must study.
“And your other arm?” Maharaja Naupure asked.
Cautiously, I set my right arm on the table. My parents froze, because there was nothing there, only bare dark skin. The real concern, and the reason I feared I would be powerless, lay in this fact: my right arm was unnaturally naked. Everyone I had ever met reported their Touch appeared on both wrists simultaneously. There are the Touched and the Untouched. I’ve never heard of anything in between.
“Interesting,” Maharaja Naupure said.
“Have you seen this before?” Father asked. “I thought it was all myth and legend.”
I knew it.I knew my parents were concerned, and I knew I had a reason to be too.
“Well, according to legend, the gods are fighting over who should bless her.”