into the chair, knees weakened by her momentary rebellion. ‘The immigration official recognised it. I would need to examine it to be sure, but it is very like a piece of jewellery that, among other pieces, went missing from the palace many years ago.’
Lila’s fingers felt for it again, remembering the familiar shape—the comforting shape—of it.
But his words were playing on a loop in her head. His words, and a hint of...menace, surely not—in his voice.
‘Missing?’ she queried, and he paused, then was saved from answering by the first man reappearing, followed by two women bearing trays, one with a coffee pot, teapot, cups and saucers, and a selection of cold drinks on it, while the other carried a tray with an array of food from tiny sandwiches to olives and cheeses and fruit.
‘Please,’ her new boss said, waving his hand at the trays on the table. ‘Help yourself.’
Does he really expect me to eat? Lila wondered.
Has he no idea just how knotted my stomach is?
How terrified I am?
‘I would rather finish whatever is going on here,’ she said, hoping she sounded firmer than she felt. ‘You are making me feel like a criminal when I have done nothing wrong.’
Okay, so the last words had come out a little wobbly and she’d had to swallow hard before she could get them said at all, but behind the polite façade of the two men in the room she could sense a tension—a danger?—she couldn’t fathom.
‘May I see the locket again?’
He reached his hand towards her, non-threatening words but a command in his tone.
‘I don’t take it off,’ she said, unwilling to be pushed further.
Stubborn now!
‘It was my mother’s last gift to me. About the only thing I remember from that day—the day my parents died—was my mother fastening it around my neck, telling me it was mine now, telling me it would protect me—my Ta’-wiz.’
Her fingers clung to it, hiding it from the stranger’s curious eyes.
‘They both died?’
Dr—Sheikh?—al Askeba’s words were gentle but Lila refused to let them sneak under her defences. She’d told the story before and she could tell it again—dry eyed, the anguish that had never left her hidden behind the mask of time.
‘In a car accident. The car caught fire, a truck driver who saw it happen pulled me from my seat in the back before the car exploded.’
‘And you were how old?’
Lila shook her head.
‘We guessed four—my new family and I—but we never knew for certain.’
‘And your mother’s name was Nalini?’
More worried now the conversation had turned so personal, Lila could only nod, although she did add, ‘I think so, but I had forgotten.’
The words caught at her and she raised despairing eyes to the stranger.
‘How could I have forgotten my own mother’s name? How could I not have remembered? Yet when you said it I saw her in my mind’s eye.’
She closed her eyes, more to catch wayward tears than to keep the image there.
Then cool fingers touched hers, easing them just slightly from the locket. She felt it lifted from where it lay against her skin, heard his small gasp of surprise.
‘You were burned?’
‘The car caught fire.’
‘And the locket burnt your skin—some protection!’
‘No, I survived!’ Lila reminded him, angered by his closeness—his intrusion into her life. ‘It did protect me.’
But now he’d grasped her fingers, turning them to see the faint scars at the tips there as well.
‘You kept hold of it?’
The words were barely spoken, more a murmur to himself, then he squeezed her fingers and released them, stepped back, apologising again for the inconvenience, adding, ‘I had rooms arranged for you at the hospital, a small serviced apartment close to a restaurant on the ground floor, but I think for now you should stay at the palace. You will be safe there, and maybe you can help us solve an old mystery.’
‘Palace?’ Lila whispered. ‘No, I’ll be very happy in an apartment at the hospital. The sooner I get settled the sooner I can make it a home. I’m sorry, I have no idea what’s going on but whatever it is I don’t like it, not one little bit.’
He smiled at her then, the exhausted stranger with the even stranger ways.
‘Perhaps you are home, Nalini’s daughter, perhaps you are home.’
* * *
Tariq knew he was staring. Not openly, he hoped, but darting glances at the young woman who was so like the one he’d loved as a child.
He’d been eight, and Nalini had been beautiful, brought into the household because she was Second Mother’s sister, to be company for her, someone familiar.
But very quickly she’d become everyone’s favourite. Back then she’d been like the Pied Piper from the old European fairy tale and all the children in the palace had followed where she led, laughing with her, playing silly games, being children, really, in a place that had, until then, been rather staid and stolid.
Tariq was pouring coffee as the memories flashed past, handing a cup to their guest, explaining they would be leaving as soon as her luggage had been collected.
She took the cup he offered her and looked up into his face, her almond-shaped brown eyes meeting his, anger flickering in them now.
‘And if I don’t want to live in the palace?’ she asked, steel in her voice as if the tiredness of the long journey and the stresses of her arrival had been put aside and she was ready to fight.
‘It need only be temporary but if you are Nalini’s daughter then you are family and as family you must stay in our home.’
How could he tell her that things had not gone well for the family since Nalini’s—and the locket’s—departure and things were getting worse. He was a modern man, yet it seemed imperative that the locket return to the palace where its power might reignite hope and harmony.
Not that she could read his thoughts, for she was still fighting him about his decision.
‘Because I’m family? Or because you think my mother stole the locket?’ she challenged, setting the tiny cup back on the table. ‘What makes you think it was her? For all you know she could have seen it somewhere and bought it! Maybe she was from Karuba—was the same Nalini you knew—and it reminded her of her home. But stealing from a palace—how could anyone do that?’
Al’ama, she
