'Move!' A dhayang shoved into the room, her hands coaxing the air until a fog snaked in from the window. It danced to the tune of her fingers, slowly congealing into a rivulet before collapsing onto Phrae's bed in a blanket of water.

Steam hissed, and they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

After, once the panic had subsided, Isla looked over the damage and found that the flames had kept to Phrae's portion of the chamber. Her bed was unsalvageable. The fire seemed to have started midway along the mattress. Phrae's desk was singed on the side closest to the bed, but the other was untouched.

Master Chendra, too, agreed with Isla's observations. 'Looks like a hiccup.' He turned to Phrae, who was sobbing on Tran's bed, wrapped in a blanket. Her hair had been badly burnt, and Tran was chopping it down to neck-length. 'A hiccup in your sleep. You're lucky the fire kept to its size the way it did.'

'If it's her own flames, shouldn't they have left her unharmed?' Isla asked. Phrae had woken before the flames took her, but not before it claimed part of her arm. Master Chendra had lathered a thick salve over the wound, and now it caked over the gaping flesh; green and sickly.

'Elemental powers only leave its conjurer unharmed as long as he is actively controlling it. Hiccups are largely uncontrolled. My question is, what did you do to have triggered one after so long?'

Of course he would make a lesson out of this.

Phrae was too shaken to make a sound. The only that came was from the snipping of Tran's scissors. Phrae's hair dropped in clumps by the ash-stippled floor. A shame, Isla thought. Her hair had been like liquid obsidian.

'Are you having your moons?'

'No!' Phrae responded at once, her cheeks reddening.

'Had you been drinking?' Her blush only deepended, and Master Chendra took that as admission. He strode to the window and breathed in from the open air. It was stifling inside, and the smell of smoke still strong. 'Women and your unpredictable emotions. You're a danger when you have theurgy so strong. A danger to others, a danger to yourself. You must learn to control your wilder spirit. You know now, why you're here.'

'Give it up, old man.' It was not the time for a lecture. Isla left for the bathing pools before Master Chendra gathered his wits enough to rebuke her.

The only good to have come of the fire was that it left all the other dhayang in no mood for the pools. Isla's syarong dropped onto the stone tiles, revealing her skin dry and blackened from smoke.

Rice wine. She grabbed her coir and scrubbed. It was easy to blame it on drink, but the timing was far too convenient.

Perhaps someone had come for her, and decided it simpler to set the entire room ablaze; casualties be damned.

Phrae's bed was closest to the door – or closest to the window – whichever entrance the culprit preferred. Her being a pyrekin would have provided an easy explanation, besides.

Or perhaps it was Phrae. Isla did not want to discount any possibilities; but after her encounter with Rajini Chei, it was difficult not to speculate.

Already the news had spread when she came down to break her fast. It was all anyone talked about in the dining hall. While there were some whispers of a missing student, most of the gossip Isla overheard as she strode between tables, was of the fire in the third floor.

'... fell asleep drunk and set her whole room on fire,' they were saying. 'Lucky it didn't spread.'

Lucky? Convenient, more like.

    
❖ ❖ ❖
      

'I'm to deliver these to Maharaj Kiet.'

The larger of the guards looked her over. 'You're a new one.'

'What've y'got there?' His companion poked the bundle in her hands with the sharp end of his blade.

She stepped away from the weapon. 'I wouldn't do that. This belongs to the maharaj, and I'm not responsible for any losses you incur.'

'Losses you incur – listen to the mouth on this one!' The smaller one laughed. 'Reckons she'd win the maharaj with it. There's only one good use for a wench's mouth, I tell you.'

I bathed for this, Isla thought resentfully. If she was supposed to pass as a royal thrall, she had to at least smell presentable.

'We've got to check anything coming in and out,' said the larger guard.

'Be my guest. But if the maharaj asks, I won't be shy to tell.' They were only books. Kiet had them left on her bed along with his house liveries. It was the kitchen knife Isla worried about, hidden just in the fold of her syarong.

Thankfully, the guards only did a cursory search of her parcel before waving her through.

Prijsti had been right about Rajini Amarin's gardens. Rows and rows of flowers upon a carpet of green, bougainvillea cascading over the cut-stone path, birdhouses installed amongst the trellis above her ... to the rajini's credit, her feathered pets seemed content with their captivity.

But what do they know? Flitting from nectar to nectar. Even the dhayang are content – let alone birds.

More men guarded the terrace; several pairs flanking the stairs, pike in hand. Do all the rajinis keep their estate so manned? Isla had only ever visited Rajini Dhvani's estate – and that during the consort's absence, when all her men she had brought. There was no chance Isla could overpower so many soldiers ... but she had a plan, and if she played her cards right, she would not need to.

The doors were left wide open; as though to compensate for the inhospitable guards. They lined the foyer, each one as closed and unmoving as the door he guarded. Hallways snaked off in the opposing end, hidden beneath an arch of twin stairs, towards which Isla made her way.

Kiet had left a note amongst the books with vague instructions of where to find him. "Try to look as though you belong," he had cautioned. By now, Isla had much experience doing just that, though she had never been alone through any of it. Pepper had always been there, pushing her along with its comforting warmth. Of course the little thing chose today, of all days, to wander off.

She only hoped Huu had not gotten to the element.

Isla shook the thought away. Pepper was a fire-breathing element. It can take care of itself.

She took another flight of stairs; higher and deeper into the manor, following Kiet's written directions to the tile. Her hand grazed the panelled windows as she walked. She had expected the rajini's walls to be decked with beasts: mounted fox heads, snarling sunbears ... but the only creatures to decorate the rajini's home were painted into her teak.

She likes them alive. Either the rajini had a great appreciation for life, or she relished in the control of it.

Isla blinked. This must be the place.

The hallway had ended in an atrium, sunlight stippling the garden from the glass dome above. Galleries opened off through marble archways all along the court perimeter, which Kiet had made a point of warning her against exploring. Labyrinthine, was the word he had used to describe them. Not that she could enter if she wanted – each archway was manned by a stone-still giant of a guard.

'I bring these for Maharaj Kiet,' Isla said to the closest one, but apparently they were stone-cold deaf as well. She rolled her eyes and wandered deeper into the atrium, welcoming herself to its sights.

So this is where Amarin keeps her collection. While the labyrinths below reportedly contained the rajini's private menagerie, the atrium held her select favourites for more public viewing.

Isla took her time. Suspect or no, Rajini Amarin had a way with aesthetics. A combination of colours and scents that blended beautifully ... the light that played off the glazed dome ... and the singing! They came from the trees, whereupon cages were hung, housing birds of all shapes and shades. Here a pink one the size of a wrist; there a soft creature of five fur tails; another wearing a golden crown atop its head ... Isla jerked suddenly at the sight of a snake caged around two trees. Its colour changed as it slithered from bough to bough.

Time to move along.

The footpath was shaded beneath a web of trailing blooms. It took her through many sections of the garden, branching off every so often. Isla kept to her main path, stopping only when she came to the centre of the atrium.

A large cage stood at its heart, bars wrapped in white and purple blooms, and pinching into curled spires to soften what was plainly a prison. Runes were carved along its edges, and inside – far too small for a prison so large – was a black kitten.

'A mooncat.' Kiet had risen from a stone bench hidden amongst the trees. 'Don't let its current size deceive you.'