A month had come and gone, trailing a small caravan to the home of the Daroga of Mazanderan in its wake.

In the rosy hours of dawn, Reza had burst into my apartments and excitedly hit my sleeping form with one of his crutches until I was forced to evacuate my bed and tickle him until he laughed hard enough to drop his crutch.

"Why the excitement, mi amor?" I eventually questioned my charge as I dressed for the day. Reza sat upon my bed with his eyes closed, kicking his feet out impatiently. "Father arrives today!" He hummed. "His caravan is only half a mile off, the last I heard! I wish to meet him as soon as I can!"

For the briefest second my stomach twinged at the thought of Nadir Kahn, but the babbling child quickly helped me to staunch the nerves I felt towards my long-awaited employer.

"Did you wash your face this morning?" I hummed, going back to Reza. The boy rolled his eyes.

"Yes, of course I—hey!"

I had licked my thumb and rubbed the boy's cheeks then, much to his distaste.

"What? You must look good for your father! Now, go wash your face so that you may more properly welcome him."

Reza gave a disgruntled huff as he limped off, and I smiled after him in a futile attempt to once again stomach my rising nerves.

~

Nadir Kahn was a handsome man, that I could not deny.

His ink-black hair was slicked back against his skull and an equally black beard framed his browned face thinly beneath a straight nose and around full lips. His dark complexion was offset by tremendous jade eyes that seemed to shine with some secret amusement whenever he spoke. He had to have been no older than twenty-five and stood several inches taller than I. He must have been one of the most handsome men I had met in all my travels.

And yet with all his beauty he was cast into the shadows when I laid my eyes upon the man that accompanied him.

At nineteen years of age, Erik Destler had grown taller than I could ever have imagined, towering perhaps an entire head taller than Nadir. Yet his height did not make him look awkward or gangly.

I stood with my mouth agape as Reza hobbled forward with all the morning's built up excitement into his father's arms.

The boy had asked me to accompany him to welcome Nadir out on the veranda, but I did not know that there would be a guest—did not understand what I was walking into.

That all-too familiar numbness penetrated deep into my bones and my body began to tremble as Reza spoke to both men.

Erik! Oh god, Erik! Nothing could have prepared me to face him!

My ears began to ring and I hardly registered Reza tugging at my skirt. "Tzipporah," he called out to me, his tugs turning frantic. "Tzipporah!"

I could not avert my gaze from Erik as his blurring form drew closer and closer to my now convulsing body.

My jaws locked and my knees buckled, but I was caught by all-too-familiar skeletal hands.

I tried to focus my gaze on that mask as we sank to the stonework together—tried to reach for that blessed man, but my body would not allow it.

I faintly heard Reza crying to his father in the background, but when I tried to find him a hand as cold as death turned my head back to look up at it's owner.

"Look at me, poshratt. Look at me." Erik breathed, petting my head soothingly. How could I not! I had been searching for him for seven years!

"Daroga, take the child away." Erik barked, then turned back to me. For whatever reason I noticed his ebony hair had grown and was now tied up at the nape of his neck. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Reza crying into Nadir's robes as the handsome man hurried him off the veranda.

"Reza . . ." I hissed behind tightly clenched teeth, my eyes watering with the weight that I had made the child cry.

"Hush. The boy is fine, poshratt." Erik soothed, bony fingers effortlessly running through my tangled black hair. He glanced up for a moment as Nadir returned. "Daroga, my bag." His voice had changed from soothing to serious in an instant.

The Persian ran to get what Erik requested and, upon his return, Erik yanked the handsome man to the floor with us. "Keep her steady while I find a muscle relaxant. And be absolutely sure she does not bite her tongue."

As soon as Nadir let out an affirmative, Erik's cold embrace was gone and replaced by the Persian's warm, full-fleshed hands gripping my arms firmly and pushing my convulsing body against the stone floor.

Through my violent thrashing I didn't even notice Erik's return until I felt his bony fingers prying my teeth apart and a bittersweet substance being poured down my throat.

My body's immediate reaction was to cough it up and spit it out, but Erik wouldn't let me. He sealed my mouth and nose with a skeletal hand until I was forced to swallow in order to receive air.

The three of us remained that way for a few moments until I felt my muscles begin to relax and my body stopped shaking.

Only when my body was completely still did the two men release me.

The tears that had been pooling in my eyes for Reza now flowed down my face in seemingly never-ending streams as I stared up at Erik. With a sniffle I sat up and toppled back over into his lap, wrapping my weak arms as tightly as I could around his torso and making that corpse of a man jump.

"Erik . . ." I sobbed, burying my face into his stomach and clutching the black fabric of his cloak with greedy fingers. "Oh Erik!"

I sat up suddenly with my teeth gritted and pounded on his chest with weak fists. "How could you leave me behind, you big brute?" I couldn't meet his eyes as I hit him over and over again. "You selfish, good-for-nothing, idiotic, wonderful, foolish bastard!"

I let my head fall to his chest with sobs of anger and relief. "Oh, who am I trying to fool?" I sighed heavily when I finally managed to catch my breath. My eyelids were beginning to droop with the effects of the medicine. "You probably don't even remember my name . . . I've always just been poshratt with you—"

"Tzipporah."

I glanced up with wide, tired eyes at those sunken yellow orbs behind the mask. They held just the slightest hints of anger, but remorse was shown as plain as day as he continued.

"Your name is Tzipporah Davila. You've suffered from seizures since you were little. Your father died before we met. He would sing to you . . . just as I once did. Your mother brought you to Verdu. You couldn't read back then."

My eyes once more began to glisten with tears—this time out of happiness—and I reached up with trembling hands to take hold of his cloak. "I still can't."

And then I kissed him.

With my remaining strength I pulled that skeletal body down to my level and kissed the cold, unfeeling lips of the white mask that, throughout the years, has both haunted my dreams and soothed my nightmares.

Erik was seemingly stupefied, his hands hovering at his sides as if—for the first time in his life—he did not know what to do with them. When I pulled away those yellow eyes were wider than I had ever seen them and his ears were flushed. I smiled exhaustedly and after a moment a cough came from behind me, breaking through our trances.

Oh, the smirk on Nadir's face! He looked like a child who had just learned a secret! I wished to laugh, especially when Erik's ears flushed even redder and his fists trembled at his sides in rage, but I was too tired. The muscle relaxant was taking its toll, not as fast as when I was a little girl, but fast enough.

Nadir turned his dark gaze to me and smiled warmly, holding out his hand and bending at the waist in a respectful greeting. "We have not been properly introduced. I am Nadir Khan, Daroga of Mazanderan—the Shah's chief of police."

I took his hand and stood to reciprocate the respectful greeting as he pressed his lips to the back of my palm. "I am Tzipporah Davila. Your son, Reza, hired me as a caretaker about a month or so ago whilst you were away." My smile melted and I glanced back at the door where the boy had disappeared through. "Your son . . ." I mused quietly. "What is his illness? He has weakness of the muscles and his sight is failing him. I have never seen anything like it."

"It is a progressive and degenerative sickness." Erik stated stepping forward to face the two of us, Nadir especially. "I would not count on the boy regaining his sight."

The Persian's shoulders sagged, but the look on his face was one of acceptance, as though he suspected something of the like would be true.

"I see . . ." He sighed, then squared back his shoulders and raised a teasing eyebrow at Erik and I. "So, Erik, how do you know my son's new caretaker?"

Erik scoffed and looked away as he crossed his arms. "We were children." He stated at the same time I smiled, "He is my husband."

Nadir's expression melted into shock as Erik whipped his head down to face me. "I am your what?"

I furrowed my eyebrows and turned to him in confusion. "You don't remember? It was the night you left. You were twelve and I was ten. You gave my mother a handful of gold and said it was all for me."

Erik snarled and ran a skeletal hand through his tied up hair. "That money was so that you could find a doctor, not for me to buy you!"

I screwed my face up into a scowl and curled my fists at my sides. "Yes, well that's not how it was taken. I was run out, Erik! They laughed me out of Verdu! Told the Demon Girl to find her corpse husband! And you weren't there! You weren't there to rescue me!"

I took a stomping step towards him and my vision swam. I ended up stumbling sideways into Nadir's firm chest.

Erik stared down at me with cold, unfeeling eyes. "You need to rest yourself in order to take care of the child." And then he swept past us; and, for the first time in my life, I heard his footsteps.

For some reason I was unnerved by the thought that in his troubled state he was not as graceful as he wished to believe. It humanized him in a way that made my heart ache.

I felt Nadir's hand rest upon my shoulder. "Come, let me walk you back to your chambers, señorita—"

"Señora." I corrected the Persian tiredly and coldly, already making my way back inside. "Whether he likes it or not, I'm still his wife."