Not tonight, though.
‘You are not hungry,’ the King observed.
‘Not really.’ Layla attempted a smile. ‘Do we have prawns here?’
‘Prawns?’ The King frowned. ‘You mean shrimp?’
Layla shrugged. She didn’t know.
‘We do, but I don’t like it,’ the King said, and waited for the smart answer that the old Layla would have given—something along the lines of, So you don’t like it and that means that I don’t get to try it? But instead she just carried on pushing her food around her plate.
‘We could play chess tonight,’ the King offered, but she shook her head.
‘May I be excused?’
‘Layla…’ the King started, but then he halted. ‘You may.’
‘Am I allowed to go for another walk?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Enjoy.’
* * *
Abadan laa tansynii.
Mikael had managed to work out what the first part of her note meant and it had been painstaking. He could ask someone to translate it, but he wanted to do it himself and finally he had managed a little of it.
Don’t ever forget me.
He never, ever could.
So much so that as Mikael read the brief for a new client he felt nauseous.
‘He needs to find someone else,’ Mikael said to Wendy.
He simply couldn’t do it any more; he’d assuaged his guilt over Igor and now he was going to use his power for good.
What had Layla done to him?
He just had to know that she was okay.
He took out his phone and stared at it for a long time. He was worried that his calling might make things worse for Layla, but the payment of his fees had gone in today so there was almost a valid reason to call. He would keep his voice brusque, Mikael decided. He would thank Zahid for the payment and check that she was okay.
He just had to do something.
* * *
Layla walked through the palace gardens and had never felt more confused—because she had done more than she could ever have dreamed of in her few days away and so surely she should be happy. As she walked she remembered dancing and laughing with Mikael, and she remembered his kindness too. How he had come back for her that night and stopped her going out. How he had bathed her and watched over her.
She had laughed when he had asked her to marry him and yet it was the nicest thing that had ever happened to her. What she wanted more than anything in the world was to be his wife.
Yet it was impossible. For even if somehow—impossibly—her father agreed, imagine Mikael here, in Ishla…
She could not.
Oh, at first it would be bliss. But without his cases, without the life he had built from nothing, that bliss would surely fade. Layla could not do that to him; she could not bear to think of him living here, with his opinions invalidated by the King and later by Zahid.