WHEN MARYAM OPENED THE door this time, her face was wane and pale, her eyes just barely showing through the cracks of the door.

I wondered if my own face was just as grave as how I felt inside.

"Aliya," she squeaked out. Maryam's voice has always been cheerful and high-pitched, somewhat akin to squirrel, but this time, I couldn't help but compare it to a mouse's.

"Hi. Can I come in?"

"Oh. Sure. Okay," she said. But the door kept shut.

I raised an eyebrow, and slowly, Maryam's eyes slid down from my face, down to my neck, down to my knees, all the way until the only thing left I could see were the dark roots of her hair.

Her words clearly did not match her actions.

I didn't know how long I stood there, waiting for her to pull open the door and let me in, but whatever time it took, it didn't seem to be enough. Maryam continued to stand there, fidgeting, and when I looked down to the hem of her dress I saw it shifting.

I could almost imagine her toes curling up in an effort to make herself as small as possible — after all, I myself had done it too many times here before.

Unfortunately, it didn't work.

"Is he still inside the room?"

"What?" Maryam's head snapped up as quick as lightning.

"Are you still hiding him in your room?" I asked, careful to keep my voice low. This was broad daylight, after all, and the saying that even the walls had ears was not something I took for granted.

At this point, had there been secret passageways embedded into the bricks of the Palace, I highly doubted I would even blink.

"I—" Maryam's eyes shifted. "I don't know who you're talking about."

Even in this juncture, she was still trying to lie.

I resisted the urge to sigh.

"Prince Cairo isn't listening right now," I said. "And as far as I can tell, no one is around us at this current moment. But I wouldn't be surprised if someone comes here in the next second and hears us. If that does happen, then neither of us can help you... Or that person you were hiding behind your wardrobe door."

If it was possible, Maryam's face paled even further.

"Hurry, then," she whispered, pulling open the door. "Hurry, hurry, come in."

It seemed that the threat of her well-being and reputation did not affect her, but even a word about her so-called sweetheart did.

As I stepped inside the room, I felt my eye twitch.

Maryam... what did you do to yourself?

The door shut with a soft click behind me, and as soon as it did, I started towards the wardrobe door.

I didn't go very far, though, because my hand had just reached towards the handle when Maryam pushed my shoulder, standing protectively over the knob.

I wondered if she knew that her fingers were shaking.

"What do you want to do?"

"What do you think I'm planning to do?"

"I... Well, how would I know? That's why I'm asking you," she said, jutting her head up.

I felt my heart drop. "You're being much more defensive than usual," I said. "Why?"

"No, I'm not. This is just an invasion of my privacy."

I could swear I almost choked on my own tongue, biting the side of my cheek so hard, the entire left side of my face felt numb. Whether that was out of laughter or anger, though, I somehow couldn't tell. "An invasion of privacy?"

Maryam blinked a few more times, her eyes shifting uneasily to the right, before she seemed to steel her resolve and nodded. "Yes! An invasion of privacy. My wardrobe is my wardrobe. Why do you want to open it?"

Was it possible to feel your face sink as low as your heart did?

I wasn't too sure, but it surely seemed that way.

"Is he still inside?"

"What?"

"Is he still inside the wardrobe?" I repeated. "Is that why you're calling it an invasion of privacy? Are you still hiding him there? Did you not let him out yet? Did you continue the moment I led the prince away?"

"No!" Maryam's answer came a little too quickly, but her eyes could not lie. Whoever her sweetheart was, they were not inside the wardrobe.

But there must've been something there, because I had never seen her look so panicked, her gaze constantly darting around as if desperate to find a hiding spot.

Slowly but surely, I could feel my patience running thin. "Maryam, move."

She shook her head. "I don't want to move," she said. "I have the right to protect my privacy."

"Alright then. You're correct, you do have the right to protect your privacy. But if per chance anything happens and you get caught with that lover, I will not help. You're on your own."

I wasn't a saint. I had never been, and I doubted I would ever try to be. It was hard enough trying to be kind to me, much less to everyone else.

If I offered my help to Maryam and she didn't want it, then there was very little that I could do.

Still, I couldn't deny that a little part of me felt bitter about the whole thing.

How much?

How much had Maryam changed without me noticing?

Or how much of this had been Maryam without me noticing?

Maryam bit her lip. "It's... I know what I'm doing."

"Do you really?" I asked. "Maryam, you're a child. You're barely 15, turned this not even a year ago. Since when did you not trust me so much?"

My voice felt heavy, even to myself, and I watched as she blinked furiously with every word I said.

By the end of it, it wasn't hard for me to spot the tears.

"You're wrong," she whispered. "I'm not a child. I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing!"

"And if you know what you're doing, why are you so scared at the thought of getting caught? If you know what you're doing, you shouldn't get caught. You shouldn't have me leading away a prince from your bedroom who would have heard you and your lover kissing on your bed. What would you have done if it was Prince Finn instead? You're living in his quarters and kissing someone else behind his back; with a personality like his, do you think either of you would survive?"

The little tear in Maryam's left eye dropped down her cheek. "Then... then I'll just leave. I can just run away! He won't be able to control me then!"

The side of my head started to throb. "Run away, where?" I asked. "Where can you run away to? Any place, any where, any piece of land that the sunlight kisses, which part of it does not belong to the Princes? To the Sons of Heaven? In which part can you hide without him reaching out and finding you, as easy as it is for him to close his eyes? What part of you can outdo a prince?"

For a long moment, Maryam was silent, and the only thing I could hear were her tears making little click clicks on the marble floor.

"Maryam, we're women," I whispered. "You might've had a chance if we were born men, a thousand years into the future."

A sob ripped through the room.

Maryam's crying was not the soft, pretty kind that I'd seen boudoir girls practice in front of the mirror. I highly doubted that she'd ever practiced at all, because the moment she started crying her eyes had turned swollen and her nose turned as dark as the fading rouge on her mouth, but there was something about seeing her cry that made me feel like a part of me was being ripped out.

I wondered if this is what it felt like to love someone — not defined in a romantic sense, or a familial sense, or even in a platonic sense, but more to love just because I felt love.

The same kind of love I felt to Mama, and Khale, and now Maryam.

And now that I'd accepted that I was here, perhaps, possibly, they were the only three people I would ever have the fortune to love.

I sighed. "Maryam, let me open the door."

Still crying, slowly, she moved to the side.

Though I knew her lover had long since vacated her room, I still half expected to see the figure of a man crouched up in the corner of the closet, or at least shreds of his clothes tucked away. But there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary.

I glanced at Maryam and, as if sensing my gaze through her tears, she let out a small, choked whisper, "In the second drawer."

Back in my room, the second drawer was where Maria kept all my gaudy, unused jewelry, the gold bangles and silver earrings that I felt looked much too much on myself.

In Maryam's case, though, when I opened the drawer, all I found were letters.

Piles upon piles of letters, stacked neatly on top of one another, and none kept in envelopes. Some of them were wrinkled, as if squished into very tiny pieces and hidden in closed fists for prolonged periods of time, while others were only folded once, as if to make it thin enough to slide underneath a door. Some were written on what looked to be torn pieces of parchment, written in hurried strokes on the corner of the paper, and others looked to be old pieces of fabric, the blank side of a menu list, the dried out bark of an old tree.

All of them, though, were signed with the name Ashtad.

I miss you. The usual signal, don't open the door if it's not from me.
— Ashtad.

Are you alright? You look sad. Why?
— Ashtad.

I have a surprise. Give it to you later. I hope you like it.
— Ashtad.

One day, I wish I can take you out to walk through the Archaem markets. You'd really enjoy it.
— Ashtad.

It was clear, from the sheer number of the letters, it was clear that their affair had been going on for much longer than I had anticipated.

"He's very brave," I murmured, "so openly writing his name on every letter. That, or he's stupid."

I didn't have to turn around to know that Maryam must have winced at my words.

I had to put down the letter in my hands in order to stop myself from crumpling it in disappointment.

When I turned around, Maryam was still crying, but her sobs had now turned to sniffles, and she had taken to hugging herself as her only way of comfort.

At this time, I refused to offer a hug.

"How long?" I asked, sighing.

Maryam was quiet for a few moments, before she sniffled out, "A few weeks. Maybe two months. Maybe three. I can't remember when it started."

Three months.

I couldn't remember if that was when we started growing apart or not.

"Where did you meet him? How did you meet him? How did it happen? And who in Khuda's name knows?" The last question was the most important, so it was no surprise that my tone had sharpened towards the end.

Still, when I saw Maryam flinch, I still felt guilty.

"He's..." Maryam looked down to the ground, and I couldn't help but think, at least she has the knowledge to feel guilty. "He's a guard near the dining hall. Sometimes, he has shifts in the garden, and near this hallway too. Usually in the afternoon. That's how we met."

"How long have you known him?"

"Since I first came," she whispered. "I've known him ever since we first arrived at Archaem. But this... thing only happened a few weeks ago."

"Three months is not a few weeks ago, Maryam," I said.

"Then, a few months ago... The only other person who knows is my maid. But she's sworn to keep it secret."

"She doesn't have to leak it for other people to know," I sighed. "No one has to. Maryam, this room isn't even yours, much less the palace. Anything the princes want to find out, they can."

Maryam lowered her head even further, but didn't respond.

For long while, neither of us spoke.

"Maryam," I whispered, "what are you thinking? How could you be so stupid?"

"It's not... I don't... I don't know," she muttered. "I really don't know."

"I thought you didn't have a problem with Prince Finn." At the very least, you don't have the same problems that I do.

"It's not the Prince that's the problem," she said weakly, "it's all the girls surrounding him. Aliya, the Prince is okay. He's superficial and cold and his title makes his ego enormous, but all of these are things I can learn to deal with. But I can't— I don't want to and I can't handle the tens of other girls swarming around him. All of them want his attention or his affection, and he gives all of them the same. Right now there's just a few, but I know that the advisors are just going to bring in more girls, younger and prettier and more interesting."

Maryam's eyes filled up with tears once again. "When that happens, what will happen to me? I'll be an old relic haunting this part of the quarters, the hallway no one will even bother to check on anymore. I've heard all the stories of deserted concubines, and even worse ones of forgotten candidates, left inside the palace with no title, no standing, no child, and watching as the beauty and body they first used to lure the prince fades away, bit by bit, gold by glimmer each day. I can't— I can't do that. I can't handle that and I can't do that to me."

And that's why, you're but a child.

In this world, in this kingdom, what man did not have a concubine? Or a mistress?

There was a saying that having one wife and three concubines was the blessing that would give more blessings, the gold that would keep on giving. A lot of times, it was used to refer to the birth of sons.

Other times, though, it was the reason and excuse behind polygamy, and there was no shortage of men I'd heard claim that not abiding by this would lead to misfortune and catastrophe.

I didn't believe in superstitions, but perhaps this was the reason my father died early, hopelessly in love with Mama, waiting for the day she came back.

But looking at Maryam's tear-stained face, I didn't have it in me to say any of this.

How could I?

So eventually, after a long period of silence, I walked to the door.

"Tomorrow," I said, "sit with me beside breakfast. Show me who Ashtad is."

When I opened the door, I couldn't help but pause. "You should pray that he is a good man, because Khuda did not make many of them."

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