Page 48 of Scarred Crown

Then Alex took a throwaway comment I made about the twenty veterans on the island who needed accessible housing and swept the rug right out from underneath me and Nick. When I asked him, he said the disabled men and women were already on his radar and part of a tentative plan before I said a word. A coincidence. I chose to believe him because I was sixteen, he was nineteen, and what did I know? Rather than make waves, I swallowed his explanation. My entire teenage relationship with Alex can be summed up in those two sentences.

Besides, if I’d gone after Alex for using my idea, Nick would have found out about us. My worst nightmare. Our friendship ended up the same—in tatters—so maybe I should have told someone. At least then Alex would have been revealed as unoriginal.

“We’re here,” Kafil said, getting out of the car.

I follow him to the brick house, still lost in my own thoughts. “Who’s running Nick’s school initiative?”

“Running it?” Kafil asks with a frown. He’s become less formal with me and Nick since we started working to help his cousin.

“Who’s overseeing it? Nick or someone else?”

“Oh, well…” Kafil seems to consider how to answer. “Prince Nicholas held interviews for local men and women and then he asked my opinion on who to hire. He didn’t want anyone who didn’t treat women well, which is hard to be sure about in an interview. I did some interviewing too—less formal—but I gave the prince tips based on what I heard or learned.”

“All locals?” My heart thumps in my chest.

A hint of a smile touches Kafil’s lips. “He supplies the money and the financial structure, but he’s leaving the decisions about who gets help to us to the individual villages. He’s been very generous, and we’ve been trying to put good people in place.”

The whole idea is so Nick of yesteryear that a chill goes through me, and I rub my arms.

“Cold?” Kafil nods at my arms as we approach Bahati’s door.

“I think hell just froze over.” That’s what I told myself when he went through such a drastic change—it’d be a cold day in hell before Nick and I were friends again. Somewhere underneath his prickly exterior, my Nick still exists.

Kafil gives me a quizzical look but doesn’t push me to explain. Inside, Bahati is alone with Elena, having just come in from working the fields with her husband. She carries Elena on her back in a sling seat fashioned from colorful material.

“Kafil says you have more updates?” She addresses me with Kafil’s translation.

“Yes. Looks like she’ll need two surgeries, a number of months apart. Prince Nicholas has agreed to pay all costs—transportation, housing, surgery, and recovery. We don’t have an exact date for the first one, but we’re trying to make sure it happens before she turns eighteen months. So, the process might be quick.”

She nods along while Kafil translates in real time. Even though I speak three different languages, I’m not sure how he has one language go into his brain and another come out his mouth quite so seamlessly. He almost never stumbles to search for a word.

“She’ll be able to walk after?” Bahati asks.

I purse my lips because I don’t want to give any certainties when I’m not a medical professional. The doctors we’re dealing with remotely for scheduling are making all their decisions based on photos and videos Nick and I have sent them. At no point has anyone indicated Elena’s quality of life might not be good as a result of the surgeries, the opposite, actually.

“I believe so, yes,” I say. “As with most surgeries, there might be some physical therapy to be done afterward. We don’t know all the ins and outs yet, but we’re working on securing all the details. The timeline is okay with you?”

She gives Kafil a look of triumph and rattles off something.

“What did she say?” I ask when he doesn’t immediately translate.

“She says she was right to keep Elena even though her husband’s mother didn’t think she should.” Kafil rubs his forehead.

I’m tempted to ask what they would have done with Elena if they hadn’t kept her, but I’ll wait to ask those questions in the vehicle.

“Bahati is okay with the arrangements?” I ask instead.

“Her husband relies on her to work the fields with him, but I am sure the village will pull together to help them out while she’s in Bellerive.”

Kafil already told me if Elena wasn’t their first and only child, he wasn’t sure Bahati would have been able to go to Bellerive, but since she is, her husband is okay with the trip. Here’s hoping none of their other children have clubbed feet.

Once we’re done relaying the newest piece of information, I follow Kafil back to the Landcruiser, lost in muddled thoughts about Nick and about what Bahati meant regarding her mother-in-law.

The radio at the front beside Kafil buzzes with chatter.

“An injured giraffe and a pride of lions, not far from us,” he says. “Do you want to see it?”

I hesitate. Do I have the fortitude to watch an animal die? “Circle of life, right?”