Garden of Madness by Tracy L. Higley

my mother does not see it. Please, please speak to Jeconiah.”
    The nobles were exiting the banquet room, their curiosity sated by her mother’s declaration. A figure approached, one Tia had not seen earlier.
    “My congratulations, Princess.” Amel’s words were languorous and his engaging smile circled the table to include Marta, Rachel, and even Judith, then stopped cold at Pedaiah. Beside her, Pedaiah drew himself upright, chin lifted.
    She felt heat in her fingertips. “My mother’s plans are her own.” She regretted her words immediately. Her rebellion would be better kept quiet for now. But she wished Amel to know that she did not intend to marry Prince Zagros.
    His attention was all on her now. “I am not surprised. You are your own woman, I have seen since we met.”
    Tia smiled at his praise.
    With a nod to the women and a glare at Pedaiah, Amel held out a hand. “May I accompany you from the hall?”
    Trapped between the two men, she took his hand, too eagerly, bowed to her extended family, and smiled at Marta. “We will speak soon.”
    Amel placed her hand in the crook of his arm and Tia let him escort her from the room, trailing glances from servants and nobles alike.
    They strolled the hall, in what direction she cared not. He still held her hand against his arm, and she felt the warmth of his touch.
    “You are the center of attention everywhere you go, Princess.”
    “You are thinking of my mother.” She leaned against him and laughed.
    He seemed delighted with her girlish response, though she wondered at it herself, a bit sickened at her silliness.
    “It was not your mother Pedaiah watched with those hawklike eyes.”
    She slowed. “You know Pedaiah?”
    His face was impassive. “We have met.”
    They reached the first courtyard and began to walk along bordered flower beds. “I sensed hostility.”
    Amel was silent, as though reluctant to speak ill of the Jew.
    “Tell me, why do you dislike him?”
    “Because he is an arrogant fool.” He bowed his head. “Forgive my honesty. I know he is family, of a sort.”
    “He is nothing to me, I assure you. And I would agree with your opinion.”
    They stopped before a surging fountain and Amel gazed into the pool. “Before I came to the palace to train with the magi, I was in charge of one of the city furnaces, managing the slaves who fired the bricks.”
    Hard to imagine the smooth, sophisticated Amel in the heat of a furnace yard.
    “Most of them were Jews. Pedaiah seemed to think that his people should not need to work, as though captives should hold more privilege than Babylon’s own citizens. He constantly tried to undermine my authority there, to remove the Jews from their duties and set them in lives of ease.”
    Tia huffed. Not surprising.
    “I must say”—Amel patted her hand still on his arm—“for the son of a vassal king, the man has more arrogance than the daughter of true royalty herself.”
    She smiled, her eyes trained on the bubbling water.
    “Tiamat!”
    Amel pulled away from her and they turned to her mother, striding toward her like a charging soldier.
    Amel spoke a farewell low in her ear. “My lady.” Then he slipped away before her mother’s assault.
    Amytis’s words were clipped and furious, if quiet. “I have only just announced your marriage to Zagros and now find you flirting in the courtyards with an apprentice mage!” Her gaze followed Amel as he fled into a hall. “Why have you taken up with him? He was with you the other night, when Kaldu’s body was discovered.”
    “It is nothing, Mother. I was only questioning him about the death, since Kaldu appeared to have connections with the magi.”
    Amytis’s eyes fired at her. “And what is that to you?”
    “I wish to know why Kaldu was killed.”
    “It is none of your concern!”
    Tia studied her fury. “And is it a concern of yours? I hear that you and Kaldu spent time together. That you were with him on the night he died.”
    Amytis’s face paled.