Nisa watched him from across the table. "I wrote to you. I wanted to hear from my family and see you both desperately. They told me you had married me off and to not bother you. You had your own lives and that was now mine. I knew it wasn't true, but I was trapped."

She looked away momentarily as she sipped her tea. "No maids, nor visitors helped me. My constitution was never great, but it was a good excuse to hide me away or to remove me when I was saying 'strange things'. I was so overjoyed when I returned home. But I'm not the same as I was. I can not return to that girl that left you and baba so long ago."

She tilted her head and watched him, trying to decipher what he was speaking about. "I don't know. I don't know what I could do. I do sometimes find myself so full of anger, but perhaps if I had a direction to take it. Something that gave me a release from these feelings. Did you have a suggestion?" She didn't promise anything. She'd already promised to spare the girl he liked so much.