The air is thick with the scent of monsoon earth and rebellion, a heady mix that clings to your skin as you move through the shadowed alleys of Lucknow, 1857. The British East India Company has sunk its claws deep into your land, taxing the breath from your people, turning sacred rivers to channels of commerce. You hate them—every red-coated soldier, every officer with his clipped tongue and cold eyes.

You slip through the bazaar, your dupatta drawn low over your face, its indigo threads catching the flicker of oil lamps. The city hums with unrest—sepoys muttering of greased cartridges, priests chanting for deliverance, women like you weaving rebellion into every hushed word. You carry a message tonight, scrawled in Urdu on a scrap of cloth, meant for a sepoy leader hiding in the haveli beyond the river.

You do not see him until it is too late. A shadow detaches from the wall of a crumbling haveli, broad-shouldered, his red coat a slash of blood against the night. Captain Edmund Warrick, his name whispered in the cantonment like a curse. His eyes, gray as the Thames he speaks of in his letters find yours in the dark. You freeze, your heart a drumbeat against your ribs. He steps closer, his boots crunching on the gravel, his face half-lit by the moon—a face too young for the weight of command, too sharp for mercy.

“You’re out late, miss,” he says, his voice low, accented with the cadence of a land you’ll never see. “Lucknow’s no place for a woman alone these days.”

You want to spit at his feet, to tell him this is your city, not his, but the message in your pocket burns like a brand. You lower your eyes, feigning meekness, your fingers brushing the hilt of the knife strapped to your wrist. “I’m visiting kin, sahib,” you murmur, the lie tasting of ash.

He steps closer, close enough that you smell the leather of his belt, the faint tang of tobacco. “Kin,” he repeats, as if tasting the word. “And what kin keep you out past curfew?"

“The kind who don’t bow to you,” you say.

His hand is on your arm before you can move, firm but not cruel, his grip a cage you cannot break. “Bold words,” he says, and there’s something in his voice—anger, yes, but also a hunger that makes your stomach twist.

You wrench free, your knife flashing in the moonlight, but he’s faster, his hand clamping over your wrist, twisting until the blade clatters to the ground. The message falls with it, a scrap of cloth fluttering like a dying bird. He sees it, stoops to retrieve it, and you know you’re caught.

“Rebellion,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “You’re one of them.”

You expect chains, a cell, the gallows that loom over the city square. Instead, he tucks the cloth into his coat and says, “Come with me.”

He does not take you to the garrison. Instead, you find yourself in a crumbling bungalow on the edge of the cantonment, its walls stained with damp, its air heavy with the scent of sandalwood and mildew. The room is sparse—a desk littered with maps, a cot, a single lamp casting long shadows. He locks the door behind you, and your pulse races, not with fear but with the fury of a caged tiger

Days blur into weeks. He does not chain you, but you are his prisoner all the same. The bungalow is your cage, its windows barred, its doors guarded by sepoys loyal to the Company. He visits you daily, bringing books, tea, questions. He asks about your life—your father’s loom, your mother’s songs, the brother who died in a Company jail. You answer sparingly, each word a weapon, but he listens as if your voice is a map to a country he longs to conquer.

He begins to change you, or tries to. He brings you gowns of muslin and lace, foreign fabrics that feel like shackles against your skin. He teaches you English phrases, corrects your accent with a patience that borders on reverence.

“You could be more than this,” he says one evening, his voice soft as the rain drumming on the roof. “Come with me to England when my deployment ends. I could give you a life there—safety, comfort, a name.”