Fever Quest: A Clean Historical Mystery set in England and India (The Isabella Rockwell Trilogy Book 2) by Hannah Parry

but showed pictures of
chariots and horses, men hanging upside down and brilliant stars.
    “What are you doing, Papa-ji?”
    He started.
    “Goodness, you made me jump.” He looked her up and down.
“I had thought you were a ferenghi.”
    Isabella squatted down next to him.
    “I am learning. I am neither one nor the other. Neither
European or native.”
    “That is no bad thing.”
    He picked up the cards in front of him.
    “Are those tarot cards?” She’d seen similar, one scorching
day at market with Abhaya. There had been a man who spoke Hindi with a heavy
accent whilst he interpreted the cards. That hadn’t stopped a line of people
from standing all day in the heat to see him.
    The punka-wallah nodded, and then handed them to Isabella.
    “Shuffle them with an empty mind.”
    Isabella shuffled and tried to return the pack, but the
old man held up his hand.
    “No, I must not touch them until you have laid out your
cards. Make the sign of a cross with ten cards on the silk scarf, turning them
face up as you go. Then keep hold of the pack until we have finished.”
    Isabella did as she was told, intrigued by the intricate
drawings that appeared before her. The cards were soft to the touch, years of
use making some of them as flimsy as rice paper. She hoped none would come
apart in her hand.
    She sat back and the old man ran his hands over the cards
and nodded.
    “Very good.” He peered at the cards and sucked on his only
remaining tooth. “Now.” He hummed a bit. “Great loss brings you here, but
there’s a part of it that is unfinished. Something happened a long time ago,
with no sense of an ending. Does that sound right?”
    Isabella looked out at the distant black hills shimmering
in the heat haze. Where should she start?
    “Yes, Papa-ji. My ayah, Abhaya, died of cholera and I
didn’t say goodbye. My father also disappeared. I tried to find him, but I just
made everything worse. I don’t know which one you might mean.”
    “Not your ayah. The Sahiba Abhaya is very close to you. I
can feel her here now. Surely you’ve heard her speak to you?”
    Isabella thought of when she’d felt breezes graze her
cheek and yet the leaves hadn’t moved. How in her moments of greatest need
she’d heard Abhaya’s voice as clearly as if Abhaya stood behind her. How the
memory of her had helped Isabella restart Princess Alix’s breathing when all
Isabella’s efforts seemed futile.
    “Yes. I’ve heard her.”
    “Well, then. This is not about her. She has passed over,
and is at peace with herself and you.” Isabella found herself in tears. “No.
This must be your father.”
    The card the old man held was a faded picture of a knight
in shining armour carrying a silver sword. “The Knight of Swords. A brave and
able soldier.”
    Isabella smiled and wiped her nose on the hem of her sari.
“Yes, he was.”
    “Indeed. Many wonderful qualities come with this card, but
look. See how he isn’t wearing his helmet and his scabbard is unbuckled?”
    Isabella squinted at the card. “Oh, yes.”
    “Though he is brave, he is also foolish.”
    “No, he’s not,” Isabella said hotly.
    “I do not say this to upset you. I am just telling you
what the cards say. Whatever has happened to him is due to his own rash
behaviour.”
    “I wouldn’t know about that,” Isabella said stiffly. “I
don’t even know if he’s alive.”
    The punka-wallah leaned forward and took a card from the
pile in Isabella’s hand. “He is still alive.” Each word was like a heavy stone
tossed in a deep pool. He paused and narrowed his eyes, his beaked nose even
more prominent. “But you know this already.”
    Isabella took a deep breath.
    “How do you know?”
    “I can see a letter. I feel very cold, the room is moving
and I can smell the sea.”
    Isabella shivered. His description had taken her straight
back to the little blue cabin on the Mauritania where she’d opened
Prince Ernest’s letter, never imagining for a moment what it