Her father disappeared on a Wednesday.
Meher was twelve. She remembered the day in the specific, sensory way children remember catastrophe—the smell of the pressure cooker her mother had left on too long, the sound of the ceiling fan clicking on its third rotation, and the exact weight of her school bag still on her shoulder when the phone call came.
Aarav Mehta. Photographer. Commissioned to a private estate in Udaipur.
He had called home twice in the first week. Then once. Then not at all.
Her mother filed a missing person report. Was told it was premature. Filed again. I was told the matter was sensitive—the Rana family was connected. Was told, eventually, to be patient.
Patience lasted nine years before her mother stopped waiting and started grieving.
Meher did neither.
"I started keeping records when I was sixteen," she told Riaan.
They were still on the studio floor. The afternoon light had shifted, going amber and long through the high windows.
"Newspaper cuttings. Police documents I got through RTI applications when I turned eighteen. Court filings that went nowhere. Forum posts from people who'd worked at the Haveli." She paused. "And photographs. My father's published work. Every image he'd ever taken publicly. I studied them like they were messages."
"And the Haveli?" Riaan asked.
"I needed to get inside. I needed evidence. Not for a court — courts had failed already. For truth." She looked down at her hands, still faintly grey with charcoal. "I got myself introduced to Devika through an art contact three years ago. Slowly. Carefully. She liked my work. She invited me as a kind of artist-in-residence."
"She didn't know who you were."
"She knew my mother's surname. Not my father's name. Not the connection." A pause. "Or so I thought."
Riaan went still. "What do you mean?"
Meher looked up. "The diary. The one you found. Under the cushion."
"I assumed it was yours—"
"It was. But I didn't leave it there." She held his gaze. "I kept it in my room. Hidden. Someone moved it. Put it where you'd find it."
The room felt colder.
"Devika knew," Riaan said slowly.
"I think she knew from the beginning. Maybe not immediately — maybe she pieced it together. But she knew." Meher's voice was steady but her eyes held something old and exhausted. "The whole thing — my warning to you, your trust in me, the way we gravitated toward each other — I think she designed it. Arranged it. She wanted us to find each other."
"Why?"
"Because she needed a witness," Meher said. "Someone to see her final act. The fire. The painting. The mythology." She paused. "What better witness than the daughter of the man she destroyed and the mirror of the man she loved?"
Riaan was quiet for a long time.
Outside, the city continued—oblivious, warm, indifferent.
"Did you use me?" he finally asked.
The question was quiet. No accusation in it. Just weight.
Meher didn't answer immediately. She sat with it. Which told him more than a fast answer would have.
"In the beginning," she said, "you were useful. Your presence gave me cover. Devika focused on you. I could move through the house more freely."
It landed like a stone.
"And later?" he asked.
She looked at him. And for the first time in this conversation, her eyes were wet.
"Later I forgot to be strategic," she said. "Later I was just—scared for you. And then—" She stopped. Pressed her lips together. "And then I wasn't performing anything anymore."
He looked at her face. The charcoal on her fingers. The bare wrists. The green anarkali hadn't changed from the gallery.
He thought about the hospital balcony. The rain. Her hand on his chest.
I thought I'd lose you.
"I believe you," he said.
She exhaled—long and slow, like she'd been holding it for months.
"But Meher." His voice was careful. "If Devika knew who you were — if she designed this — then what happened to your father isn't just a past tragedy. It's the foundation of everything that happened to us." He paused. "And the painting she saved from the fire—"
"I know," Meher said quietly.
"Vikram thinks he's in it."
"I know that too."
"What do you think is in it?"
She was silent for a long moment.
"The truth," she said. "The real one. Not the version she performed for the world." She paused. "Devika never made anything that wasn't honest. That was the terrifying thing about her. Her art was the only place she couldn't lie."
Riaan stood. Moved to the window. The lake glittered in the distance.
"We need to see that painting," he said.
"It's in hospital custody. Evidence holds."
"Raghav," he said.
"He'll want something in return."
"He wants the truth too." Riaan turned. "Everyone in this story wants the same thing. The difference is what they're willing to pay for it."
Meher stood. Walked to him. Stopped close.
"I'm sorry," she said. "For the lie. For using you in the beginning. For not telling you who I was."
He looked at her for a long time.
"Don't be sorry for surviving," he said. "Be sorry for the lie. Those are different things."
She nodded.
He turned back to the window.
"I'm going to call Raghav," he said. "And then I'm going to call Vikram."
"You trust him?"
"No," Riaan said. "But he was there when it started. And we need someone who remembers the original."