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I frowned after him. It wasn’t like him to leave without explanation, but I didn’t puzzle over his disappearance for long. Food was a glorious distraction, and my brothers and I were passing a rice cake cart.

My favorite rice cake cart, to be precise. I had patronized it often in my old life. The chef and I were on friendly terms.

Keeping my head low, I went up to her. “I’d like two dozen of the half-moon cakes with peach filling, a dozen regular with lotus paste, another dozen with red bean.” I paused, remembering that I was traveling with seven boys who hadn’t eaten in over a day. “Make that three dozen with red bean. And the peanut ones too.”

In spite of my hat, my enormous order gave me away. “Princess Shiori, is that you?” Mrs. Hana exclaimed. “It is, it is! Welcome back!”

So much for staying incognito. Within minutes, cooks from other vendors were hounding me. Someone pushed a tray into my arms, and soon it was piled high with skewers of sizzling meat, eggplant stuffed with bean curd and shrimp, noodle soups with floating fishballs, and dumplings that wriggled and danced as I walked.

“I didn’t realize how beloved you were by Gindara’s food district,” Takkan remarked as he returned to my side. He smiled wryly. “I’m starting to think I should have given you cakes instead of a comb.”

“No.” I set down my food, looking thoughtful. “Cakes, I relish only for a minute. Your comb, I’ll treasure forever.” I wiped sugar off my fingers and winked at him. “But I will take cakes over flowers any day.”

He laughed. “Noted.”

“Now try this.” I stuffed a skewer of cumin-spiced lamb into Takkan’s mouth. “I bet you don’t have this in Iro.” I offered him a spicy dumpling that dripped with chili oil, and then, before he had a chance to finish it, I planted the plumpest rice cake—oozing with red bean paste—on his palm.

Don’t I get some? Kiki asked. Or am I to stick with paper worms?

I laughed at her. It was like I’d gone back in time to last year’s Summer Festival. I was the carefree Princess Shiori again, famed for her discerning food taste and ability to conquer every dish at the festival.

Soon it wasn’t just the food vendors swarming me. City dwellers did too. The joyful ones blessed me and cried: “The luck of the dragons is with you, Princess Shiori.”

The curious ones asked: “Can you tell us what happened with the dragon? Why was he a demon before?”

And behind the crowds, fearful stragglers murmured: “So it’s true, the princess does have magic…. Look at her hair, like a ghost! What can it mean if a dragon is here? The demons must be growing stronger…. I’ll bet it’s her fault…. That’s what my friend in Yaman said, that the spell that made us sleep all winter, the fires that have been raging across the forest—it’s all because of Shiori’anma.”

I swallowed the last fishball on my skewer and staked it into an uneaten rice cake. My appetite was gone, and I tugged my hat firmly over my head and hustled my way through the crowds, hating that Andahai had been right after all. We needed to go home.

Benkai had been whispering to the sentinels patrolling the city, and on his signal, they dispersed the crowds. Trained soldiers that they were, Takkan and my brothers surrounded me and shuttled me to the edge of the city.

I kicked a loose stone on the road as we waited for a carriage to take us home. “Who would’ve thought I’d miss that bowl on my head so much.”

“I think your appetite gave you away more than your face,” Reiji teased. “Seven dozen rice cakes?”

“I was ordering for all of us,” I replied. “But I should’ve been more careful. I’m tired. I wasn’t thinking.” Suddenly exhausted, I sank onto a bench beside the public garden. “Sorry, everyone.”

Yotan smacked his lips. “Don’t apologize. After a week of mice and worms, I’m still coming out of my bird brain too. Besides, you needed food. You were looking like a ghost. And not only because of your hair.”

I combed my fingers self-consciously through the silvery knots in my hair, and Takkan sat next to me. “Ignore him,” he whispered. “Ignore all of them.”

He could always read me. I made the barest nod. I’ll try.

A hemp pouch dangled from his wrist, reminding me to ask where he’d gone earlier. “You went shopping?” I asked. “I wondered why you mysteriously vanished.”

“I bought bandages and ointment for your arm,” he replied. “I know the palace will have better medicine, but we’re still an hour from the gates at least. And you lost a lot of blood.” He started to open the pot. “This will help.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Smells awful.”

“That’s why I waited until you’d finished eating.”

I glowered, but much as I hated to admit it, the ointment really did help my arm feel better. When he was finished, I dipped my fingers into the medicine and smeared it over the cuts on his face. I cupped his cheek and said softly, “I’m not the only one who got hurt—so I’m not the only one who should smell like dung.”

Takkan shook with laughter, and he kissed my fingertips, dung smell and all. He was about to say something more when Andahai ruined our interlude.

“Not in front of family,” my oldest brother said crisply, and I swore Takkan’s back went straight as a spear.

I crossed my arms. “Oh, come now. You’d be the same if Qinnia were here.”