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“Where is your prince?” I asked the staff morning, noon, and night. “Can you tell me what is happening at the front lines? Is Lan still fighting with Rong? The prince, Rong Siwang, have you heard any news of him?”

No one gave me a real answer. It was always some version ofThe prince regent has duties elsewhere,andWe do not hear news of the front lines.

Even my nightmares kept me in the dark. For the first time in a long while, my dreams were quieter. There were still screams and fire, but everything was muffled. No matter how hard I tried, I could not remember them when I woke.

I’d never thought there would come a day when I would miss the vivid bloodshed.

Fine.If no one was going to give me answers, I would take matters into my own hands.

The guards here worked in rotation and paced the hallways with eagle eyes. But they couldn’t watch every corner of the manor at all hours.Just as no emperor, no king, no man, regardless of his status and power, was omnipresent.

Finding Yexue’s bedroom and the adjacent study was easy. Getting inside, however, was much harder. Located in the opposite wing of the manor, they were the only rooms that were locked. When I asked to see the rooms, the nannies shook their heads in unison.

I had learned how to pick locks during my months on the road; the trick was not to listen for the click, butfeelit through the vibration of the metal.

I studied the rotation of the guards carefully and took note of the hallway around Yexue’s rooms, creating a mental list of places to hide and various escape routes just in case.

Ten minutes to get inside before the next guard turns the corner,I reminded myself as I crouched beside the door and cupped the lock in my hand. I wedged in the thinnest pin from my hair, then twisted, hoping to feel something click. But this had to be a particularly quiet lock, because I neither heard nor felt anything.

“Come on, you stupid lock!” I muttered, turning and turning, pressing my ear as close to the lock as possible. Until, finally, aclick.

I was biting down the urge to cheer when I heard someone chuckle from behind me.

“You could have asked me for the key.”

I jerked to my feet and immediately recognized the pristine, silver-embellished white robe.

Lan Yexue stared down at me with an amused smile. “You are not breaking into my study, are you?”

“No,” I lied.

“Are you trying to steal military secrets?” He cocked his head, and I had half a mind to stab him with my hairpin and make a run for it. Butmemories of my last act of rebellion were still fresh, how my blade had bounced off him as if I had struck a statue of stone.

“…No.”

“Then what are you doing?” Those amber eyes watched me with interest. I wagered he was just waiting for me to trip over my words so he could mock me.

“Um.”Shit.“I…didn’t know where you were and thought perhaps someone had locked you inside this room?”

His smile deepened. “Oh, my savior! I knew you had a soft spot for me after all.” He offered me his hand, and I realized I was still half kneeling against the door. This made for a precarious position. “If you don’t want to get up, you are welcome to stay on your knees, Little Goddess.”

I didn’t take his hand, and rose on my own accord. “Well, now that I know you are safe and sound, I will leave you to it.” I tried to sidestep out of his way, but Yexue moved his arm out to block me.

“After all that work, are you not going to come in and see what kind of military secrets I am keeping from you? Because I clearly need to change my locks, and the next one might not be so easily picked.” He pushed open the door and gestured for me to enter.

Inside was an airy space with high carved ceilings and large windows that overlooked a small water garden bathed in a slant of golden light. A large desk occupied the center of the room, and there were rows and rows of bookshelves stacked high in all directions, full of aged scrolls and yellowed books, organized into neat piles. I peered at the wooden tags that seemed to organize everything into categories and realized they were sorted by empires and dynasties.

A large hand came over my eyes before I could glean anything else. “Stealing from me already?” Yexue chuckled.

My face went red while my feet remained frozen at the threshold. The wolf was inviting me into his den; this was the sort of trap parents warned children about. Nothing good could come of this.

However, I was already in his territory, my life in his hands. What else did I have to lose?

“I’m not going to eat you,” Yexue added, teasingly pulling the door closed. “If you don’t want to hear—”

“You claimed Siwang was keeping secrets from me.” I sidestepped him and barged into the room, taking a seat at the large desk before he could change his mind. “I came here for a reason, and I’m not letting you go back on your promise.”

I had hoped there would be a mess of scattered papers I could glean intel from, but the desk was empty. Everything about this space was organized.