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This is it, I thought.She was waiting to execute me on her perfect schedule. She’ll reveal me as a traitor in front of all the other alchemists and have me carried away in chains, then she’ll behead my cousins in front of me.

I must have looked like an animal, drenched with sweat, rising on shaking legs, palms scraping against the bark as I hauled myself to my feet, watching the Empress draw closer. Was it even worth trying to fight her guards off? Surely they’d just threaten my cousins the moment I resisted. I fumbled for my satchel anyway, my hands shuddering against the stones.

The Empress met my eyes as she approached, a sharp smile cutting across her perfect face.

“Scarlet,” she said, nodding at me as if she hadn’t noticed the fact that I hadn’t bowed, that I was glaring at her.

Then she cut through the rest of the courtyard, her guards brushing past me before the entire party exited through the southern door.

I felt like I’d been doused in cold water.That’s it?I thought, sinking to my knees. Either the Empress truly had nothing to do with my cousins’ disappearance—which I doubted—or she had something bigger planned for me. Something more terrible than humiliating me in front of the other alchemists. She wanted to watch me squirm like a pinned insect.

A hand closed around my wrist.

I nearly jumped out of my skin, yanking away so violently that both me and my assailant spilled onto the ground.

“Fan Zilan!” the Moon Alchemist said, shoving me so she could rise to her feet and brush off her skirts. “You’re late.”

“Late?” I echoed as she hauled me to my feet, moving toward the gate. “Where were you last night?”

“Working,” she said, yanking my wrist harder. “We have more to do today.”

I pulled away and drew to a stop. “You have to help me. My cousins—”

“We can’t talk about that now,” the Moon Alchemist said under her breath. “Nowcome with me.”

“This can’t wait!” I said. I wasn’t being particularly polite, but I hadn’t slept all night and my brain felt like porridge leaking out of my ears. She was the only person who could help me, the only one in this palace I thought I could trust with all of my secrets. Who else could I go to when all of us talked in circles, terrified of what the Empress might hear?

I glanced around the courtyard, which was empty aside from a groundskeeper trimming flowers.

“Have you ever thought,” I whispered, slipping into Guangzhou dialect, “about what all the alchemists could do to stop the Empress if we worked together?”

The slap echoed across the courtyard. I hardly realized I’d been struck until the ground rose to meet me, my face stinging and jaw aching.

The Moon Alchemist stepped over me, her shadow eclipsing the sun, her expression grave.

“You are a fool,” she said, this time in Chang’an dialect. “Neverask me that again.”

“Are you really that scared of her?” I said, trying to push myself up, but the Moon Alchemist shoved me back into the dirt.

“You are too young to understand anything,” she said. “Your words are more dangerous than you know.”

“I understand that she has my family!” I said, rising onto my elbows. “I understand that I have to save them, and that the Empress wouldn’t stand a chance if all the alchemists—”

“I have already explained this to you!”the Moon Alchemist said. “The whole court says that you’re unschooled and ignorant, and right now you’re proving them right. The things you want are nothing more than foolish childhood dreams. We obey because we don’t have a choice.”

I ground my fingers into the dirt, my hands trembling.

No.

That wasn’t a good enough answer.

The Moon Alchemist had a choice, and she had chosen her own life over the lives of others. Part of me could hardly blame her for that.

But then I thought of the piles of corpses in the dungeons, all the people who didn’t get to choose whether they lived or died.

I rose to my feet, cuffing bloody spit from my lip. “That’s all that anyone ever says around here—I can’t do it, it’s not that simple, you wouldn’t understand. But I understand perfectly. You know that there’s a price for change, and the people who have the most power never want to pay it. They always want someone else to pay it for them.”

The Moon Alchemist kicked me hard in the stomach, stealing my next words from my mouth. I gasped, curling into myself in the dirt. Was she trying to scold me or kill me? I reached out for her ankle, but she stepped down hard on my hand, then knelt in front of me.