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He tugged his sleeve and slumped against the post. “That’s not fair,” he said. “I didn’t know you could transform fabric.”

“It’s not the fabric. It’s the gold,” I said, tugging at a loose strand on his other sleeve. It unraveled easily, a long, thin strand of gold pooling in my palm that Durian tried to bite once more. I reached to pull it away from him, but my hands froze.

“Zilan?” the prince said.

I grabbed his arm and yanked the thread even farther out of his sleeve.

“There are easier ways to undress me,” he said. “If you—”

“Wait,” I said, backing up halfway across the room until a thin line of gold was suspended between us, only visible when the light hit it exactly right.

“Zilan, what—”

I clenched my fist around the thread, crushing it against my iron ring.

The prince’s sleeve around the bedpost unknotted itself, bursting into frayed gold threads. He stared at his sleeve like it was the most marvelous thing he’d ever seen, then looked up at me with a wide grin.

“You can use the thread as a conduit,” he said.

“And you can hide it,” I said. “She expectsmeto do alchemy, but not you.”

“Me?” the prince said, his smile fading. He looked down at his frayed sleeve. “I’m not exactly in the habit of touching her,” he said. “I can certainly get closer to her than you, but probably not close enough.”

I rolled the thread between my fingers, sitting down on the bed. The prince was right—the Empress was far from foolish, and anything even slightly unusual would alert her that we were up to something.

The light shifted as clouds passed overhead, the room blooming with sunlight, everything shimmering—the gold-woven curtains, gold-embossed tables, gold flowers in the wallpaper. I’d heard that past dynasties had revolved around worshipping gods, but this one only worshipped gold. Everything in this damn palace down to the washcloths had some sort of gold ornamentation. I remembered the foiled gold of the Empress’s makeup, the gold in her eyes, the gold rim of her teacup that she slammed onto the gold-embroidered tablecloth.

I grabbed the prince’s hand so sharply that he jumped, squeezing Durian.

“Hong,” I said, “I think it’s time we had dinner with your mother again.”

The Empress was not in the royal dining hall that evening.

The servants outside the door bowed and led us farther down the hallway, explaining that the dining hall was being cleaned. I doubted the Empress would ever let something like that interfere with her dinner plans, but we had no choice but to follow, the prince’s hand clutching mine, his rings cold against my sweaty palm.

He wore gold rings on each finger, a gold thread tied from one hand to the other, connecting them under his clothes. If I held his left hand, I could do alchemy through his right. At least, as much as one could do with a soft metalstone like gold—simple transformations that could change shape, but not much else.

Our plan was to use alchemy to make the Empress bleed without even touching her. Alchemy would flow from me, through the gold thread to the prince’s ring, across the gold-embroidered tablecloth, into the Empress’s golden teacup, where I could sharpen the rim as if the cup had cracked while being washed. The crack would be subtle enough that it looked like an accident, but just sharp enough to cut her lip when she drank. A servant who had been bribed—or possibly threatened—by the Moon Alchemist would whisk the cup away and present the Empress with a fresh one. The Paper Alchemist and River Alchemist were already waiting by the kitchens to snatch the dishes from the servants before they could be washed. And if all went to plan, the Empress wouldn’t think much of a few drops of blood on the dish, since she’d have no way of knowing that I had caused it.

We followed the servant out to a courtyard beneath a canopy of willow trees, their broad shade softening all of the garden’s colors. The Empress sat at a long table, where a servant held an umbrella over her and the creature chained beside her...

I stopped short, yanking the prince to a halt.

The Empress sat beside a golden beast with a wild crown of wispy hair around its face, its mouth curved down in a frown. Its chest made a rumbling sound, like the ground before an earthquake. It rose to its feet at the sight of us, bearing massive yellowed fangs.

“Mother,” the prince said, his voice wavering, “I think—”

“I wanted to eat in the garden today,” the Empress said, petting the creature’s head. “I don’t think your concubine has had the chance to see one of our gifts from the West.”

The prince sighed and took a small step forward, but I stayed rooted in place. Was this some sort of alchemical creation like the pearl monsters?

“It’s a lion,” the prince whispered. “They’re dangerous, but this one is chained and obeys mother.”

I didn’t know if that was supposed to make me feel better. But I supposed the pearl monsters were dangerous as well, and they’d yet to kill me. I tightened my grip on the prince’s hand as we crossed the courtyard, the lion’s yellow eyes tracking us.

“Don’t be afraid, Scarlet,” the Empress said as we sat down. “He only bites when I ask him to.”

I tried my best to ignore the rumbling beast as the servants started pouring tea. It wasn’t until I reached for my teacup that I realized what was wrong.