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When the candle burned to the last notch, we were already gone.

We needed to be well on our way to the Emperor’s quarters when chaos broke loose in the dungeons, because the first thing the guards would do when they caught wind of trouble would be to secure the Empress and Emperor. By the time the guards came looking for him, we wanted to be deep in the tunnels on our way to a monastery, where we could shelter the Emperor until the fighting ended. The Moon Alchemist promised to send alchemists to protect him when they had any to spare.

The Comet Alchemist was supposed to meet us outside the Emperor’s quarters, but when we arrived, the only people in the hallway were the guards.

“Have we messed up the timing?” the prince whispered.

“How could we mess up burning a candle?” I said, unease simmering in my stomach. How could our plan already have gone wrong? We waited another minute in the shadows, but we couldn’t linger forever and risk being caught up in the carnage that was sure to follow.

“We’ll find the Comet Alchemist later,” I said. “Let’s just get the Emperor.”

Unsurprisingly, the guards outside the emperor’s room weren’t thrilled with our demands.

“The Empress says you’re not allowed in,” one of them said, while the other didn’t even acknowledge us.

“And what does my father have to say about it?” the prince said. “Because you answer to him, not my mother.”

“Look, I’d like to keep my head attached to my shoulders,” the guard said. “The Emperor can’t help me with that at the moment.”

The prince sighed and held up a satchel of gold. “Is five hundred enough? Just a quick visit. No one has to know.”

The guard frowned. “My head is worth a hell of a lot more than five hundred gold.”

“One thousand.”

The guard’s eye twitched, lips pressed tight as if considering it. But I knew the look in his eyes. You couldn’t buy people’s fear away. I glanced out the window at the sinking sun and elbowed the prince.

“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “You tried playing nice.”

“It was worth a shot,” the prince said, sighing. Then he wound back and smashed the satchel of gold into the guard’s face. I grabbed some silver from my bag and pressed it to the other guard’s thigh, making his legs go numb—a trick that the Paper Alchemist had recently taught me as an apology for my unwarranted kidnapping. Both guards collapsed to the ground and one crawled away. He wouldn’t get far, and we would be long gone before he caused us any problems.

I pressed a firestone to the door and snapped the lock, and the prince rushed inside.

We stumbled into a dark room, full of cobwebs and settled shadows, no light but the pale murmurs of gold embroidery on the silk curtains. The room felt carved out like a gourd, the patterns of dust telling the stories of everything that used to be but no longer was. The prince tore back the canopy around the bed, but the sheets were flat, the bed empty.

“He’s not even here?” the prince said. The curtains trembled in his hands for a moment, then he let out a furious sound and ripped them down, blasting clouds of dust into the air.

“We should go,” I said, placing my hand on his shoulder. First the Comet Alchemist, and now the Emperor was missing. Something had gone wrong, I was sure of it.

“Without my father?” the prince said. “Who knows what the Empress has done to him. I can’t go without him.”

I wanted to tell him that the Emperor was as good as dead, that he hardly mattered anymore, that Hong’s survival was the only thing that mattered now.

But then I thought of anyone telling me to leave Uncle Fan or Auntie So behind.

“Okay,” I said, gripping the bedpost, trying to figure out our next step. “Okay, so where could the Emperor be?”

“The palace is massive,” the prince said, shoulders drooping. “We’re not going to just stumble across him.”

He was probably right. Where would the Empress hide him? I thought of her staring at me across the table, sipping her tea, smiling as if she knew all my secrets. She knew damn well what I was up to, yet she was so confident that she’d shared a meal with me.

“I think wherever the Empress is, your father can’t be far,” I said. “She keeps her enemies close.”

The prince trembled for a moment, then turned and stormed past me. He drew to a stop in front of the fireplace and picked up a long fire poker from the metal stand. I saw a flash of Wenshu stabbing the magistrate in the inn—what felt like ages ago. The prince whirled around, gripping the poker in both hands, his eyes dark.

“Let’s find Mother,” he said.

As we ran, the palace began to crumble. The wallpaper had been torn off in the wake of the pearl monsters, windows shattered in, floor tiles crushed into soft powder. Like a lizard sloughing off its grayed skin, the palace trembled out of its gold shell, revealing the pale stone foundations underneath.