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I grimaced. I’d heard rumors of older people doing that, but I’d never met anyone who’d actually tried it. There were easier ways to get food.

“No,” Wenshu said, expression flat. “Check your list.”

The guard’s grip on his scroll tightened. “There’s a dress code,” he said. “You can’t sit among royalty looking like that.”

My gaze fell to my dirtied skirts. It was difficult to wash blood entirely from white cloth, so our clothes had taken on a brownish tinge, made worse from sleeping outside on our journey. Was this man really going to deny us a meal over our clothes after we’d spent weeks traveling?

I sighed, jamming my hand into my bag of stones.

“I don’t want your bribes,” the guard said. But I had already found three pieces of slate. I grabbed Yufei’s sleeve in one hand, the stones in the other. The slate drank up the blood and filth from her clothes, leaving her in a wrinkled but bright white gown. The excess poured down my wrist, pooling on the ground.

“Is that clean enough for you?” I said, my palms burning as I shook the blood and dirt off my hands.

The guard drew his sword, leveling it with my nose. The three of us froze, eyes fixed on the blade. I’d never had such a sharp weapon pointed at me before and was sure a wrong breath would slice my nose clean off.

“Only royal alchemists can practice outside the training compound,” the guard said.

“What?” I said softly, afraid to move my lips too much. “In the south, we’re allowed to do lower-level alchemy in public.”

“And in the North, we have rules. Our alchemists actually have skills beyond skinning hogs and squishing beetles. If you leave now, I won’t have you thrown in jail.”

“Don’t worry, we’re going,” Wenshu said, bowing and grabbing both me and Yufei before either of us could argue.

We moved wordlessly down the streets, Yufei casting sad glances back at the building as the smell of food faded. It was her expression more than my own pride that made me look over my shoulder at the guard growing smaller behind us, wishing I could rip his veins open. I would remember his face, and when I was a royal alchemist, I could make him crawl around and catch honey stuffed mice to eat raw.

Wenshu finally ground to a stop when we were a safe distance from the guard, his face red and jaw clenched. Had the encounter really upset him that much? Had risking jail more than twice in one day been the last straw?

“Gege,” I said quietly, “I—”

“Zilan,” he said, his voice low. “How long have you known how to do that?”

I blinked. “Do what?”

He grabbed Yufei’s clean sleeve and yanked it up in the air.

“Oh. That’s pretty easy,” I said, not sure whythat,of all things, was the focus of his wrath. “A few years, maybe?”

He dropped her arm, fists clenched. “In that case,” he said, “thenwhy the hell have I been doing all of our laundry this whole time?”

“That’swhat you’re mad about?” Yufei said.

“I’m not using up my slate on laundry!” I said. “You would have made me clean all your clothes every time someone breathed on them! A little dirt isn’t a big deal!”

“What else can you clean?” Wenshu said, throwing his hands up into the air. “Can you wash vegetables? Scrub the floor?”

I looked at the ground.

“Youcan!” he said. “I can’t believe you! You think Ienjoycleaning up after you two?”

“Yes,”Yufei and I said at the same time.

“Can we talk about dinner now?” Yufei said.

“Yes,” I said, taking her arm and hurrying us away from Wenshu’s wrath.

Wenshu let out a withering sound of anger but stomped obediently behind us. “You could at least clean my clothes now.”

Though we’d hoped to stay somewhere close to the training grounds, we quickly realized that everything in the eastern wards was far too expensive. What their inns demanded for one night could have bought us food for a month back in Guangzhou. By the time we made it to the western side of the city, it was just after sundown and all the wards had closed their gates for the night, leaving us stranded in an abandoned labyrinth of dirt walls and worn paths.