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“No, thatsomeone elsehas taken your stones,” he said. “It sounded like a lot of stones fell on the floor.”

My stomach sank. I stood up, shouldered past Wenshu, and threw open the door.

Shadows had swallowed the library, casting the tables in deep pools of black. The candles burned low, only weak white circles on the walls like ghostly moons. As I suspected, the Northern scholars were gone.

I crossed the room, turned the corner, and hurried toward the main entrance, footsteps echoing behind me as Wenshu and Yufei followed.

But no one sat at the front desk. The door hung open, moonlight spilling inside, the candles by the doorway shivering from a high-pitched wind.

That bastard promised to watch my stones, I thought, charging toward his desk to rifle through his drawers.

Then the smell of blood crashed over me, my anger washed away like I’d been doused in cold water. I stepped around the desk.

The librarian lay on his back in front of the counter, jaw unlatched in an endless scream, teeth scattered around him, nose crushed into his face. Blood pooled underneath his head, almost black in the dim light, the stain spreading wider and wider like a portal of darkness opening beneath him.

Wenshu and Yufei appeared behind me, freezing at the sight of blood. I held my breath and gripped the edge of the counter, praying that the lightness in my chest wasn’t a precursor to collapsing again. I really didn’t want to be facedown in someone else’s blood and teeth.

“Wow,” Yufei said unsteadily.

Wenshu groaned. “I just wanted a quiet night at the library.”

This sort of violence wasn’t uncommon back home, where those who wore too many gold rings would have their fingers cut off late at night, but I’d expected the palace grounds to be safer. Perhaps the librarian had upset some of the Northern scholars who weren’t used to being bossed around? Whoever had done this had come armed—the only bodies I’d seen with skulls crushed like grapes had either fallen from a great height or been bludgeoned with rocks.

“Should we alert the guards?” I said. I felt a bit bad about walking away from a dead body that I could have brought back, but since I wasn’t even allowed to practice regular alchemy, getting caught using the most forbidden type of alchemy on a rude librarian wasn’t high on my list of priorities.

Wenshu shook his head. “They’ll find him eventually. We should leave.”

“Why? It’s not like we killed him,” Yufei said.

“You think anyone else is going to see it that way?” Wenshu said, whirling around. “No one wants us here! They’ll take any excuse to get rid of us.”

I swallowed down the sharp taste of blood and peered around the desk. Just past the librarian’s hand, gemstones sparkled across the floor, a blue satchel in shreds beside them.My stones.

I hopped over the body, making Wenshu grumble about bloody footprints, then bent down and started to gather up pieces of jade and iron.

“Zilan,” Wenshu said, “we need to—”

“You go put away the scrolls,” I said. “Jiejie, help me gather these.”

Wenshu ran off, clearly too stressed to argue, while Yufei passed me pieces of cobalt and diamond. I kept careful track of the stones I had on me, never wanting to be caught without what I needed. That was how I knew instantly what was missing.

“The pearls,” I said. “Do you see them?”

Yufei frowned and looked around as Wenshu hurried back, face flushed, hands full of Yufei’s discarded orange. “It’s clean,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

“The pearls are gone,” I said.

Wenshu clenched his teeth. “Maybe it was a thief who took them,” he said. “Does it matter?”

“Then why didn’t they take her diamonds?” Yufei said, passing me a chunk of amethyst.

“Look, I’d rather not get caught standing over a dead body because of a handful of pearls,” he said. “Can we go?”

“It was more than a handful.”

“Zilan!”Wenshu said. “Please, let’s go before we actually get in trouble.”

I sighed and stuffed the rest of my gems into my pockets along with the scraps of my satchel. Wenshu was right. Pearls weren’t worth getting thrown in jail. Perhaps they’d rolled under a desk somewhere. But something about this didn’t sit right with me. I couldn’t shake the sense that no matter how much I kept to myself, trouble was going to find me regardless.