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Chang’an did not seem like a place where one could live quietly. It was a city with teeth, and it already knew my name.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In the morning, I tried to return to the library only to be swept up in a training exercise in the muddy courtyard. Though I wasn’t keen on working with people who thought of me as a peasant or a whore, part of me wondered how formally trained alchemists practiced. Apparently, sparring was a regular part of their curriculum.

“It sharpens your mind,” explained one of the female alchemists.

“For what?” I’d said. “Aren’t we just making gold?”

She rolled her eyes. “Alchemists are expected to defend the royal family if the guards can’t,” she said. “Where did you study again?”

I’d watched the male alchemists pair off and take turns blasting each other’s eyebrows off with firestones or transforming blunt weapons from the wet dirt, reluctantly laughing along with the crowd when one used earthstones to smash a six-foot hole in the ground, which his opponent promptly tumbled into.

Some of them had turned each stone into a ring to better arm themselves, although having several rings on each finger seemed to hamper their movements. Some, like me, had chosen only the most useful stones to transform into rings or bracelets or embroidered gloves, keeping the rest in satchels. One alchemist, who I’d mentally dubbed Fire Fingers, had apparently dunked his hands in a fire-retardant gel, embroidered silk gloves with traces of firestone, and used alchemy to activate them so that the flames devoured the fabric, leaving him with two blazing fistfuls of blue fire.

The longer I watched, the more I began to wonder exactly how much the rest of them had learned in school while I’d been working the shop. Beating the alchemists of Guangzhou was one thing, but the North practically bled gold, and its students clearly could afford the best alchemy tutors in the empire.

“Hey,hùnxie,” one of the men called. I knew the voice even before I looked up to find Zheng Sili, arms crossed. “Your turn.”

I wanted to slink away and study, but everyone had turned toward me. “I have better things to do than bathe in mud like a pig,” I said.

“Ah yes, you do that enough in your free time,” Zheng Sili said, laughter rippling behind him. He crossed the circle, standing right in front of me. “You’re too confident. You think you stand a chance against a trained alchemist? You only got out of Guangzhou because you flashed your skin at the judges.”

I took a steadying breath.You need to study, I thought.Fighting with Zheng Sili won’t make you a royal alchemist.“How’s your wrist?” I said at last. “Did you tell everyone how I made you cry?”

Zheng Sili’s eyebrow twitched. “There’s no need to get defensive, Zilan. I know you’re embarrassed that a whole town saw you without your dress, but it’s not like there’s much to see under your clothes anyway.”

Without thinking, I shoved him hard. The crowd hurried away, murmuring as the circle opened up wider around us.

Fine. If there was anyone here I wouldn’t mind fighting, it was Zheng Sili.

He smiled knowingly and took a step back, waving me into the circle with his palm facing up, like I was an animal. My face burned and I tightened my grip on my new satchel, which was nothing but some bundled-up scraps knotted to my sash.

Without warning, Zheng Sili reached a hand into his satchel. I didn’t see what stones he grabbed, but with one smooth arc of his arm, he cast something to the ground and a circle of flames carved itself into the grass around us. Great walls of fire singed my heels, forcing me to step closer or ignite my dress.

What kind of firestone had he used? How did he have such precise control over the fire’s shape? Was there already something flammable on the ground? I swallowed, even though the fire had sapped all the moisture from my mouth.

Where did you study again?the other alchemist had said.

In an attic above a míngqì shop, I thought bitterly. And I was beginning to feel that it wasn’t enough to get me out of this.

I shoved my hand into my bag and pulled out three pieces of granite, sharpening them into a blade with the touch of the iron rings on my left hand. I probably should have thought of something more creative, something flashy to show all the other alchemists not to bother me anymore, but with so many eyes on me, it was the best I could think of.

I lunged forward and struck at Zheng Sili, but he wrapped his hand around my knife. His skin had turned the color of jade, a flexible but sturdy material encasing his hand as he snapped my blade off easily, casting it to the side. He’d moved so fast that I hadn’t even seen what stones he’d grabbed before the transformation burned them up. With a flash of light against his jade hand, his index finger sharpened into a green blade.

He slashed at me, the strike so far from my center that I thought he was trying to tear my dress again, but instead he sliced my satchel apart, all my stones tumbling to the ground.

Forget alchemy, I thought, jamming my palm into his nose. The crunch and strangled scream that followed was satisfying for only an instant before he bit down hard on my fingers.

I tried to wrench my hand away in a panic, but his teeth only clamped harder. Human mouths were more than capable of severing fingers, and I wouldn’t put it past Zheng Sili to try. If I were to lose a finger, I would be damned if it happened in such a ridiculous and embarrassing way as this.

I reached up to jam my thumb into his eye, but his jade hand grabbed my wrist and wrenched it back. His teeth had already broken skin, and bones would come next. I had no stones, and no free hands. The iron rings on my right hand were still intact, but what was I supposed to transform in Zheng Sili’s mouth? His spit? His tongue? Transformations with metalstones like iron were meant forthings, not bodies. Alchemical body augmentation was a science by itself, one that Zheng Sili had probably studied, but of course, I hadn’t. I was half a breath away from surrendering just to save my fingers when his pearl tooth caught the light.

Nowthatwas a stone I could work with.

I wrenched my hand back just enough until my iron ring clinked against the tooth.

With a flash of white light, the pearl popped out of his gums as it snapped into a spherical shape, releasing the tension on my fingers. Zheng Sili let out a startled breath and the pearl rolled across his tongue, shooting down his throat.