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“No, no, it’s not,” I said quickly. I turned to the prince. “I wasjoking. I don’t want to eat your ducks.”

“But I was so rude to you,” he said. “It only seems fair.”

“Your ducks weren’t rude to me! I don’t want to eat them!”

“I do,” Yufei whispered, before I shot her a murderous look.

“It’s a sincere offer. You can have any one of them,” he said, even though he looked like he was about to cry. Despite how horrifying the gesture was, I knew that the ducks were probably the only thing of true value to him, and the fact that he was willing to kill one for me was oddly sweet.

I pressed a hand to my forehead. “No, I don’t need... You’re forgiven, okay? I don’t want your ducks, so pleaseget off the floor.”

The prince sniffled, finally rising to his feet. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Don’t thank me,” I said, still wanting to melt into the floor out of shame that this mess was unfolding in front of my cousins, “just tell me why the hell you came here in the middle of the night in your pajamas.”

He grimaced. “It’s my sisters.”

His sisters?As far as I knew, the Empress had only had one daughter, and she’d died as an infant. So who was the prince talking about? Unless he meant his half sisters, who we’d seen on horseback when we first arrived in Chang’an.

“You mean the traitor’s daughters?” I said, scrubbing my face, still far too tired for this conversation.

The prince sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Consort Xiao was not...” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Yes, that’s who I mean. They’ve been taken to the dungeons.”

“That’s all?” Yufei said. “We took our first-round exams in dungeons, you know.”

“You don’t understand,” the prince said. “No one leaves the royal dungeons unless they’re in a coffin.”

I thought back to the little girls racing on horseback, how they’d smiled even when the crowd booed and spit at them. I knew that coffins for girls that size could only hold five or six míngqì before the lids wouldn’t shut. I’d seen so many children’s funerals on our street, and they never got any easier. They always reminded me of Wenshu and Yufei, of how they could have been in those boxes instead of here with me.

“Isn’t your palace full of royal alchemists?” Yufei asked, stepping closer. Her hair cascaded wildly around her face, like the mane of a wild horse.

“Yes, but they’re too heavily guarded right now,” he said.

“Are you not the Crown Prince of Dai?” Yufei said. “Can’t you just order the guards to poke their own eyes out and free your sisters yourself?”

“It’s not that simple,” he said, grimacing. “The guards don’t listen to me.”

“Oh no,” Wenshu said, switching to Guangzhou dialect and turning to me. “No, no, no. You know what he’s saying, don’t you?”

I blinked, still half-convinced I was dreaming.

“He’s saying he doesn’t have the authority to get his sisters out of jail,” Wenshu said slowly. “Who has more authority than the Crown Prince?”

“The Emperor,” I whispered, a cold pit opening up in my chest.

“Or the Empress,” Yufei said.

Wenshu sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two,” he said, “but considering we haven’t even passed our final exams yet, it’s really not an ideal time toget involved in a political conspiracy that could get all of us killed!”

“Plus, what does Zilan stand to gain from this?” Yufei said, not even bothering to switch dialects for some semblance of privacy, instead glaring straight at the prince. “You’re asking her to do something dangerous when she has more to lose than you.”

The prince’s eyes watered. “She’s right,” he said to me. “I know I’m asking too much of you. I know it’s not fair, and if there was any other way, I would take it. But there is nothing I wouldn’t do for my sisters. Please, Zilan. I’ll give you anything.”

Anything?

After the bread incident, I didn’t think I could stomach any food that the prince bought us. I wanted to feel like my life in Chang’an was my own, not something that he’d handed me. But some things were worth sacrificing my pride for.

“When you first came to Guangzhou, you offered me one hundred thousand gold,” I said. “I want you to send that to our parents.”