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When we were alone again in the hallway, the prince offered me his hand with a thin smile. I took it with more force than necessary, nearly dragging him to the ground as I stood up. He steadied himself quickly and pulled me closer, one hand on the small of my back, ignoring the hardening sludge beneath his fingers. I held my breath, my whole body tense at his closeness.

“There are court ladies watching through the windows, and the guards are still listening,” he whispered. “Come to my room and we can talk.”

I nodded and forced my muscles to relax, allowing him to lead me down the hallway. My questions could wait until my life wasn’t on the line. He froze at the sound of chirping behind us and turned to see the small, dirty duck in the middle of the hall. I rolled my eyes and scooped it up. “I’ll explain later,” I said, jamming the bird into my pocket.

Lights still burned beyond the paper doors as we passed, shadows shifting behind them, so I knew some of the court ladies were lingering close by, listening. We entered a wing of the palace I’d never seen before, where jeweled murals covered the walls in cold jades and cut rubies and shaved pearls, sharp enough to draw blood.

Two guards stood in front of a set of double doors painted with gold cranes. They bowed as the prince approached and opened the doors for us.

We stepped into a room bigger than my entire house in Guangzhou, the walls glittering with jewels carefully glued into constellations across the wallpaper. Red silk shrouded a bed in the center of the room, and my skin burned as I remembered that I was hisconcubinenow.

I jumped away as soon as the prince released me, backing against a dresser, rattling the scrolls on top of it.

“Zilan,” the prince sighed, “I’m so sorry. The guards all report to my mother. I panicked. I didn’t know how else to—”

“Let me be very clear,” I said, gripping the dresser behind me. The prince closed his mouth and nodded. “I am not your concubine. At least, not when we’re alone. And if that’s not all right with you, then you might as well turn me over to your guards now.”

The prince shook his head frantically. “I don’t want you to be my concubine,” he said.

It was the answer I’d wanted, but somehow it stung anyway. Of course he didn’t want someone like me as a concubine. The royal concubines were chosen from the most beautiful girls in all of China. He’d said he’d had fifty to choose from, and yet not a single one had been good enough for him.

“I mean, you should live here as an alchemist,” the prince said, his gaze softening. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

It’s not like I had much of a choice anymore. I belonged to the House of Li now, and I could be a royal alchemist or leave in a coffin. Then a horrible thought rushed through me. “I can still be a royal alchemist, can’t I?” I said. Had the prince just thrown away my new title?

He shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

“I won’t have to spend all day doing concubine things?”

“What is it you think concubines do?” he asked, frowning.

“I... I don’t know,” I said, looking down. “Whatever their master wants?”

The prince laughed. “Well, when my father had concubines, most of their days were spent sewing and gossiping with the eunuchs, but seeing as you’re the first alchemist my mother has selected in years, I think she’ll agree that you have better things to do. Though you would need to move into the inner palace and sleep in my room at times so that mother doesn’t suspect anything.”

My face burned, but the prince quickly waved his hands as if to scrub the thought from the air. “And I’ll sleep on the floor, of course.”

But I couldn’t meet his eyes, and he kept talking as if to drown his last sentence with a deluge of words.

“You’ll have access to the royal libraries as well, which might help you with your studies. And clothes and food will be provided for you, of course. You may need to attend some dinners with my mother to keep up appearances, but I’ll make sure they understand you’re an alchemist first and foremost, so they won’t send you off to mend clothes or some other nonsense like my father’s old concubines, and—”

“My siblings?” I asked at last, partially because I had never lived farther than a short walk away from them and partially because I wasn’t sure if the prince would ever stop talking otherwise. “Can they come as well?”

The prince grimaced. “The families of concubines do not typically move with them to the palace,” he said. “Maybe in time, I could bring them both here under a similar arrangement, though I don’t want to draw too much attention to your family at the moment.”

“A similar arrangement? Surely my brother can’t be a concubine as well.”

“Well, the term is notconcubinefor men, but he could certainly come here eventually. Unless... I don’t suppose your brother is interested in being a eunuch?”

“Umm, I think he’ll be fine waiting,” I said.

“I want to help them,” the prince said. “Please, believe me. I just need to be careful.”

“I know,” I said, dropping my gaze. The prince always meant well, even if he was a fool who didn’t know when to stop talking.

He shifted from foot to foot, glancing over his shoulder at the door. “It might look suspicious if I sent you away right now,” he said quietly.

I nodded, rubbing my eyes. After this hellish day, I wasn’t sure that I could trudge all the way back to the western ward, which was probably closed by now anyway.