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The maid raised an eyebrow. “You’ve sold your body for a place in the palace and you can’t even talk about it? You’re going to be eaten alive here.”

Perhaps literally, I thought.

The maid kept walking into a courtyard and I shuffled behind her, not sure if she actually wanted me to follow. “Because you’re an alchemist,” she said, “the prince has ordered the Moon Alchemist to supervise you from sunrise to sunset. From sunset to sunrise, you are a concubine, and need to be available in your room in case the prince calls on you.”

“Great,” I said, with all the enthusiasm of a wet pair of socks. If the prince expected me to wait around for him, he would be sorely surprised.

“Don’t leave the inner palace without a guard and don’t bring any men here unless you want them executed,” the maid said. “Now stop following me. I have work to do.”

I ground to a stop, feeling a bit foolish standing by myself in the middle of a courtyard far more beautiful than me, unsure where to go.

The maid stopped just before she reached the end of the bridge.

“Oh, and one last thing,” she said. “There are four locks on your door, and they’re not for decoration. I suggest you use them all.”

The training ground was deserted in the evening, nothing but white mist and hushed winds whispering over the walls. But I didn’t trust quiet in a place like this. Night was when the palace opened its eyes.

I rolled a piece of amethyst between my fingers, then tossed it into the middle of the courtyard, where it burst with a small flare of light and hiss of pale pink smoke.

There was no responding attack, no sharp intake of breath, no answer at all in the shattered stillness. I took a deep breath and ran out into the clearing.

With a white flash, the dewy ground beneath me turned into a sheet of ice. My next step slid out from under me, sending me spilling forward onto my palms. I rolled onto my back just as a figure descended on me, and I kicked them in the chest before they could pin me down.

“Ow, what the hell, Scarlet?” they said, coughing.

I reached for the tree behind me with my ringed hand, ready to reshape it to trap them under its heavy branches.

But the tree reached for me first, squeezing me around the rib cage and forcing my hands apart with its smaller branches. It yanked me off the ground, holding me high up above the courtyard, where all I could do was kick my legs at the air.

“You didn’t say this was two against one!” I said, sagging against the branches.

The Paper Alchemist appeared from behind the tree, adjusting the embroidered cap on her head. “You’re supposed to be practicing alchemy, not breaking ribs,” she said.

“It’s a reflex,” I said, while the River Alchemist rose to her feet, coughing.

“It’s okay, I have plenty left,” she said.

The Paper Alchemist had startled me awake in the reading room by shaking my whole table. The first thing I saw after opening my eyes was the bright green of her irises. She wore a red dress with flowered embroidery so detailed that it looked like the fabric held a thousand worlds inside it. Her gloves had small pieces of alchemical stones stitched into them, making her hands twinkle. The River Alchemist popped up behind her in the reading room’s doorway, grinning and waving a tattooed hand. It had been their idea to smuggle me away to practice sparring. I was hesitant after how terribly my last sparring session had gone, but I was too curious about the other royal alchemists’ powers to say no.

It will be an easy warm-up, the Paper Alchemist had said, showing me a piece of purple silk fastened to a stick.Just grab the flag before one of us can catch you.

It turned out that trained royal alchemists could catch me in about thirty seconds.

“Your problem is that you fight like a viper,” the Paper Alchemist said, leaning against the tree. From up here, I could see the top of her cap, embroidered with interlocking gold flowers. I kicked my foot to at least get the satisfaction of knocking it off, but she ducked without even looking. “You lash out hissing, unthinking,” she said.

“Vipers are deadly,” I said, falling limp against the branches. “Can you let me down now?”

“Vipers are deadly, butyou’renot,” the Paper Alchemist said. “You should be fighting like a fox.”

“Have you even seen a fox before?” I said. “They’re lazy. They just steal eggs when birds aren’t looking.”

“Exactly!” the River Alchemist said. “Minimal effort, no confrontation, all the eggs they could want.” She nodded to the icy ground. “I had you down before I even touched you.”

“I...guess you’re right,” I said.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that?” the Paper Alchemist said, cupping a hand around her ear and grinning.

“I said let me down or I’ll tell the Moon Alchemist you kidnapped me.”