Page 82

“I think you need to stay at a different inn,” I said.

“Youthink?” Wenshu said, his face red. He grabbed the bag from the floor and stormed across the room, throwing the door open to where the flustered guard stood waiting. “Get rid of this,” Wenshu said, shoving it into his arms, then slammed the door before the guard could answer. He turned to me, his eyes murderous.

“I know a soul tag when I see one,” Wenshu said. “Do you want to explain to me why alchemists are making monsters that want to eat us?”

“I don’t know why they came for you,” I said. It could be that the Empress knew I’d set the princesses free and was trying to punish me, or maybe the monsters knew the taste of my blood and had come after my family because they smelled similar.

“So what did you do?” Wenshu said, glaring. “Because it’s a bit strange to me that once you moved into the palace, monsters start bursting through our windows.”

“I thought the point of us coming here was so we could work for the Empress!” I said. “Just because I passed my test and you didn’t, suddenly it’s too dangerous?”

Wenshu’s face pinched. “There are a lot more scholars than alchemists, Zilan,” he said, not exactly unkindly, but there was something just barely sharp about his words, like I’d pricked my finger on a thorn. “The competition is different, and we don’t have a crown prince looking out for us.”

Heat rushed to my face. “You think he had anything to do with—”

“He just means that the prince is dangerous,” Yufei said. “If rich people know your name, you’re going to make enemies no matter what you do.”

“I had to stay alive!”I said. “I don’t know what you want me to do! Roll over and die? Even if I wanted to, I can’t leave now!” My life wasn’t mine anymore, and the more I learned about alchemy, the deeper I fell into the sticky secrets of the palace. And what did I get in exchange?

Money.

I’d sold my soul for gold, the only god I believed in. The Empress was right.

I thought of Auntie and Uncle and couldn’t bring myself to truly regret it, but I had a sinking feeling that the palace would gut me like a pig and turn my bones to wind chimes and still want more and more, and I could do nothing at all but keep bleeding.

“I can ask the prince to find you a safer place to stay,” I said quietly, because that seemed to be the only thing I could offer them.

“No,” Wenshu said. “Don’t tell the prince anything. We’ll find our own place under different names and write to you when we get there. Leave the royal family out of it.”

I jumped at the sound of knocking, but the guard’s timid voice followed soon after. “I, um, did what you asked,” he said.

“Go,” Wenshu said.

“Are you—”

“We can handle it,” Wenshu said.

“We’ll let you know as soon as we figure out where to go,” Yufei said.

I didn’t want to return to the palace, but it seemed that both of them were pushing me out. “I brought you food,” I said, gesturing to the parcel on the floor. But I hesitated in the doorway, remembering the monster the Moon Alchemist had showed me, the sounds of rat flesh being torn apart.

“Whatever you do, don’t eat any jewels,” I said. “The Moon Alchemist said—”

“Jewels?” Wenshu said incredulously. “If we have any extra jewels, the last thing we’ll do is eat them. Be serious, Zilan.”

I clenched my jaw, wondering how my warning them had somehow turned into me being scolded again. Could I do nothing right in their eyes?

“Never mind,” I said stiffly, sliding the door open then slamming it shut behind me.

The guard followed me back to the palace, where I curled up in my bed and told myself that tonight didn’t mean anything, that the Moon Alchemist was wrong. I fell asleep repeating my own lies until they seeped into my dreams.The Moon Alchemist is wrong, and everything is fine, I thought, even as the words dissolved like waterlogged paper that floated down a bloodred stream. Then the waters dried up and there was only the red dirt road, and the five empty doorways, their emptiness screaming for me.

But the name they called was not mine.

I drew closer and the shadows prickled across my fingertips, devouring my skin, gnawing holes in my bones until I was a nothingness as loud as the empty arches. When I woke in the morning and turned toward the brightness of the sun shattering through the lattice of my windows, I couldn’t remember who the darkness had called for.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Moon Alchemist was keeping a secret.