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“Are you hurt?”

They shook their heads.

“Is this really where the prince put you?” I said, leaning against the doorframe. “Surely there are better hiding places.”

“We couldn’t find him,” said the younger one. “We didn’t want to be seen, so we came here.”

I sighed, rising to my feet. So much for quickly dealing with the prince before returning to alchemy training. “I’ll find him for you,” I said. Surely the palace had some sort of fortified safe room he could put them in, at least temporarily.

“Don’t leave!” the older one said, grabbing my wrist. “What if the monsters find us?”

I paused to think, then handed the girl my dagger. “This is just in case,” I said. “I’m going to seal the doors shut, okay? I won’t be long.”

Their eyes watered, but they nodded and scooted back into the shadows of the closet. I felt like a monster shutting the door on them and locking them in the dark, but I didn’t want to drag them out into the hallway without a better plan. After using up all the iron in my bag, I didn’t have many strong stones left, so I jammed the locks with granite, testing the handles to make sure they wouldn’t move, then took off running.

The hallways were near deserted as the servants prepared for lunch, but I managed to grab a maid, who told me the prince was in a meeting with foreign diplomats on the other side of the palace. I flew past bewildered servants carrying trays of food and guards who had probably never seen a woman run in their lives. I tripped and skinned my knees in the dirt, then gathered up my skirts and ran faster. The prince had said that the monsters had tracked members of the House of Li across the country—it wouldn’t take them long to follow the scent of the princesses’ blood from the convent.

I reached the meeting hall panting and covered in dirt, the guards so bewildered that at first they didn’t even try to stop me from entering. A hand grabbed me just before I could reach the door.

“The prince is occupied,” he said.

I was too out of breath to argue, so I twisted my arm out of his grip and stormed in before he could stop me.

A room full of bearded old men in blue silk spun around, all of their golden eyes focused on me. The prince sat at the opposite end, brush hovering over an unfurled scroll. He locked eyes with me, the brush slipping from his fingers, splashing ink across the page.

“Zilan?” he said. His gaze twitched to the men around him. “You can’t be here right now,” he said, the same even voice he used to talk to crowds and guards and everyone beneath him. I knew it was only because of the diplomats, but I wanted to wring his neck all the same.

“Your Highness,” I said, bowing. “Forgive me for interrupting, but you’re needed immediately.”

The prince only gaped at me like I’d dragged a dead body into his meeting. “Zilan,you can’t be here,” he said again, a desperate edge to his words.

“Isn’t that your concubine?” one of the diplomats said.

The prince pressed his lips into a tight line. When he didn’t answer, the diplomat to his left let out a stiff laugh. “How progressive of you, Your Highness,” he said, “letting your concubine interrupt your meetings.”

“It’s urgent,” I said, but the prince only winced at my words.

“She’s not even guarded,” the man to his right said, his tone light but his words sharp. “How will you know if her children are yours?”

The other men laughed, because the comment would be treasonous if not a joke, but the prince only stared at the slowly bleeding ink across his scroll.

I’m making him lose face in front of important diplomats, I realized, wishing I could just tell the prince about his sisters. But there were too many people here—surely word would get back to the Empress. I could tell him that a convent had burned down, but in the eyes of foreign diplomats, that alone wouldn’t be a good enough reason for him to leave. What could I say that would make these men listen? What did they even care about enough to stop a meeting for?

Themselves, I thought. But I couldn’t just threaten them directly. My gaze drifted across their gold embroidered robes, the gold flecks in their teeth, their pearl necklaces and jade earrings. Those who ate life gold didn’t need to fear aging, but they all feared the other ways their expensive lives could end.

“My guard fell ill when I was in the outer courtyard,” I said, bowing again. “I didn’t want to be unguarded, so I came to you first.”

“Your guard?” the prince echoed. He knew that I was supposed to be with the Moon Alchemist right now, that I had no guard when I was with her. His expression shifted, a cold mask wiping away his distress, like he was too aware he was being watched. He picked up his brush with stiff fingers.

I nodded. “Yes, the one from the east, just outside of Chang’an.”

“Near the convent?” he said quietly.

I could have melted into the table from relief. “Yes, that one,” I said, even though we both knew no such guard existed.

The prince hardly seemed to breathe, casting a quick glance at the diplomat on his left before meeting my gaze. Getting the prince to understand was one thing, but excusing him from an important meeting without losing face was another.

Luckily, I knew how to scare rich men.