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“The Empress must die.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“You’re out of your mind,” Yufei said, taking another bite of lamb leg.

I sat on the floor of Wenshu and Yufei’s new quarters, a basket of food spread out before us, my guard just outside the door as we spoke in Guangzhou dialect. Though I still needed a guard for the sake of the prince’s image, he’d instructed them not to follow me into every room. The prince had also stationed plainclothes guards in the western ward on my behalf and ordered them to watch over my cousins at night.

I had asked the chefs for a more elaborate meal than usual in order to break the news to my cousins that we were going to kill the Empress. Part of me had hoped they would help, but as Wenshu sat with his arms crossed, food untouched, I thought that might have been too optimistic.

“Gege?” I said, tearing a piece of bread to bits as I waited for his response.

He let out a long sigh, closing his eyes. “Please tell me you’re joking,” he said at last.

Yufei slowed her chewing, glancing uneasily at Wenshu.

“I’ve told you what the Empress does,” I said. “Don’t you think she deserves to die?”

“It doesn’t matter whatIthink about the Empress,” Wenshu said, his eyebrow twitching. “I’m a third-tier scholar from Guangzhou.”

“Of course it matters!” I said. “You’re the one who’s always said the mandate of Heaven is a lie, that the royal family should get their authority from the people.”

“There’s a difference between a moral objection andplanning an assassination,” Wenshu said, covering his face with his hands and taking a steadying breath. “Why are you even telling us this? It’s not like you listen to anything I say anymore. You’re going to do it anyway.”

The bread had crumbled to bits in my hands, falling through my fingers. “I thought you might help us,” I said quietly. “You’re smart,Gege. Maybe with your help, we could—”

“I’m smart enough to not want anything to do with this,” Wenshu said.

I turned to Yufei, but she stuffed her mouth with rice and gave a noncommittal shrug that could have meant anything.

“Someone at the palace is already after our heads,” Wenshu said. “What do you think they’ll do to us if you’re caught?”

“They’re going to come after us regardless,” I said. “They won’t stop until the Empress is dead.”

“The Empress will never die!” Wenshu said, rising to his feet. “Do you think she wiped out the entire House of Li and locked up the Emperor through sheer idiocy? You thinkyouof all people can stop her?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.

“You’re seventeen,” Wenshu said, clenching his fists. “You’re a girl, not an army general.”

“I’m a royal alchemist.”

“Yes, because shelet you become one!” Wenshu said. “How do you not understand that? She controls everything!”

“She doesn’t control me,” I said. “The prince and I—”

Wenshu let out a strangled sound, hands twitching like he wanted to grab something and wring the life out of it. “Don’t get me started on the prince,” he said. “This is all his fault.”

“What?” I said, clenching my teeth.

“Soup is getting cold,” Yufei said, ladling some into both of our bowls. “Eat now, talk later.”

Wenshu shook his head. “You’d follow him anywhere because he’s the first man who’s ever liked you,” he said. “It’s not even real, but you’re throwing away your life for him.”

I slammed my fist onto the table. Soup sloshed over the rims of bowls, rice jumping up in white sparks, cups overturning and gushing hot tea across my knees, but I didn’t care.

“I’d follow him anywhere because unlike you,he treats me like a royal alchemist!” I said. “He believes in me! He looks at me and sees someone great, not an annoying little sister too foolish to make her own decisions.”

“You’re not making your own decisions!” Wenshu said. “You’re doing whatever the prince wants!”