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“Are you sure this is enough?” the prince said, examining the small bag of activated citrine I’d passed him. “Shouldn’t we use more, just to be safe?”

I crossed my arms. “If the Empress receives a cup of rocks instead of tea, she’s going to notice.”

The prince nodded, setting the bag down, his gaze lingering somewhere past me.

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” I said. The prince was oddly sentimental about animals, so it wasn’t out of the question that he’d be squeamish about murdering his own mother, even if she’d killed his little sisters.

He shook his head, looking down at the mouse box. “I was just thinking... None of my taste testers have died this week,” he said quietly. “No monsters have come to my door. I’ve stayed up, waiting for them, but there wasn’t a single sound.”

“Isn’t that good?”

The prince sat down on the bed and gripped the sheets. “Zilan, ever since our dinner with my mother, no one has tried to kill me. I’ve been dodging assassination attempts for months, but all of a sudden, it’s like she’s given up. I know I shouldn’t question a good thing, but it only makes me feel like something worse is coming. If my mother doesn’t want me dead, it means she needs something else from me.”

“It doesn’t matter what her plans are,” I said. “She won’t have time to execute them. She’ll be dead by morning.” Still, the prince’s words unnerved me. It was hard to accept that my arrival in the palace and the sudden ceasefire were a coincidence. Was I part of the Empress’s plan as well?

The prince hung his head, so I sat beside him and shoved his shoulder. “Stop worrying,” I said. “If you’re too anxious, you’re going to make mistakes.”

“I am quite literally always anxious,” he said, “so that might be a problem.”

“I’ve practiced more than enough!” I said, jerking a finger toward the mouse box. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I trust no one else but you,” the prince said. “Was that not obvious from the moment I found you in Guangzhou and asked you to break the law for me?”

“You didn’t even know me then,” I said. “That just means you were a fool for trusting a stranger.”

The prince seemed to think this over, studying my face for a long, quiet moment. “I might be a fool for plenty of other reasons,” he said at last, “but trusting you will never be one of them.”

I turned away rather than acknowledge the sentiment. His words unlaced me, softened me like a flower that unfurled in the sunlight. “That’s easy to say in hindsight,” I finally said, feigning indifference. “I could have just mugged you and run away the day we met.”

The prince laughed. “It would be an honor to be robbed by you, Fan Zilan.”

“It’s not too late for that,” I said, jokingly tugging at one of his rings.

But the prince simply slipped the ring off and set it in my palm. “You don’t need to steal from me,” he said. “I’ll give you anything.”

I shoved the ring back at him. “You can’t just say things like that,” I said. How could he sit there and promise me the world so effortlessly? “Normal people don’t say things like that.”

“Are we normal people?” the prince asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Youcertainly aren’t.”

He smiled, slipping the ring back on. “Then I can say whatever I want.”

The Empress’s afternoon tea came just after high noon every day, delivered by one of the kitchen servants. The prince said the consequences for delivering lukewarm tea were severe, so the servant always walked quickly.

Is there some sort of alchemy that could make her fall?the prince had asked during our planning.

Yes, I’d said.It’s called “soap and water.”

So we’d crushed up soap beans that definitely did not make me think of Wenshu and spilled water in the hallway outside of the kitchen.

A girl about my age backed out of the kitchen with a tray, hair wet from steam, gaze focused on the rattling teacups in front of her. Part of me felt bad for involving her in our plan at all. But no one in the palace was safe if the Empress went on with her monstrous experiments, so in a way, I was helping her.

“Excuse me!” the prince said, stepping out into her path far too soon, and I had no choice but to follow.

“Your Highness!” the girl said, the words a surprised shout. She bowed awkwardly while holding the tray out so her hair wouldn’t fall over the Empress’s cups.

“Stand up, it’s fine,” the prince said, walking toward her too quickly.You’re going to slip on the soap before she does, I thought, grabbing his hand and forcing him to slow down. He didn’t act surprised at all, simply squeezing my hand and pulling me along with him, thankfully slower this time.