Page 3

Five Years Later

I was not in the mood to deal with thieves.

Any other day, I might have been flattered that they were after me.

Not today.

I’d spent a month forging the painting rolled under my arm—mostly on an empty stomach—and I just wanted to sell the damned thing and stuff my face with something other than boiled cabbage and dumplings.

Cabbage-stuffed dumplings no less.

So help me, I was bringing four chickens home tonight.

A bucket of fried noodles too.

If I sold the painting, it would be my biggest deal yet.

The goal was to net at least three thousand jens.

The auction house would get a third, and Gaari and I would split what was left.

The agreement rankled me, but that had been our deal since we’d met, and much as I hated to admit it, he deserved the cut.

It wasn’t easy to find a dealer who kept his word.

Or whom I could trust…

mostly.

Hunger panged my gut, and I tucked the scroll tighter under my arm while I swerved left, trying hard not to look back.

Twenty paces behind trailed a trio of Gangsun’s most despicable art thieves.

To anyone else, they bore a passable resemblance to scholars.

They wore the typical button-down jackets in joyless blue, with matching boat-shaped hats and yolk-yellow fans.

But scholars didn’t usually stalk about the marketplace with veins bulging out of their necks and knives poking out of their sleeves.

Needed more acting lessons, these thieves.

And Gangsun needs civil prefects who actually enforce the law, I grumbled in my head.

I glared at the two ivory-collared prefects I passed, but they were too busy watching a cricket race to notice me, a pretend noblewoman trying not to trip over her menace of a dress.

In fairness, that was probably a good thing.

Though the thieves behind me could have used a thrashing from Governor Renhai’s cane, I wasn’t exactly the most law-abiding citizen either.

Come to think of it, my crimes would likely earn me more time in prison.

Trying to hurry, I hiked up my skirt and cursed Gaari’s advice to playact as a noblewoman today.

Your art’ll fetch a higher price if you look rich, he’d said.

He’d better be right.

Summers in Gangsun were usually cool, but not today.

Sweat beaded along my hairline, and gods, my wig itched.

But I didn’t dare scratch it.

My own blue tresses were tucked under a high pile of black knots and braids that Fal had spent all morning wrestling together, pinned in place with peacock feathers and silk chrysanthemums.

“Are you sure this makes me look rich?” I’d asked my sister.

“It’s piled like a tower of buns on my head. Weighs as much too.” I tried turning my neck, but I could hardly move without the wig threatening to slip off.

“Stop that!” cried Fal.

“I haven’t finished pinning you down.”

As Fal inserted two more pins at my hairline, securing the wig, I got to work too.

I sucked in my cheeks, painting generous contours so they’d look fuller and less hungry, thinned my thick brows with flesh-colored cream, and gave my nose a daintier bridge.

Within minutes, I did look different.

Well-fed and rich, hardly a peasant off the street.

But my hair…

“Still think it looks like a pile of buns,” I muttered.

“Lumpy buns. Don’t you think, Nomi?”

“For Saino’s sake, you’re a portrait artist,” huffed Fal before Nomi could reply.

“Don’t you pay attention to anything ? All the ladies of the first rank wear their hair like this.”

“Why would I want to look like a lady of the first rank?” I said, smearing away my mole with my brush.

I painted a new one by my eye instead.

“I’d be eighth rank at best.”

Fal stabbed a feather into my wig.

Hard.

As I winced, she replied, “Still rich. Everyone rich tries to look like they’re of the first rank.”

“Everyone rich also doesn’t wear shoes like that,” said Nomi, glancing up from her book to nod at my feet.

“Should’ve kept to being a monk.”

My eyes flew down.

Demon turds, she was right.

Noblewomen didn’t wear flat straw shoes that could pass for a horse’s breakfast.

They wore silk slippers with embroidered peonies, and little upturned toe caps whose purpose I had yet to understand.

“Can you let out the hem on my dress, Fal?” I asked.

“It’s not your dress,” she replied.

“It’s the tailor shop’s, and I’m going to get fired if I’m late again—”

“I can’t go out like this. Unless you want to spend the rest of this year’s wages getting me out of prison.”

With a grumble, my sister set to work.

“Just don’t get the dress dirty,” she warned when she’d finished.

“Mrs.Su’s already suspicious about the tear I stitched up for you lasttime.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“And, Tru?” Fal crossed her arms, but the worry in her eyes was genuine.

“Try not to get robbed—or killed.”

Oh, I was trying.

Sometimes I wished Fal were the one who had to do all this playacting.

If there was one good thing about my younger sister, it was that she could charm a sparrow into a snake’s nest.

I’d bet she could get the scoundrels behind me to escort her to the auction house—and pay for her palanquin ride home too.

But deals were dangerous, and I wouldn’t put my sisters in danger.

Mama did enough of that already these days.

I cut diagonally across the south market, shouldering my way through crowds of shoppers.

Thank Amana, the auction house was just ahead.

A tremble shivered down my spine, and I threw a last glance back at the thieves, letting my eyes linger an extra beat on the one with long ears.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him.

Then I burst through the auction house gates.

Inside was a long and serene courtyard with a large bronze tank in the center, the water within mirroring the heavens.

As I passed my reflection, the effect of Fal’s wig and my makeup made me beam.

I was practically unrecognizable.

A proper lady of the eighth or ninth rank, so long as you didn’t look at my shoes.

I scanned the length of the courtyard for a hunched man with white hair.

Gaari was always easy to see but even easier to hear.

My ears picked out his deep and gravelly voice to my left, where he chatted garrulously with two art appraisers.

I tapped his shoulder, interrupting what sounded like an intense quarrel about where to get the best noodles in Gangsun.

“I’m here.”

“Lady Vee?” said Gaari, squinting his one eye.

He took a moment to recognize me.

“Praise the Sages! I was worried you might have lost your way.”

He bowed, but under his breath, so I alone could hear, he muttered, “You’re late.”

“There were thieves,” I muttered back, pairing my response with a glare.

Told you I should’ve been a monk.

Gaari didn’t waste a second.

“Thieves?” he repeated, loud enough for all to hear.

“ Thieves, you say? No wonder you look so harried, Lady Vee.” He made a show of gesturing at the open doors.

“Guards, be on the lookout for riffraff trying to infiltrate this fine establishment. Come, Lady Vee, let us find Mr.Jisan. He’s been waiting.”

Never one for subtlety, my friend Gaari.

But it worked for him.

The guards immediately straightened, and their attention flew to the street rather than lingering over my straw shoes and lack of identification papers.

Swiftly—and Gaari’s legs were so long I almost had to skip to catch up—he led me down the corridor into the office where the art authenticator waited.

Like all government officials, Mr.

Jisan was dressed in blue so dark it was nearly black.

His face was long like that of a mantis, and he stooped over his desk, commanding a neat tower of pamphlets and scrolls, a myriad of glass disks for examining art at a close angle, and a hefty red seal for authentication.

I’d met him twice before, but he didn’t recognize me.

Ironic, since his life’s work was to tell whether something was true or false.

But to a man like him, it’d never occur that a woman might be clever enough to cheat him.

That was the beauty of the scam Gaari and I had cooked up, and gods, it was satisfying.

“There, there,” Gaari said, patting the air above my shoulder as we entered the office.

“You mean to say, they attacked your palanquin? The brazenness of those rascals!”

The act was on, and I bit down hard on my cheek to summon a nice, rosy flush.

“The thieves followed me all the way from Hansun Park,” I said, lifting my voice an aggrieved octave.

“I had to cut through the market to get here! And my poor maid…she was so terrified. She tried to lead them astray, but—”

“They still trailed you,” Gaari finished for me.

“How terrifying. Were there many?”

I glanced at Mr.

Jisan.

His head was still bent over his work, but his hands weren’t moving anymore.

He was listening.

Considering.

Thieves meant there was interest in my scroll.

Interest meant there was profit to be had, and who didn’t love profit?

“At least five,” I finally replied, voice shaking.

“Maybe more. They’re still outside—dressed as scholars.”

“Ban Nu’s reprobates, I’d say.” With a harrumph, Gaari turned to Mr.

Jisan.

“Your Honor, will you send your guards to take a look? We cannot have thieves loitering about Gangsun’s oldest and most reputable auction house—”

Mr.

Jisan set down his magnifying disk, the clatter of the glass swiftly cutting Gaari off.

“No thief will dare enter an estate under the protection of Governor Renhai,” he said narrowly.

“Your scroll, if it is indeed worth anything, will be quite safehere.”

“Oh, that is a relief, Your Honor.” I took out my fan and batted it.

“Thank you for setting my mind at ease.”

“My graciousness has its limits.” Mr.

Jisan cast me a sideways glance through thick spectacles, and I could tell that he’d judged me to be a lady of low rank.

Hardly someone who’d bring in the prize of the day.

“You were due an hour ago,” he chided me, “and I am a busy man.”

“You’ll be glad you didn’t miss this one,” said Gaari, waving the scroll.

“Lady Vee is an avid collector of portraits. She has one of the finest collections in West Gangsun.”

Mr.

Jisan sniffed.

“That wouldn’t be difficult to do. There’s scarcely any interest in portraits these days. Faces age, empires fall, but land is eternal. ”

It was a quote from my least favorite Sage, who was responsible for the A’landan obsession with landscape painting.

Mountains and rivers and forests and villages— that was what sold for thousands of jens these days.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t what I specialized in forging.

“I’m fascinated by faces,” I replied, pretending not to hear, “and what they reveal about character.”

“Any street artist can paint a portrait,” Mr.

Jisan said.

“Few masters waste their time on the form. It is amateur work. Rarely sells for more than a few hundred—”

“Few masters indeed,” Gaari interrupted.

“But those would include Master Lei Wing. Wouldn’t you like to see it before you dismiss it? It’s one of his originals. Dated the year he went missing.”

At that, Mr.

Jisan perked up.

Interest buzzed in his dark eyes, and he motioned for the scroll.

“Show me.”

While Gaari carried forth the scroll, I backed into a corner and folded my skirt over my shoes.

My wig itched again, and thanks to the sun flooding in from the windows, sweat was accumulating on my nose and under my arms.

What a nuisance!

Once this was done I was never playing a lady again.

I just hoped no one would hear how my heart hammered.

This was the part of the transaction I hated the most.

Either I’d end the day with a fat sack of coins in my pocket, or Mr.

Jisan would ring that tiny bronze bell hanging at his side, and his guards would gleefully rumble in, hack off my right hand so I’d never paint again, and gouge out Gaari’s remaining eye.

Then they’d take us to prison.

Enough, Tru, I chided myself.

The authenticator hasn’t even begun the inspection yet!

Mr.

Jisan unwrapped the scroll.

First, he’d inspect the artist seal on the right corner of the paper.

That was Gaari’s handiwork, and the real reason he earned half my cut.

Gaari had a highly criminal talent for carving identification stamps, which explained the first rule he’d given me when we’d started working together: Only pick artists who are dead.

The dead couldn’t contest the unlawful use of their seals.

Even then, I typically chose artists who’d died young, who’d been famous but not too famous.

The profits were lower, but safer.

Besides, I had no illusions about my skill as a painter—I was better than average, but nowhere near a master.

If you ever get caught, it’s both our necks at stake, Gaari never failed to remind me.

And thick as it is, I’m rather fond of my neck.

I was fond of mine too, even the painful throb of its veins as yet another second passed without Mr.

Jisan uttering a sound.

Sometimes, a vivid imagination was a curse.

The second rule:

Don’t copy an artist’s work.

Paint a new one in the same style.

That was common sense.

I didn’t exactly have a personal library of classic art pieces, so I couldn’t have copied them stroke for stroke anyway.

And the third rule—

Mr.

Jisan pushed his spectacles up his nose, disrupting my thoughts.

“Hmm.”

My pulse spiked.

“Hmm?” I echoed.

Gaari darted a warning glance in my direction.

I’ll do the talking.

“Tell me about this work,” said Mr.

Jisan.

“It’s a Lei Wing original,” Gaari replied.

He folded the brocade cuffs of his sleeves while he spoke, then he leaned over the authenticator to give a more detailed introduction.

“An early work, but he’s already begun to master the meticulous style and come into his own. Notice the signature clouds, the rolling hills in the distance? They embrace his hometown, which he missed dearly during his service to theemperor.”

Gaari said nothing about the actual subject of the portrait: a fisherman in the middle of netting a catfish.

I’d modeled the face on an elderly basket weaver who’d taken daily residence on a corner of Dattu Street, deep in concentration as he worked.

Someone I doubted Mr.

Jisan would ever notice, even if he walked past him every day.

“What about the river?” queried the authenticator.

“Lei Wing didn’t paint rivers like this. The motion, the composition—it’s all wrong.”

My eyes dipped to the water winding between the fisherman’s legs.

Two catfish swam in the foreground, one light and one dark.

Their eyes and tails were so lifelike they could have swum out of the parchment.

But that wasn’t what made my breath catch.

It was the serpentine shape of the river.

If you stepped back, concentrated hard enough, it looked like a dragon, and the fish its two eyes.

My fingertips tingled, and I held them still by bunching up my skirt.

“I see nothing amiss,” I lied.

“I’ve seen plenty a Lei Wing piece with rivers like this before.”

“I haven’t,” said Mr.

Jisan flatly.

“Which makes this piece all the more special,” said Gaari, wielding his silkiest tone.

“Just look at the energy in the fisherman’s fingers. Those knuckles and knobs. Who else could paint hands like Lei Wing? And that expression on his face! Doesn’t he look like he might talk back at any moment? The piece will fetch a handsome price.”

I stared wretchedly at the river while Gaari covered up for me.

Honestly, I barely remembered painting it.

Then again, that always happened when I worked late and on an empty stomach.

Such a simple mistake, but it could be the end ofme.

I’d have to be more careful.

“The detail is there,” Mr.

Jisan allowed.

“The pose is similar to the Rice Farmer. ”

“So it is,” Gaari said, twisting his lips.

A token move that I knew all too well.

With a sense of perfect timing, he started to roll up the scroll.

“What are you doing?” Mr.

Jisan demanded.

“I wasn’t finished inspecting—”

“I’m an honest man, sir,” said Gaari.

“It’s occurred to me that you are less than enthusiastic about portraits, and I’m not here to waste anyone’s time. If you’d like to pass, simply say the word. I’ve an appointment with Lady Vee to speak with Mr.Wan, and we are running quite behind on time—”

“Mr.Wan?”

“Yes. He’s expressed interest in Lei Wing’s works many times. But we thought to approach you first, since you were so kind with the Chuli landscape that my associate sold you last time.”

“That was through you, Mr.Gaari?”

“Indeed.” Gaari bowed.

I held my breath as Mr.

Jisan beckoned Gaari for my painting, and as he unrolled it onto his desk once more.

I could feel my chest constricting, my lungs pinching and demanding new air, when at last Mr.

Jisan gave a nod.

“I’ll take it.”

“Wonderful news!” Gaari exclaimed.

“You’ll not regretit—”

“But first,” said Mr.

Jisan, waving Gaari away.

“Enlighten me, Lady Vee. Just how did you acquire Master Lei Wing’s art?”

I closed my fan and lowered it to my side.

The best lies were spun with threads of truth, and the reason Lei Wing was my favorite painter to forge was because…

“He went missing at sea,” I replied calmly.

Like Baba.

“My father dabbles in trade and encountered a merchant who’d smuggled Lei Wing’s last works out of Kiata. When I heard about this piece, I wanted it.”

“It is a rare find,” Mr.

Jisan agreed, but his look was still hard.

“Why are you selling it now?”

Were I Tru, I would have told him to go piss in a dragon’s beard.

I needed money, obviously.

My family had been surviving off boiled cabbage dumplings and I would have kissed a rat to sink my teeth into something that had actual spice and crunch.

But I wasn’t Tru; I was Lady Vee.

And as Lady Vee, I raised my sleeve and wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of my eye.

“My father is often at sea, and my mother is superstitious. She believes Lei Wing’s work will bring ill fortune to our family.”

It was the first time I’d liked Mr.

Jisan, the way he rolled his eyes at my fictional mother.

“Then rest assured, we will find the piece a proper home,” he said.

At last, Sages be praised, he signed the verification papers and stamped them with his seal.

“It is genuine,” Mr.

Jisan told his subordinates.

“Add it to the list for the next auction today.”

I was so relieved that I forgot not to scratch at my wig.

Before anyone saw, I quickly blew away the stray piece of blue hair that fell over my eyes.

Gaari nearly had to push me out into the courtyard.

I knew the routine; he wouldn’t leave with me.

He would see the transaction through, then find me afterward.

“Well done,” he whispered.

“Lunch is on me.”

Thank Amana, I was starving.

“At Luk’s?” I asked hopefully.

“You fancy noodles?”

“I always fancy noodles.”

“Good. So do I.” Gaari grinned, his gray eye shining.

“See you there.”