Page 26

SORA

CITY OF RAHWAY, YUSAN

A t eleven bells, I take Rune’s luxurious carriage into town on the pretense of going to the messenger house.

I had to give an extensive explanation before I was allowed to leave the villa, but I slide onto the velvet bench, and minutes later, we get into Rahway proper.

We navigate the shining stone city, and then the cream-colored coach pulls up to a cobalt blue shop.

Traffic comes to a halt for the count’s carriage.

People quite literally stop in their tracks.

“I’ll wait here for you, miss,” the coachman says as he helps me down. He’s an older man, probably around fifty, with short gray hair.

“There’s no need,” I say with a smile.

“I insist.”

“All right,” I say, deflating. I have to figure out a way to lose him.

I smile. “Actually, that’s great! Once I’m done, you can take me to the gem houses for a new necklace or two, and then the cobblers.

I want to get fitted for a few new pairs of boots and shoes.

I also need to find the best beauty house.

Do you know where one is? Oh, you probably don’t.

I’ll just visit them all, since they’re all so different, you know?

And I also need a new coin purse. This one is too out of date. ”

I do my best to sound like Aeri, and the coachman’s eyes glaze over. The concerns of women are frivolous in Yusan, even when they exist to cater to men’s tastes.

“So just wait here,” I say. “I have to send a few messages to my family, and then we can start the day of shopping. Unless you have to go back before six or seven bells.”

“I am needed back at the villa, miss,” he says eagerly.

“Oh, okay.” I force a frown, then shake it off and smile. “I can hire a coach for my return, in that case.”

The coachman nods and opens the shop door. I drop into the messenger house and stroll to the ledge to select a pen and a slip of paper. I keep my eye on the window. It’s only a few moments before the luxe carriage rolls away.

I exhale. Thank the gods.

Rahway is busy with horses, carriages, and pedestrians. People constantly come in and out of the messenger house. Because we’re in Yusan, the pace still slows during the monsoons, but not as much as the cities where it rains.

I wait five minutes after the carriage is out of sight before I toss the blank paper into the fire and leave out of the other side of the building.

Now, I have to find a dress house in a city that all looks the same.

Rahway was purposefully designed to be uniform, and even the squares and fountains look alike.

But despite a few wrong turns, I manage to reach the Kingdom Dress House at precisely noon.

A sign on the door says they are out for lunch and will be back soon.

With a steadying breath, I pull the brass handle. It opens. It’s fairly dim inside the store. The only light filters in from the crowded shop windows.

“You’re late,” Sun-ye says.

She’s seated on a divan in a body-hugging purple dress with a high slit in the skirt. The space is filled with mannequins, mirrors, and fabric walls, but no one else is in here. She must’ve paid off the shopkeeper.

“I’m on time.” I point up above us as the noon bells ring out. She had been very specific about how, where, and when to meet before we left the powder room last night.

“Which is late.”

I throw my head back in frustration. Sun-ye is still terrible. But how terrible?

“Was it you?” I lower my voice and take a step closer.

She blinks. “The assassins?”

I nod.

Her whole low-cut dress moves as she sighs at me. “Why would it be me? If I attacked you, you’d expose me. How would that benefit me?”

“Perhaps you counted on me dying first.”

“No, I think I’ve seen enough of us die.” Her green eyes take on a distant look.

Seventeen. We watched seventeen girls die.

One, Seok killed by hand—Plia. He had all of us gather, and then he grabbed Plia’s blond hair and slit her throat.

She had rebelled, refusing Madame Iseul’s pleas to take more poison.

He made us watch until she died, choking on her own blood.

She’d just turned thirteen. After that, no one else refused the dosing.

The rest of the girls died horrifically in the bedroom hall instead.

Madame Iseul initially administered poisons and antidotes, but as we aged, some of the poisons had no known remedies. She microdosed us and hoped for the best. When we survived, she upped the dose. Most died.

And then Hana made eighteen.

Sun-ye shakes her head, then stares at my face. Her hand trembles on the cushion. I’ve seen the same tremors in my right hand. Sun-ye notices my line of sight and rests her arm behind the back of the divan. “It wasn’t me, Sora.”

I stare at her, but I can’t tell. I think she’s being honest, but it’s pointless to keep questioning her about it right now. The traitor will reveal themself.

“Why did you want to meet?” I ask.

“Originally, I wanted to tell you something interesting I’d heard, but now it’s to warn you to escape from Rahway before tomorrow.”

Chills careen down my spine although I hold still. Sun-ye is not prone to dramatics. If she’s warning me like this, the situation is dire.

“Escape?” I repeat.

She laughs. “Did you think I had you meet me under all of this cloak and dagger because you were free to move about?”

I hadn’t even considered that we were prisoners of the count—even after I had to beg to go into town. Did we willingly walk into a trap? Or is it just me he wants to capture?

“Just me?” I ask.

“No, your friends, too. Rune wants the relics, and you brought them to his door. None of you are free—not that we’re ever free.” She reaches into her purse and pulls out a velvet pouch with a tiny spoon. I know those velvet pouches. I saw them in Oosant—that’s laoli.

The spoon is tied to the pouch by a golden string. Sun-ye reaches into the bag with the spoon, holds the heaping white powder beneath her perfect nose, and inhales. Then she does it again on the other side, sniffling as she wipes her nostrils.

Laoli is an extremely potent pain reliever, but she’s not in obvious pain. It looks far more recreational, which means she’s addicted.

“Sun-ye…” I say.

Her shoulders drop. “Spare me, Sora, please. We’re all going to die. If you can get through this life unmedicated, good for you. But you didn’t have to pleasure Rune last night.”

I feel immediate sympathy for what she’s had to endure. At least murder is fast and over with, while being a courtesan is a long form of torture. But then confusion hits. I take a small step forward.

“Wait. Can we do…that?” I ask.

She narrows her eyes, trying to figure out if I’m serious. Then she lets her head fall back with a groan. “Good gods, Sora. How lucky that you’ve never had to use that pretty little head of yours.”

“But Seok said…”

“And how would he know? How would that even work? We’ve been poisoned.

We didn’t become it.” She pauses and gathers a breath.

“He said our bodies are poison to keep his lecherous brother away from us, and his son away from you, because he wanted sole control. We can only kill men with applied poison, or my lover would be long dead by now.”

I…don’t know whether that makes me feel better or worse. But I do feel terrible about Sun-ye having to bed Rune. I want to reach out for her, but she doesn’t want my sympathy or anyone’s, really. Sympathy is for the weak, and she is strong.

Instead of extending a hand, I cross my arms.

“What was the interesting thing you wanted to tell me?” I ask.

A little relief shows on her face, but she clears it, serious again. “After you left Gain, Seok realized that Tiyung had burned your indenture. He was furious. But I assumed you already knew that, since Tiyung was so in love with you.”

I nod, trying not to think of him or where he is now. But I am surprised that everyone realized his affections except for me.

“Seok had four indenture certificates left in his possession. Daysum’s. Mine. Rayna’s and one other.”

I glance around the shop as I try to absorb what she’s saying. Sun-ye was undeniably Seok’s favorite, but there’s no way he’d trust her with this information. “How would you even know this? Seok would never show you where he kept them.”

She looks at the laoli again with greedy eyes, but she puts it away. Not because she won’t take another dose but because she refuses to look weak in front of me.

“Obviously he didn’t show me, Sora,” she says. “But his head of household likes to talk.”

“Never to me.”

“No, Irrad hates you.”

I sigh. Where is she going with this? “Who was the fourth?”

“Hana.”

The room silently spins as Sun-ye stares at me.

“But why…” I shake my head as soon as the thought enters my mind. It’s not a real possibility. It’s a baseless hope, a delusion. Hana died two years ago in the southwest. I know this. But the certificate… “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that he still has her indenture. That is all I know. I thought it was interesting.”

She shrugs, but that isn’t all she’s saying.

“You think she could still be alive,” I whisper.

She runs a hand over her silk dress. “I think that when Seok confirmed a poison maiden’s death, he immediately burned the document linking him to the girl. That way he could deny ever having owned her if he were caught. It’s speculation after that. Maybe he kept it just in case. I don’t know.”

I can’t even process the thought that Hana might still be alive somewhere. I’ve hoped it so many times, but I haven’t dared to really think it.

Someone tries the door, and the shop bells chime. My spine goes rigid. I’m so startled that I have to suppress a scream. Sun-ye slides a dagger into her hand from under the cushion, but the door stays shut. It must’ve locked behind me.

I twist my hair over my shoulder. It’s the talk of escape that has frayed my nerves. That’s all.

“Why do we need to leave Rahway today?” I ask.