MARIKO ALMOST THREW UP ON HIS FEET.”

“But she didn’t.”

“I think Zhen bowed wrong. It looked funny from where I was, anyway.”

“Aoki, I fell flat on my face. In front of the entire court.”

She sighs. “You’re right,” she admits. “It was a complete disaster.”

I break a smile, and she nudges me with her shoulder, green eyes glittering.

It’s early the next morning. The two of us are sitting on the steps to the bathing courtyard, wrapped in gray light and predawn hush. The calm is at odds with the busyness of the house yesterday, and I’m glad for this moment with Aoki before the day, our first as official Paper Girls, begins.

Last night, all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball of embarrassment after my display at the ceremony. Not just because of how humiliating it was, falling over in front of the whole court, but because of how it made me look to the King. Before last night, I thought I didn’t care what he’d think of me.

And then he laughed at me. Laughed, like I was a joke. And I want him—need him—to know that I am not.

To know that I am strong.

To know that whatever happens, whatever the official position says, I do not belong to him.

But as soon as we got back to Paper House, Madam Himura rounded on me, so incensed she could barely get a word out. “You didn’t just shame yourself, you shamed us! You shamed me!” she cried, before sending me to my room, Lill hurrying behind me, her cheeks as red as mine.

“Maybe it was a blessing in disguise,” I say now to Aoki. I sit straighter, scraping back the hair from my brow. “Now he definitely won’t call me first. Maybe he’ll never call me at all.”

She tilts to the side so she can look at me. “You don’t want him to?”

“No!” I say it a little too forcefully, and I steal a glance over my shoulder, as though Madam Himura could have snuck up behind us. Voice lowered, I ask, “Do you?”

“Of course!” she answers, also a little too hard. She takes a breath. “I mean… I’m not sure. I—I think so. He’s the King, Lei. It’s a privilege.” This part at least sounds like she believes it.

“But even so,” I press, “is this really what you want? What you hoped for of your life?”

Aoki twines her fingers in her lap, her teeth softly working her bottom lip. “I miss my family so much. I really do. But if I hadn’t been chosen, I would have been stuck in our tiny village for the rest of my life. Maybe I would have been happy there. But look at this, Lei,” she says, sweeping her arm at the empty courtyard, and I know she means not just here but the house, the palace, the beauty and extravagance of it all.

Unmoved, I mutter, “I’d rather be back in Xienzo.”

“Even though your family is taken care of now?”

I open my mouth to retort, stopping myself at the last moment. Aoki’s from a poor village, too. She has also known hunger and struggle, experienced the fierce bite of the cold and the heavy ache of exhaustion after a long day’s work, so deep you feel it in your bones.

Even so. I was meant to take care of them, my father and Tien. Me. Not the King.

Dzarja.

His money is dirty. Blood money.

“I wonder who he’ll pick first,” Aoki murmurs a few moments later.

Her question hangs coiled between us.

I flash her a sideways smirk. “I bet it’s Blue.”

She groans. “Oh, gods, no! We’d never hear the end of it.”

As we both snort, a maid hurries into the courtyard from the opposite side, hair still mussed from sleep and her night robe tied messily. She drops to the floor as soon as she spots us. “So sorry, Mistresses!” she stammers. “I—I didn’t know you would be up.”

“Oh, don’t worry—” I start, getting to my feet, but she darts off before I can finish. I turn to Aoki. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that. ‘Mistresses.’ It sounds so…”

“Old? Formal?” She giggles. “I guess that’s something else the other girls are used to. They were probably called Mistress since they were babies.” She puts on a posh accent, fluting her wrist fancily. “Mistress Blue, would you care for some honey in your mother’s breast milk?”

We burst into laughter, stopping at the sound of voices from inside the house.

“We’d better go,” I say. “It’s almost time to get ready.”

We walk back to our rooms in silence, and slowly the significance of Aoki’s earlier question settles onto our shoulders, gaining a little more weight with each step. After my performance last night, I’m sure the King won’t choose me first. But still, I pray silently with every fiber of my being that I’m right.

Paper Girl life, it transpires, consists of a lot of studying—something my old life in Xienzo had barely any of. Mistress Eira warned us we would have a busy schedule of lessons to develop our nu skills, ranging from etiquette classes to calligraphy to music practice to Ikharan history, but I didn’t realize how tiring it would be. Maybe it’s because I never went to school. I was helping my parents with the shop from pretty much the moment I could walk, and as one of my only teachers, Tien would be the first to complain about my attention span. The problem, little nuisance, she’d say, is that you have none.

By the time we head back to Paper House for lunch, my head is stuffed with four hours’ worth of information from our morning classes. Most of the other girls are busy chatting, but I’m dazed, going over everything our teachers said, hoping to somehow imprint it all into my brain through sheer will. I’m still so focused that when we take our seats around Madam Himura’s table and she says something that causes the other girls to become quiet, it takes me a few moments to register what is happening.

The King has made his first choice.

“Who is it?” Blue speaks up immediately, adding a quick, “Madam Himura,” at the eagle-woman’s piercing look.

I glance at Aoki, but she’s focused hard on Madam Himura, her mouth pressed small. Then my eyes flick to Wren. Unlike the others, she doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to what’s going on. She looks younger than she did last night, when she’d been glossed with makeup and wrapped in that dress, but there’s still a stoic quality to the way she is poised, chin lifted, eyes cast away. Suddenly, I’m certain that it will be her name Madam Himura will announce.

The way she looked last night, how could it not be?

“The name of the King’s chosen girl will be delivered by royal messenger on the days he requests company that evening,” Madam Himura explains into the expectant hush. “It goes without saying that if it is you who is summoned, you must obey his call.” With a rustle of feathers, she unwraps a silk-bound package and slides its contents—a small bamboo chip—into the center of the table with one curving talon. Then, the room in absolute silence now, she moves her hand away to reveal the name printed across it.

The calligraphy ink is red, like a splatter of blood.

Relief clangs through me, so strongly I instinctively brace as if it were audible. But all the girls are looking at Chenna. Even Wren. Her eyes are lit with something unexpected and sharp, though not at all like the jealousy or relief playing in the other girls’ gazes. It’s more… steely. Challenging, almost.

Chenna herself doesn’t react. Or at least, not visibly. Her expression is calm, her posture straight-backed, the image of perfect Paper Girl. She keeps her eyes trained on the chip.

“Congratulations, Chenna,” Madam Himura croaks into the quiet. She glares pointedly around at us.

“Congratulations, Chenna,” Wren echoes smoothly.

“Y-yes, congratulations,” Aoki stammers with a faltering smile.

The rest of us follow suit until it’s only Blue left. Her mouth is set, but she manages a quick curve of her lips. “Yes, well done, Chenna.” Then she taps her empty bowl and snaps, “Well? Is lunch going to come anytime soon?” earning a scolding from Madam Himura that she seems almost grateful to receive.

The rest of the meal passes in near silence. There’s a stiffness to the girls’ interactions, everyone’s eyes frequently sliding back to Chenna, and even I find myself watching her, trying to see through her serene exterior. But she keeps her face calm, a glaze over her eyes as she focuses on her food, eating slowly but steadily.

“Chenna,” Madam Himura orders when it’s time for us to leave for our afternoon lessons. “You stay with me.”

And that’s when I see it. For the first time since her name was revealed on the bamboo chip: a tremor runs through her hands.

She turns her cheek as we file out of the room, making a strange, fleeting gesture with her fingertips across her brow that perhaps could be something religious—or could also just be her brushing aside a stray hair—before one of the maids closes the door behind us.

Even though I can sense they want to discuss what just happened, the girls manage to keep from talking as we trail down the corridor. But as soon as we turn the corner, Blue speaks up. “That was a surprise.”

A few of the girls make noncommittal murmurs. Though I hate to admit it, I can tell most of the girls agree with her. Still, I bristle at the way she puts it.

“I wonder what his reasoning was,” Mariko says with a purse of her lips. She shifts, hips jutting to one side. “Chenna is beautiful enough, I suppose. And her family is somewhat prestigious. At least for Jana.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Zhen, one of the twins, offers. “He wanted to connect with a part of his heritage.”

Blue scowls at her. “What part? Desert slum?”

“I just mean,” Zhen continues, though her cheeks are pink now, “that Jana is where the original Bull King was from—”

“And is now where half the rebel nomads are hiding,” Blue interrupts. “Or at least according to the rumors. I doubt that’s something the King wants to align himself with.”

Zhen lifts a shoulder. “Maybe he’s trying to send a message to them, then.”

“Or maybe,” her sister, Zhin, speaks up, with a cool glance at Blue, “politics has nothing to do with it. He could just be picking the girl he was most attracted to.”

“I agree,” I reply. “Chenna is beautiful, and she seems smart, and interesting. No wonder the King liked her.”

The twins nod, smiling at me, and I see Wren look my way, something curious in her warm brown irises. Beside me, Aoki is silent.

Blue and Mariko swap smug looks. But if they want to throw an insult my way, they manage to refrain. “Anyway,” Blue says, in a crisp tone that makes it clear we are done with this discussion, “the first few choices are just based on his initial impressions of us. I’m more interested to see who he continues to pick.” Her eyes slide to me. “And who he doesn’t choose at all.”