SCREAMING WAKES ME THE NEXT DAY. Instead of the usual gong, and too early, the dark still shivering with almost-burnt-out candles and traces of moonlight on the floor. A horrible raw sound that tears through the night on broken wings. Not even screaming. Wailing… wild and untamed.

The sound is close. It’s accompanied by shouting, sharp words, and the rap of talons on the floor. Madam Himura.

Something is happening to one of the girls. That’s my first thought. My second is—

Wren.

I lurch outside, sucking in a hiss at the coldness of the floorboards on my bare soles. The other girls are already up, looking out from their doorways, faces tight with apprehension. From the room opposite, Aoki meets my eyes before quickly turning her cheek.

“Please!” a girl screams. “It won’t happen again, I promise!”

Halfway down the corridor, Mariko is sprawled on the floor. The robe of her nightdress hangs open, revealing the heavy curves of her breasts, the pale flesh of her legs. She struggles, hanging on to where Madam Himura is gripping her hair to drag her down the hall.

“Let’s just hear what she has to say,” Mistress Eira pleads. She’s crouching, trying to get between Mariko and Madam Himura.

The eagle-woman swings out with her cane. “You’re too soft on them, Eira!” she snarls, and Mistress Eira doubles over as the cane cracks across her back. “I told you before, when Lei refused the King. You show them the slightest bit of leniency and this is how they repay you!”

“Blue!” Mariko cries. Her eyes are crazed as she seeks her out of the watching faces. “Blue, help me!”

Blue stiffens in her doorway. A glimmer of something passes across her face, but she doesn’t move.

Wren steps forward instead. “Madam Himura,” she asks steadily, “what is Mariko being punished for?”

Madam Himura’s yellow eyes flare. “For being a slut! She was found by one of my maids last night, legs spread for a soldier.”

I’m reminded suddenly of Wren’s words that night in the isolation room. She said that the guard outside my room had slipped away to meet a girl. Was it Mariko?

“I’m sorry!” Mariko sobs, her face splotchy and red. “I won’t do it again!”

“Of course you won’t,” Madam Himura retorts. “Because you’re never coming back to the palace.”

Mariko freezes. “Wh-what do you mean?”

A wheezing laugh escapes Madam Himura’s throat. “You think you can defy the King in such a way and an apology is all that’s needed to make up for it? Foolish girl!”

I wince, instinctively reeling back as she turns her attention to the rest of us. She glares around with her cutting eyes. The layered feathers on her humanlike arms ruffle open as they spread into the beginning of wings, making her seem twice her usual size.

“Come, the rest of you,” she commands coolly. “You’re about to discover what happens to paper that turns rotten.”

Using her wings to steady herself against Mariko’s struggles, she drags Mariko down the corridor. With no choice but to follow Madam Himura’s orders, I pad behind them with the rest of the girls and our maids. Mariko’s maid, a plump dog-form girl called Vee, is sobbing so hard she has to stuff her hands over her mouth to muffle the sound.

“It’s all right,” Lill whispers, helping her along. “It’ll be all right.”

She looks up, meeting my eyes where I’m watching over my shoulder, and it hits me that it’s the first time I’ve ever heard her lie.

We trail Madam Himura to an empty room. She throws Mariko down the minute she gets inside. “Get Doctor Uo,” she directs one of the maids as we file in with reluctant steps.

Mariko thrashes on the floor. “Please!” she begs. “I can’t leave, not before I see Kareem! Where is he? Where did you take him?”

Madam Himura glares down her hooked beak-nose. “Your soldier is being dealt with by General Ndeze. He’ll be stripped of his title and banished from the palace. That’s if the King is feeling generous.”

Mariko dissolves into wails.

“I can’t watch this,” I breathe to Wren next to me.

“We have no choice,” she replies.

“I don’t care.” I take a step forward. Wren hisses at me, but I ignore her, rounding on Madam Himura. “Why can’t we take lovers?” I ask her loudly, throwing out an arm. “The King has his pick every night, and when we leave, there’ll just be a new set of girls for him to play with.”

Her eyes widen. “What did you say?”

“Maybe if the King weren’t such a cruel, disgusting excuse of a leader, we wouldn’t look for comfort elsewhere—”

Though I knew it was coming, the crack of her cane still takes my breath away.

I double over, clutching my jaw. The metallic tang of blood fills my mouth. Wren pulls me back before Madam Himura can strike me again, but her attention is distracted just then by the doctor’s arrival.

Doctor Uo looks as though he’d just woken up. His robes are mussed, his hair matted. “What’s going on?” he asks, scratching at one curving boar tusk, blinking out from behind his round spectacles.

Madam Himura points to Mariko. “This girl has forfeited her place in the palace. She must be branded.”

The doctor’s expression is as blank as when he was inspecting me. “I see.” Mariko scuttles away as he crouches down in front of her. “Someone hold her still,” he commands, and I’m thrown back to the assessments shortly after I arrived, the helplessness I felt as the doctor stripped me.

I massage my jawbone, smearing blood across my sleeve.

Madam Himura waves at the waiting maids. “Help the doctor!”

They move forward reluctantly. Mariko lashes out when they get close, catching Lill in her ribs with an elbow. At once, Madam Himura whirls forward and slaps Mariko so hard it sends her cheek into the floor with a sickening crunch.

“Struggle all you want, girl,” she spits. “You’re just going to make the scarring worse.”

It’s not until the next moment, when Doctor Uo takes a knife from his bag, that I understand what is happening.

The doctor holds Mariko’s face still. “Someone quiet her!” he orders as she starts to scream.

A maid brings over a wad of fabric. The doctor stuffs it into her mouth, muffling her cries. He raises the blade to her forehead.

The first incision heightens her shrieking. But by the last, her sobs are silent.

When he finally moves away, I see the bloody strokes of the character cut into Mariko’s forehead: Lan.

Rotten.

“Now everyone will know what you did,” Madam Himura hisses. She turns to us. “Remember this, any time you think you can defy the King.” Her eyes land on me. “You will not get away with it.” Then she flaps an arm, barking, “Back to your rooms! You have classes to get to. Don’t think this has changed any of your duties.”

I hesitate, and Wren draws me away. “Don’t push it,” she whispers.

“What’ll happen to her?” I ask in a weak voice as we head down the corridor.

The rest of the girls are silent. As Blue shoves past her, practically running, Chenna stares down at the floor, her lips forming silent prayers. Zhen and Zhin walk hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. I try to catch Aoki’s eyes, but she’s staring glassily ahead, absently picking at the sleeves of her robes.

“Mariko’s marked now,” Wren explains under her breath. “She won’t ever be able to get a job, be married. She’ll either starve to death or find work in the only places that’ll take her.”

“Prostitution houses?”

She nods, and I press my lips tight, battling the urge to retch.

When we get back to our rooms, I knock on Blue’s door. She doesn’t answer, but I go in anyway.

She’s standing by the window, staring out. Morning light filtering through the half drawn shutters frames her outline in pale gold. There’s something so painful about the stiff way she’s holding her body, as though to keep herself together. As though she’d fall apart—literally, piece by piece, limb by limb, joints unraveling in an inelegant dismantlement—if she released herself even the tiniest fraction.

“Blue—” I start.

She interrupts, quiet. “Go away.” Her voice breaks on the words. She repeats it, louder, with a jerk of her neck: “Go away!”

“I’m here,” I say, moving closer. “I just wanted you to know. If you ever need to talk or anything, I’m here.”

Blue spins round, her face streaked with tears, her eyes manic. “I said, go away!” she shrieks, and lurches toward me.

I stumble out, not stopping until I get back to my room. Inside, I stagger to the window and gulp in air, fingers shaking where they’re twined around the latticed woodwork. It takes me a long time to get my breathing to slow, and even then I can still hear the ghost of Mariko’s screams.

That night, I write home.

For months I’ve kept my letters positive, cracking jokes as if it were just another day in the herb shop. But tonight I can’t do it. Outside, the wind howls, making the building creak and groan. There’s the growl of thunder in the distance. Winters are even harder in Xienzo, and I picture my father and Tien in the garden, wrapped in furs as they brush frost off our dying plants with frozen fingers, their breath curling before them.

It’s not right. I should be there. I should be with them, my own fingers chilled, my own exhalations making clouds in the air.

It takes me a while to come up with a way to express myself in the letter without giving too much away, but I get it right on the third attempt. I have no idea if my father and Tien will even read this. I’ve still not heard a thing back despite writing regularly all this time, and if I’m honest with myself, I know why. It’s not hard to notice how Mistress Eira evades my questions whenever I ask her about the letters.

Still. Something keeps me writing.

Maybe it’s the feeling of connecting with my father and Tien, even just in my imagination. Or the knowledge that this is my last link with home, and if I stop writing it’s like acknowledging that I’ve given up hope of ever returning.

Tonight, my letter is short.

Tears cloud my eyes as I roll the letter closed. That day was the first anniversary of the raid on our village that stole Mama away.

It was one of the worst days of my life.

I’m just about to lie down when I sense movement in the hallway—and somehow, I know it’s Wren, leaving Paper House.

Anger hurtles down my veins, so sudden and strong it surprises even me. I jump to my feet. How dare she. How dare she, of all the days, when she knows exactly what could happen to her if she’s found out.

What that would do to me.

I wait as long as I can bear before following her. Wind lashes my skin as I charge across the dark gardens. The air is frozen. Before I left, I threw a heavy brocade coat over my nightdress, but my feet are bare, the frosted ground numbing my toes. My hair whips around my raw cheeks.

It takes me longer than I anticipated to reach the pine forest where I’ve seen Wren disappear to before. I trudge through it, keeping to a straight line in the hopes that it’s the right direction. After a few minutes I start to worry that I won’t be able to find her, but as I pick my way over mossy roots and brambles of thorns, sounds rise from up ahead. Half hidden under the noise of the wind, I make out grunts, panting, the crush of leaves. Something dark and awful flares to life in my belly. It—it couldn’t be.

Could it?

A few seconds later I emerge into a clearing. The long trunks of pines close in tight, a leafy canopy overhead. And in its center: Wren and the wolf. Not doing what I feared, but something else, something worse.

Fighting.

My heart bounces to my throat. I’m about to dash forward to tackle him off her, when I notice how none of their blows are followed through, just quick contact to indicate they’ve landed. Their movements seem practiced and familiar, dancelike almost. Wren’s hair flies around her as she ducks a sweeping kick. She retaliates with a jab of her hands, the wolf’s powerful haunches propelling him back. They’re training.

Just then, Wren makes a leaping turn—and spots me.

Her eyes are the same icy white as that night under the theater. It takes a second for them to drain back to their usual fawn-brown. She lands messily but is upright at once, brushing down her clothes. “Lei,” she says, breathless, starting forward.

The wolf looks around. His ears prick when he sees me, and with a whip of his gray-white tail he flies around, but Wren grabs him.

“Wait!” she shouts. “It’s all right, Kenzo—”

“She shouldn’t be here!” he growls.

“She won’t tell—”

“How do you know?”

“I just know!”

“How is that—”

“Because I love her!”

Wren’s shout is almost swallowed by the wind, but her words reach me as clearly as if she’d bent to whisper them in my ears. Everything seems to still—the growl of the incoming storm, the sway of the trees in the wind. Our eyes catch across the clearing. Wren’s look, vividly fierce and beautifully soft at the same time, wrenches something inside me. I feel her heartbeat as if we were pressed together, chest to chest, cheek to cheek; I know its beat as surely as my own.

She expels a shaky breath, her face softening, “And,” she says quietly, turning to Kenzo, “I think she loves me, too. So yes, I trust her. We can trust her.”

Kenzo is still glaring at me. Wren tugs on his arm, half human, half furred, muscled wolf. His lips uncurl, hiding his fanged canines. But his ears are still pointed, the tendons in his neck corded.

“So that’s how it is,” he says, breath furling from his long, muzzlelike jaw.

“Yes.”

“Well, she still shouldn’t be out here.”

Wren nods. “Give us a minute?”

With a last terse look my way, the wolf turns on his heels and bounds into the forest.

Wren crosses the clearing. In an instant, my anger fades. Tears are wetting my face before she’s even reached me, and she frowns, thumbing them away.

“Lei?” she says, her gaze moving over my face. “What’s wrong? Is it what happened to Mariko?”

I curl into her arms. “Everything,” I say thickly.

She holds me close, waiting until my breaths finally calm. Then she draws back, palms cupping my face.

“What you said,” I mutter, my cheeks warm under the heat of her palms and the sweet softness of her look. “Just then. To Kenzo. Did you—do you—”

“I do,” she whispers.

My breath catches. “Me… me, too.”

Her lips part, a sigh escaping them. Gently, she presses her mouth to mine. Then she steps back. “I’m sorry, Lei, but you have to get back to the house. It’s not safe for you to be here.”

I scrub my tears away with the back of my hands. “I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her. “Not before you tell me what’s going on.” As she starts to protest, I shake my head and wind my fingers through hers, pulling her closer. “You’re risking everything. Your life, and mine. Because if anything happens to you, I don’t know how I’ll cope. You’re all I have, Wren. I need you.”

“You have me, Lei.”

“So tell me. No more lies.”

Our gazes are fixed together. And for a moment this is all my world is: the feel of Wren’s presence, closer than a heartbeat, and the brilliant, deep brown of her soft-centered eyes.

I squeeze her fingers. “It’s time.”

She regards me in silence. Then, finally, she nods.

“Everything I’ve told you so far is true,” she begins, gripping my hands. “I promise. But I’ve never told you why. Why Ketai rescued me and brought me up as a Hanno. Why I’m here in the palace.” She wets her lips. “Because when my father went to the mountains of Rain following the rumors of the Xia’s massacre, he wasn’t just searching for survivors. He knew there’d be survivors. Or rather, that there’d be one.” She loosens a long breath. “Me.

“The night of the massacre, the Hannos’ most trusted fortune-teller had a vision of a baby nestled in the snow. My father set out to find it with the intention of training it to continue the Xia bloodline. Not only would one of the Xia be skilled enough to assassinate the King, but, just as important, only this sole remaining Xia—who’d had their entire clan murdered before them—would have the hunger to do so.”

Assassinate.

The word hangs in the air, sharp as a sword edge.

“The fortune-teller hadn’t known the sex of the baby,” Wren continues. “My father had been expecting a boy, but when he found me, he realized it was better this way. There are countless male assassins. The problem is getting them close enough to the King in the first place. A young girl dressed up in robes and elegant manners might be able to gain access where others could not.”

“But what about Kenzo?” I interrupt. “Couldn’t he…?”

She shakes her head. “My father and his allies have spent years getting him to the position he’s in now. We need him there. Assassinating the King is one thing, but if the court remains loyal to him, what good would it do? Kenzo is our highest-ranking infiltrator. He’s integral to seeing this change through. Once the King is dead, he can help steer the court to where we need it. It won’t work if he’s under any suspicion.”

“So it’s all down to you.”

Wren nods, lips taut. “That’s how I knew about the trap door in the theater. How I get around at night without being caught. I’ve studied the palace since I was young, learned every corner of it. And as a Paper Girl, I’m able to get close to the King without any guards around.” Her eyes are fire. “I’m going to do it, Lei. I’m going to kill him.”

Thunder rolls overhead, the wind still ice-cold and lashing. But the world seems far away, a space of stillness opening up around Wren and me, filled with my fear and her words and our love and the meaning, the incredible consequence, of what she’s telling me.

“You’ve been alone with him so many times,” I say, the words sticking in my throat. “Couldn’t you have done it by now? The first time he called you?”

She shakes her head stiffly. “Other things have to align first. The timing is crucial. Trust me, Lei, if there were any way I could’ve avoided sleeping with the King, I would have found it.” She pauses. “My father would have found it.”

“So you don’t know when it will happen?”

“Not yet. But it won’t be long. Kenzo says things are almost ready.”

As if he’d heard his name, there’s the sound of leaves crunching underfoot. The wolf slinks back into the clearing. He keeps his distance but watches us, tail flicking, bronze eyes glinting in the moonlit clearing.

Wren circles her hands around my wrists. “You have to go, Lei. We’ve still got some training to do.”

Training. Understanding rolls over me again. I’d had suspicions that this was what she was up to, but it’s different knowing it. I get a flash of Wren in the tunnel under the theater, with her white eyes—but this time it is the King she is approaching, the King’s heart she is driving a knife into.

For the first time, I question whether he truly deserves it.

It’s only a passing thought. Because an instant later I remind myself of the Paper caste slaves at the koyo party. The way he coldly ordered the assassins’ executions. Mariko’s screams, just this morning, a few short hours ago. The King’s hot mouth on my skin, how easily he tore my clothes apart; the pain and hunger of the week that followed.

I recall my promise at the executions. More than anything, I want to be free. Not just free of the palace, but free once I’m outside of it, too. How can that happen in a world where its King allows demons to do whatever they want to those they deem inferior? How can I live in happiness when I know now what happens to Paper castes all across Ikhara?

Can you imagine a world where we’re free to be with each other?

Actually, I can.

Then take me there, Wren. Please.

I will.

So this is what she meant.

“Lei,” Wren says again, after a glance over her shoulder at Kenzo. “You have to go. Now.”

But I don’t move. “Let me stay.” The words are out of me before I’ve even realized they were there. “I want to help.”

She pulls back. “What?”

“You’re going to assassinate the King, and I can help.”

Wren flinches, a deep furrow lining her forehead. “I don’t mind risking my own life,” she says sharply, “but I will not risk yours.” She tugs on my arm. “Come on. I’ll take you back to the house.”

“But—”

She closes her eyes. “Please, Lei,” she begs, and there’s so much tiredness in her voice that I can’t bring myself to argue anymore. At least, not right now.

We trudge back to Paper House in silence. Wren plants a kiss to my crown when we reach the entrance. “I meant what I said,” she murmurs. “I love you. And you are helping me already, whatever you think. Just by loving me back. It makes me strong. It gives me more to fight for.”

I bite back a reply, not trusting myself to speak as she hugs me tightly against her before she turns and jogs back to the forest with long, loping steps.

When I’m back in my room, I lie on my sleeping mat, trembling despite the furs wrapped around me. I stare up at the ceiling until the shadows seep from the room and the weak light of a winter morning settles in its place. Since that night at the theater, I’d somehow known about Wren, known that her fighting skills and Xia heritage were not just coincidence. But now it’s finally become real.

Sometime soon she will try to kill the King.

And it’s a fight she might not win.

I want to jump up, run back to the moonlit clearing, beg Wren to reconsider. Even if the King must die, there must be some way it can happen without her life being in danger, too. The icy focus in her eyes as she approached the assassin in the tunnel under the theater returns to me. How the grip of Xia magic overtook her, giving her more strength than a human girl should have. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe years of training and her warrior heritage can protect her.

But this is the King.

The King, with his bull-driven power and lean, ironlike muscles. His deep, booming voice. I remember the savagery in his eyes that night at the koyo party, and before that, when he threw me down onto his bed and I felt more like a fragile human than ever before.

I shiver, cradling my knees to my chest. Because beneath her Xia heritage, and no matter how incredible she is to me, that’s all Wren is in the end—a human girl. And we have all been taught what happens to Paper that tries to defy demons.

It gets torn apart.