PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR begin the day before the Moon Ball.
As soon as we wake, we’re herded into carriages and taken to a bathhouse in Royal Court. It’s an impressive four stories, a large central room divided into various areas, the upper tiers circled with balconies decorated with colored silks. I pick up familiar scents in the clouds of steam—calendula, mulberry, passionflower. Homesickness tugs so firmly on my soul that it actually hurts. I could close my eyes and I’d be back there, working in the shop with Baba and Tien, Bao barking and the mixing pots bubbling away.
By some unwritten rule, Wren and I haven’t discussed what will happen after we escape. It would be too much like tempting fate, and from the way the gods have played with me so far, that’s not a bet I’m willing to make. But alongside being with Wren, the only thing I really want is to go back to Xienzo and reunite with my family. Maybe we could even make a life there with them. Our little unit has been shattered so many times, but we’ve proven we have the strength to heal. To make something new and beautiful from the sum of our broken parts.
We’re led to an enormous tub in the middle of the bathhouse. Water pours in from a waterfall-like feature, filling the air with its rich bubbling. Three black-robed royal shamans bless the water. Then, one by one, we step inside as they chant a dao, settling a soft, golden magic on our skin. The ceremony is to symbolize purification, helping us shed this year’s sins before we enter the new one.
I stifle a grim laugh when it’s my turn. If only they knew what Wren and I are planning. The only thing this bath is helping me shed is the ache in my muscles from our midnight training sessions.
Back at Paper House, we spend the next few hours having meetings with the court’s most trusted fortune-tellers, qi doctors, and diviners. The New Year marks the halfway point in our year as Paper Girls. The results of these assessments will shape our training next year as we prepare to move from being the King’s concubines to our next roles in the palace. Or in Wren’s case and mine, they would have, were we staying in the palace.
I cross Wren in the corridor as our maids lead us between rooms for the final assessment of the day. She gives me a knowing smile that lights my heart up in an instant. As we pass she turns her hand so it brushes against mine, almost like a kiss.
By the time our assessments are over, night has fallen. The grounds are cloaked in darkness, the stars hidden. As Lill changes me for dinner, I gaze out the window, an uneasy feeling rippling through me.
Tomorrow.
That’s it. Just one more day.
“Are you all right, Mistress?” Lill asks, fixing an ornament in my hair with deft fingers.
I shrug. “Just nervous for tomorrow’s ball, I guess.”
“Well, don’t be. I heard the King has arranged a surprise for you!”
Despite her grin, her words make me cold. It’s the worst possible time for surprises. Whatever the King’s organized, I’m sure I won’t like it. The only thing we have in common is that we both defend what’s ours, and tomorrow night I’m going to prove it to him.
When I arrive at Madam Himura’s suite twenty minutes later, one of her maids leads me out into the courtyard. A canopy of twinkling lights stretches overhead. At the center of the garden, the pavilion has been hung with heavy velvet curtains to keep out the cold. As I step inside, my eyes sweep the group for Wren. She isn’t here yet. Instead, Aoki catches my eyes. She looks a bit panicked, and she opens her lips to mouth something at me, but before she’s able to, Madam Himura waves me to a seat next to Blue.
“Now that we’re all here,” the eagle-woman says in her usual croak, “I want to go over tomorrow’s proceedings. In the morning—”
“Aren’t we waiting for Wren?” I interrupt.
The table falls quiet.
Madam Himura’s head swivels in my direction. “We,” she responds sharply with a flash of her bright yellow eyes, “are not waiting for anyone.”
I blink. “What do you mean?”
“Wren-zhi has had to leave the palace.”
My stomach gives a dull kick. The ground seems to take a careening slope underneath me. A high-pitched ringing enters my brain.
“Her mother has been killed,” Madam Himura continues. “The King has ordered her to return to her family. It’s uncertain when she’ll be returning.”
I gape at her. “What?”
Just then, Aoki jerks forward, knocking a glass of plum wine to the floor. Half of it splashes onto Chenna, who jolts back with a cry. A maid rushes over to clean the mess as Madam Himura shrieks at Aoki and Zhen, who was next to Chenna, who yanks the hem of her dress away from the spreading amber puddle. Amid the chaos, I breathe raggedly. My heart hammers painfully against my ribs. I know Aoki was trying to stop me before I said something that would have given me away or Madam Himura punished me for insolence, but though the rest of the girls are focused on the fuss at the table, next to me, Blue is still.
She watches me from the corner of her ink-black eyes. There’s a knowing twist to her lips, and after a few moments she leans in close, cheek grazing mine, and hisses, just for me to hear, “So that’s your dirty little secret. Won’t the King be shocked to learn what you’ve been up to all this time?”
I don’t know how I make it through dinner. Somehow I manage it, though I almost throw up a few times, and not from the raw fish we’re served as part of more tiring New Year purification symbolism. As soon as Madam Himura permits us to leave, I get up from the table without meeting any of the girls’ questioning looks and stagger back to my room.
“What’s wrong?” Lill asks as I burst through the doorway, shaking.
I don’t answer her. I lurch to the window and collapse against it, gulping in breaths, but the air is clotted, like curdled milk, and no matter how much I gasp I can’t seem to fill my lungs. Lill tries her best to calm me. When nothing she says or does works, she even brings me a cup of sweet, milky teh tarik from the kitchens, but the sugar just spikes my nerves.
When she finally manages to get me to lie down, I’m shivering all over. “Please try to rest, Mistress,” she pleads. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. It’s just a ball.”
I close my eyes, feigning tiredness. But the minute she’s gone, I shove back the blankets and get to my feet, pacing the short length of my room.
One more day. That’s all that was left. One more day to keep our secrets. One more day and we were out of here.
We were going to be free.
Now Wren is gone, and all the years of careful planning and preparation have been ruined in just a handful of hours. And Blue—Blue—knows about the two of us. She could tell the King any moment now and that would be it. All my actions with him would confirm it. He’d know. He’d know, and my beautiful, ferocious-eyed assassin won’t be around to take him down before he can punish us for it.
A thought comes to me, so painful I actually gag.
The next time I see Wren could be at our own execution.
I recall the last time I saw her. The brush of our hands in the corridor, just a second of contact. How can that go down as our last moment together? How can that be our last touch?
My room is too suffocating to stay in any longer. Without Wren here, I go to the room of the only other person in the palace I fully trust.
Aoki rubs her eyes as I shake her awake. “Lei?” she mumbles, her voice thick with sleep. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t sleep,” I say.
Yawning, she sits up and opens her fur blanket. She drapes it around my shoulders as I nestle in beside her. She smells like sleep, like softness and safety, and I release a long exhale, leaning against her in silence. It reminds me of when I used to snuggle in with my parents when I had a nightmare. The thought that just a few hours ago I was so hopeful that I’d make it home lances me afresh, and I grind my teeth together to stop the tears.
Aoki wraps her arms round her legs, propping her cheek on her knees to look sideways at me. “I’m so sorry about Wren’s mother. Do you know if they were close?”
It takes me a moment to untangle her question from Wren’s original Xia family. She’s talking about the Hannos, of course.
“I’m not sure,” I admit. Wren has always spoken far more about Ketai Hanno than his wife. “I don’t think so.”
“Still, it must be awful.” After a beat, she goes on carefully, “The King is close with the Hannos. I’m sure he’ll do everything to look after Wren and her family.”
“They’re Paper castes, Aoki.”
“And still one of his most trusted clans. You know, he even gave them a special guard made up of his own soldiers?”
“Maybe one of those guards was the killer,” I snap before I can stop it.
Aoki winces. “I know you’re upset, but what you’re saying is—”
“Possible? Likely?”
“The King and the Hannos have always supported each other, Lei. Why would they turn on each other now?”
Because maybe the King suspects what the Hannos are planning. Maybe Wren’s mother was murdered by the King’s men to send a message to them. Or maybe, if he believes Wren to be involved, he had her mother killed as a way of getting her out of the palace. A death in the family is one of the only reasons a Paper Girl is allowed to take leave.
But I keep my thoughts to myself.
I walk out of Aoki’s room half an hour later, feeling even worse than before. My mind is reeling, and I’m so distracted I don’t notice the figure in my room until it’s too late.
A fur-covered hand clamps across my mouth.
“Not a word,” growls a low, husky voice.