Page 43 of The Scarlet Alchemist

The man shook his head quickly. “There’s no need to involve—”

“Do you think she would be pleased if I told her you wasted my afternoon?”

He dropped to the ground in a bow. “Forgive me,” he said. “I can assure you—”

“I’ve had enough of your assurances,” she said. Then she faced me, looking me over for a long, calculating moment. “The final exam is in one week,” she said at last. “Don’t be late.” Then she turned away, heading for the door.

I let out a breath. A great lightness filled my chest, so strongly it almost overpowered the ache in my mouth.I passed.Only one more test stood between me and my dream. One day, I could be like the Moon Alchemist, with the highest-ranking court officials cowering on their knees before me. I looked up to the darkening sky and prayed that my mother—wherever her soul had gone—could see me now, so far from Guangzhou and so much more than anyone imagined I would become. And I hoped my father was ashamed that his purple weed of a daughter had done the kind of alchemy he thought impossible.

“Zilanxiaojie.”

I winced at the sound of the prince’s voice and bent to gather my stones as if I hadn’t heard him. My mouth was really starting to hurt, and I wanted to get out of the prince’s sight before I couldn’t hide it anymore.

“Let me help you with your tooth,” he said, stepping in front of me.

“I didn’t ask for your assistance,” I said, unable to hold back the bite from my words. I was tired, dried up like a raisin, sunburned, and with one fewer tooth than I’d had this morning. “Am I dismissed,Your Highness?”

“No.”

My fist clenched around my satchel.“No?”

“No, you need to come with me to have your tooth examined first,” the prince said, heading toward the door and waving for me to follow. “Please?”

“Is that an order?” I said, crossing my arms.

The prince sighed. “Yes, I’ll have you beheaded if you don’t let me help you,” he deadpanned. “Just come with me, it will only take a moment.”

“Tip your head to the side,” the healer said, holding out a shallow bowl. I leaned over it as he irrigated my mouth with water, the bowl filling up with red.

He pried my jaw open with one hand while jabbing my gums with some sort of sharp instrument. I winced, my gaze drifting to the prince, who stood to the side looking queasy. He’d brought me to a small sitting area in what I suspected was the healer’s private quarters.

The man released my jaw and drew back. “You had tooth fragments in your gums,” he said, reappearing with a small cube of gold.

“What are you doing?” I said, flinching away as he tried to put the cube in my mouth.

“Rebuilding your tooth,” he said, like it should have been obvious.

“But gold is—”

“It’s mixed with copper to make it more durable,” the healer said.

But that hadn’t been my question. Having gold in my mouth felt like the mark of someone much more important than I was. Back in Guangzhou, some of the rich who ended up on the wrong side of town at night were beaten and had their gold teeth yanked out. More than once, people had paid for míngqì with bloody gold teeth.

“I can do it myself,” I said, turning my face from the healer’s hands.

He sighed. “You don’t want a new tooth?”

“It seems like such a waste,” I said. “I’d rather you just gave me the gold and remade my tooth with a rock.”

Both the prince and the healer looked at me like I’d suggested amputating my own leg.

“It’s just a tooth!” I said. “Plenty of people have no teeth at all.”

“Will she be all right without it?” the prince said.

The healer grumbled but nodded, tucking his gold block away and not, unfortunately, handing it to me as I’d hoped. Maybe I should have just let him put it in my mouth, then extracted it later.

“Does it hurt?” the prince said.

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