Page 67 of The Scarlet Alchemist

“I asked him to help you, you know,” I said to her, raising my voice. “Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

Yufei barked out a laugh. “No offense, Zilan, but I’d rather gouge my eyes out than sleep with that rich fool.”

“I’m not going to sleep with him!” I said, my face hot. “I already told you—”

“That’s what you thinknow,” Yufei said, “but men don’t stop asking, and you don’t know how to say no to him.”

“That’s not true! When he came to me in Guangzhou, I told him I wouldn’t help him even for one hundred thousand gold!”

“Yes, and then you came to Chang’an and helped him anyway,” Wenshu said.

I shook my head. “Look, there’s nothing I can do about it now. I only came to pack.”

Wenshu crossed his arms and turned to the window, but Yufei helped me gather my things into a small satchel the prince had provided. Even though I was mad at my cousins, it felt strange to stand in the doorway with a packed bag, leaving them. I had never really been apart from Wenshu and Yufei. Even when my parents were alive, we’d only lived down the street from them, and I’d slept in their room so often that it felt like my room too.

“When you’re in the palace,” Yufei said in Chang’an dialect, “try to pocket everything you can. Their wallpaper is probably pure gold. Just rip off a few corners in subtle places.”

“She’s joking,” I said to the guard.

“I’m not joking,” Yufei said. “Bring us back food.”

“That, I can probably do,” I said. Yufei hugged me while Wenshu watched with crossed arms.

When I got the sense that he wasn’t going to say goodbye, I turned to go, but Yufei grabbed my arm and pushed me at Wenshu.

“Stop being angry. Zilan is leaving,” she said, punching Wenshu in the shoulder.

“I’m not angry,” he said, finally uncrossing his arms. “What’s done is done. But know that I will be absolutely furious if you get yourself tangled up in any more of the prince’s business and the Empress executes you. I swear, I will make one hundred míngqì of rabid wolves and cram them into your coffin so you get chewed to pieces in the afterlife.”

I slung my bag over my shoulder, waving away the guard’s offer to carry it for me and shooting Wenshu a smile. “As if the Empress would give you my corpse back.”

“Fan Zilan, I will spit on your grave!”

I laughed and waved as I turned away, forcing myself to smile until they couldn’t see my face. It was the same feeling as leaving Auntie and Uncle, the door swinging closed and all the air gone in a sudden punch to the chest. Even though I had never died like my cousins, I imaged that it felt a little bit like this.

“I have my things,” I said to the guard, stomping down the pathway, forcing him to hurry after me. “Now what?”

“Now,” he said, “I’ll take you to meet the royal alchemists.”

The guard led me through the maze of halls, pointing out a small room where I could drop my bag before heading deeper into the palace. We moved to the northern corner, where the walls grew so tall that shadows cooled the pathway, making me shiver. The dirt looked grayish in the dark, like we’d traveled to the surface of the moon. What kind of secrets were important enough to build such high walls around? Surely the whole palace knew that the alchemists dabbled in life magic.

Maybe it had something to do with the making of pearl monsters. I still hoped that what the prince had told me was wrong, that the royal alchemists weren’t responsible. But regardless, it wasn’t as if I could go to the Empress and saySorry, I don’t want to be an alchemist anymore.She’d probably make my organs into sausages just for wasting her time.

The guard stopped before a wooden door with leaves creeping through the cracks. “Is this an alchemy training ground or a prison?” I said.

“The Empress doesn’t want alchemical activities interfering with the life of the court,” the guard said, knocking twice on the door.

“Ah yes, what a pity if the alchemists who gave her eternal life get too noisy.”

The guard cast me a stern look. “Remember that I report back to the Empress,” he said.

I grimaced. I’d thought he only answered to the prince.

“I don’t suppose you could pretend you didn’t hear that?”

Before he could respond, a slot opened in the door, where a pair of sharp black eyes glared at both of us before the panel slammed shut. The door creaked inward a few inches.

“Do you really need to follow me in here?” I whispered to the guard, shuffling in front of him so we weren’t standing side by side like mismatched friends. I didn’t want to look like a child in front of the other alchemists.

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