Page 98 of The Scarlet Alchemist

I’d dragged so many people back from the shores of death without ever really thinking about what that meant. Was I even a person anymore? Or was I like one of my old hemp dolls, just a soulless piece of fabric stuffed full of rags? I pressed a hand to my racing heart—I could feel all the blood rushing through me, nausea twisting in my stomach, cold sweat running down my face. How could I not be alive?

And more importantly, how could I have died without knowing it?

The name on my spine saidSu Zilan, so it must have happened before my father left, before I was a Fan. Maybe I didn’t remember because I was so young at the time. But I had still grown up down the street from my cousins, who were older than me and surely would have remembered me dying. And who could have resurrected me? My father’s notes had theorized about how one might revive the dead, but he hadn’t written about attempting it.

I came to a stop in the middle of an empty courtyard, my legs shaking. I’d jammed on my dress and hadn’t bothered to grab a jacket before fleeing, and somewhere along the way I’d lost one of my shoes, my toes sinking into mud.

I had no idea where to go.

I wanted to talk to my cousins, the only people who would understand, but would they even open the door for me after what I’d said? Who else could I possibly talk to? Who else even knew the first thing about resurrection?

I turned my gaze toward the southern quarters, the high walls that marked the alchemy compound.

I started running before I could stop myself, shivering as I waited for the bewildered guard to let me in, wanting to tear my own skin off just to feel something other than this nauseous panic. Finally, I sprinted past the gates to the last house on the right, pounding my fists on the door until I heard grumbling and footsteps from the other side.

The door slid open sharply. The Moon Alchemist stood in the shadowed darkness, her hair in a tangled crown around her face, her grip tight on the doorframe.

“Fan Zilan—”

“I think I’m dead,” I said.

She blinked, the anger gone from her face in an instant, then let out a heavy sigh. She turned, waving for me to follow her inside. I hurried in before she could change her mind, locking the door behind me.

“I think—”

“Shh!” she said, rubbing her eye with one hand and throwing a couple cushions onto the floor around a small table. “Tea first.”

I wanted to scream at how slowly the Moon Alchemist began to boil water and measure out tea leaves. The moment she sat down with a steaming cup, the words poured from my mouth.

“I found a soul tag on my back,” I said. “I’d never seen it before.”

The Moon Alchemist hummed in acknowledgment, taking a sip of tea. “Did you tell anyone?” she said.

I stilled. Her calmness unnerved me. Was she going to turn me in to the Empress?

“Just the prince,” I said. “He saw it, but I don’t think he understood. I left before explaining.”

“Good,” the Moon Alchemist said, setting her cup down loudly on the table. “Make your excuses to him later. He’s well-educated but not particularly perceptive. He’ll believe you if you lie.”

I reached for my teacup, wanting to hold on to something, but my hands shook so much that the hot water spilled onto the table, scalding me. I pulled away out of reflex but hardly even felt it. The Moon Alchemist was so eerily calm that it only heightened my panic. Did she understand what I was telling her?

“Do you not believe me?” I said. “I know what a soul tag looks like. I resurrected people long before I came here.”

“That was obvious from the start,” the Moon Alchemist said, frowning at me through the haze of steam rising from her cup. “You have no memory of dying?”

I shook my head. “It must have happened when I was very young, because the soul tag doesn’t say Fan Zilan. It says—”

“Su Zilan.”

I froze. All the blood rushed from my face. Across from me, the Moon Alchemist took another sip of tea.

“How did you know that?” I whispered, my bones screaming for me toget up and don’t stop running.

She set down her cup, pushed it to the side, and crossed her arms. “Because,” she said, “I’m the one who brought you back.”

I shook my head slowly, unable to form words. I wanted to flip the table over and storm out into the night, but my limbs felt like granite. Why was the Moon Alchemist suddenly lying to me? I’d never even left Guangzhou until this year, so how could she have met me?

“When you came to Chang’an as an alchemist, I wasn’t sure if it was really you, at first,” she said. “Zilan is not a common name for your class, and ahùnxienamed Zilan is even less common. But you said your surname was Fan, and I knew that was not the name I wrote on a child’s spine so many years ago. That is not a day I will ever forget.”

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