Page 74 of The Blood Orchid

I snatched Durian from the ground and shoved him into Wenshu’s arms, then pushed him toward the door.

“Get out of here!” I said.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said, hurrying away.

As I turned around, Zheng Sili slammed a couple of woodstones against the banister of the staircase. With a surge of white light, the stairs shivered, the ground beneath them humming. The ghost and I both took a step back as the banister tore itself from its posts and unfurled like a great white serpent, needle-thin splinters raised along its spine. It fell heavily to the ground, scraping along the floor as it surged across the room, then seized the ghost by the ankle and yanked him to the ground.

It only trapped the ghost for a moment before his rottinghands closed around the serpent’s neck. Decay began to gnaw through it, winding in black ribbons across the surface.

Zheng Sili grabbed my arm and headed for the door, but the ghost rose to its feet before we had made it halfway there, forcing Zheng Sili to release my arm or lose his own. A handful of his robes burst into moths at the ghost’s touch, tearing a hole in his sleeve.

“If you have any more of those demon eggs,” Zheng Sili said, stumbling back into a shelf, “now would be a fantastic time to use them!”

Durian’s eggs!

I’d nearly forgotten about them. I felt around my secret pockets, sure that the Silver Alchemist had emptied them while I was unconscious. But it seemed she’d only cared about the opal ring, because my fingers ran over the cool surface of the two remaining golden eggs.

Before I could grab them, the ghost slammed his palms into the floor.

Decay bloomed across the floorboards, rippling through the room. The floor beneath my feet vanished as insects devoured it, dropping me five feet down into the jagged foundations of the house, a mess of crooked planks and dirt.

Zheng Sili hopped over a chair and just managed to avoid the hole, crashing into a desk as the ghost approached. He quickly climbed over the desk, eyes darting around for an escape, now backed into a corner.

He shot a panicked glanced down at me before his gaze snapped back to the ghost, whose moldy fingers reached for his face. I pulled out one of the eggs, tightening my grip around it, then leaned back and hurled it at the ghost.

The egg smacked the back of the ghost’s head with a hollowclunk, smashing his face into the desk, then fell unbroken to the ground beside him.

Zheng Sili made a petrified sound as he hurried to stand on the desk and hop over the ghost, nearly falling into the hole as he landed. He knelt at the edge of the pit and held out a hand to help me up, but my sleeve snagged on a splintered floorboard and tugged me back.

The ghost hauled himself upright, snatching the egg from the ground, but it didn’t so much as crack at his touch, as if made of solid gold. The other egg had shattered so easily, but this one seemed indestructible. I’d assumed all three of Durian’s eggs were the same, but apparently I was wrong.

The ghost tensed his fist around the egg, as if he too was confused by its strength, but must have decided it wasn’t worth the thought. He tossed the egg to the ground, where it spun in circles until it settled under a table, then turned his attention back to us.

The ghost lunged for Zheng Sili, who yelped and stumbled away from the edge of the pit, the front part of his robes bursting into a cloud of dust where the ghost’s fingers grazed him.

“Hùnxie, I’m about to lose all my clothing!” Zheng Sili shouted, falling halfway onto the tea table and sending cups spinning across the floor. The Silver Alchemist leaned to the side to avoid the spilled tea, but otherwise didn’t react. “Unless that’s what you want,get out of that hole and help me!”

“That is definitely not what I want!” I said, tugging harder at my sleeve until it tore free from the broken piece of wood, fabric splitting up to my elbow. I gripped the jagged edge of the pit and hauled myself onto the main floor, ignoring the splinters that stabbed into my palm and under my nails.

With my feet on solid ground, I reached into my pocket forDurian’s last egg. Maybe it wouldn’t knock anyone unconscious like the first egg, but surely it would dosomething. Durian’s birth had saved my life, so surely his eggs would help in some way.

I rolled to my feet and threw the last egg at the ghost.

It shattered on the side of his face, a bright burst of golden yolk seeping into the crevasse of his eye, chunks of shell sliding down his neck. He froze, outstretched hand suspended in midair.

Zheng Sili wasted no time running away. He ducked around the ghost and braced himself in front of me on the other side of the room. I spotted Durian’s unbroken egg glistening on the floor and snatched it, stuffing it back in my pocket.

The ghost pressed a hand to his cheek, then pulled back and observed the stringy yolk between his fingers.

I knew right away that this egg was not the same as the one that had broken in prison. Instead of durian, the room began to smell of fire.

The collar of the ghost’s filthy robes began to dissolve first, blackening and vanishing as if gnawed away by an invisible flame. Steam rose from his face, and darkness devoured the pale edge of his jaw, spreading fast across his teeth. The hole in his face screamed wider and wider, a rain of yellowed teeth clattering to the ground as his jaw dissolved, the darkness spreading fast across his eye socket. Over half his skull was now gone, revealing the cavern where a brain should have been. Instead, there was nothing inside but liquid silver dripping onto the ground.

The ghost clutched a hand to the hole, but yanked it away when the caustic yolk ate away at his fingertips, which quickly dissolved down to the wrist. He collapsed into the pool of silver and slowly oozed into it, the cream of his bones spilling across the uneven floors.

With a flurry of white silk, the Silver Alchemist finally rose to her feet and uncapped a glass jar, kneeling before the puddle. All that remained of the ghost rushed inside the glass and vanished as she twisted the lid, her lips pressed tight together.

“Disappointing,” she said, holding the jar up to the light. “But then again, you always were.”

---