Page 108 of A Forgery of Fate

It took a moment for the sea to comply, but Queen Haidi had been right—the waters didnotlie. Before my eyes, the books in the crate flickered, then reappeared in their true form. Almost as if a mask had been peeled away.

They were not books at all, but scrolls upon scrolls of…art. Paintings, sketches, even drawings on scraps of crude rice paper.

Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I recognized these works.

How could this be? Here, deep in the legendary realm of dragons, in a secret vault in a derelict castle, was every painting I had ever sold through Gaari. From the sketch of the prefect I’d drawn when we’d first met and the portraits that I had forged and sold at auction, to the dragon Elang had snatched from me in his garden.

Every single one of my works—even the practice drawings I’d discarded because they weren’t good enough—were here, carefully stored.

My hands shaking, I held up one of my earliest pieces.

“I want you to paint something with only one color,” Gaari had instructed.“Let’s try your favorite. Let me guess, blue?”

I skipped past the pot of blue he offered and went straight for green.

“Green,” I said. “The color of the most expensive jade. The color of pine and moss and the first chilis I ever ate.”

“The color of life,” Gaari mused.

I dipped my brush and drew a stalk of bamboo. “My father used to say, ‘Green is from blue, and is better than blue.’ ”

“What does that mean?”

I gave Gaari my cheekiest smile. “It means you learn to surpass your teachers.”

How he’d laughed. I shoved the painting back into the crate.

It couldn’t be, I told myself. Gaari was dead.

But there was no other explanation. There was no doubt.

I closed the crate lid, confusion and anger rattling inside me. Three years, I’d known the old man. I’d always questioned who he was. Part of me had guessed he wore a disguise, and more than once I’d teased him about that long white beard of his. It couldn’t be real, I’d said. And I’d been right.

How had I not seen it? The adulation for good food, the meticulousness, the stormy gray eye and disdainful glowers.

The gardening!

I mined my memory for every encounter, every word I’d exchanged with Gaari. Gaari had been garrulous and fun, charming—and a friend. If not for him, my family would have starved. I’d have ended up in the governor’s prison.

Gaari always had a big heart.

Whereas Elang…Elang had no heart. He was cold and distant, calculating and…

Gave your family a place to stay.A treacherous voice stole into my thoughts.Took a barb in the chest for you.

“Only because he needs me,” I snapped aloud, waving the thoughts away.

I dug into my pocket for the waterbell he’d given me inNanhira. It sat on my hand, petals unfolding gently, as fresh and blue as the day he conjured it.

Now it served as a painful reminder of how close I’d come to trusting him. This entire time, he’d been lying.

“That stupid merman,” purred a voice. Shani misted into being, uncrossing her long fins over my neck. “I had a feeling he’d give it all away.”

“So it’s true.” The words clung to my throat like the bitterest pill. “Elang is…Gaari.”

I needed to say it aloud, more for myself than for Shani.

“Congratulations,” said the demon. “Turns out you didn’t marry a stranger after all.”

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