Chapter 11

After her unceremonious expulsion from the guild archives, Ying trudged back to the apprentice quarters, a dozen questions swirling inside her head. She hadn't achieved what she set out to do, but she had come away with an interesting discovery—that there was another woman in the guild, the first and only she had seen since coming here. Even though she might only be an archive keeper, it did provide a glimmer of hope that someday, the guild would accept Ying the way it had accepted this woman.

Then her thoughts turned—the archive keeper seemed to have known her father personally, judging from the explosiveness of her reaction.

I have to find another chance to speak to her, she thought.

The dormitories were darkened. It was bath hour, and the other boys would likely spend a long time washing away the stress from today's test—and passing snide remarks about who was going to get the axe at daybreak.

It was just as well. She wasn't in the mood for small talk.

Before she even reached the door of her dormitory, she already spotted the hazy shadow standing inside. She frowned. Was it one of her other roommates? If it was, then he had better not be half-naked, or else her bad day would hit rock bottom. The closer she got, the more defined the man's silhouette became.

He was rummaging through things—belongings that were kept in the small trunks given to each of them on the first day they arrived. He could be digging through her things.

"What do you think you're doing?" she yelled, rushing into the room.

Under the dim illumination from the gas lamps hanging along the corridor, she could just about make out the intruder's outfit. A plain dark suit covered him from head to toe, revealing only a pair of narrow eyes, and a frightening scar cutting across one of them.

Panic coursed through Ying's veins. It was him again, the same man who had killed her father and had nearly gotten to her on Muci.

The intruder flung his right arm out, and a flurry of darts came shooting out from his sleeve.

Ying quickly threw herself to the side, but she wasn't fast enough. A sharp pain struck her left shoulder and forearm. She instinctively reached for her fan and then cursed inwardly when she remembered that her only reasonable weapon wasn't there. She was completely unarmed.

"Help! There's an intruder!" Ying started shouting at the top of her lungs, clambering toward the open doors. "Somebody help!"

With nothing to fight with, calling for help was her best chance of survival. She had no means of winning in hand-to-hand combat, and she was already injured. If she didn't sound the alarm, her throat would be slit within the next minute. Her heart pounded frantically inside her chest.

As she looked back, the man swung his other arm and five more darts shot out, flying toward her head.

Ying dropped to the ground. The tiny silver needles flew overhead, piercing through the wooden ledge at the base of the doorway. Looking to the side, she spotted a string of rosary beads lying on the ground. It was Chang-en's. She remembered seeing him use it to meditate and pray for good luck in the trial. If only the gods could bless her with some of that luck now.

She lunged and grabbed the beads, then rolled left to hide behind one of her roommates' trunks. With one hard tug, she snapped the rosary string, then flung the entire chain in the direction of her attacker. In the darkness, the man stepped on a few loose beads and lost balance, stumbling in his approach.

Ying seized the chance to run. She scrambled out through the doorway and into the corridor.

Her mind spun. It felt like a million ants were gnawing at her injured arm. She took a quick glance down. The veins across the back of her hand had turned a ghoulish shade of purple, like someone had painted a spider's web on her skin.

Poison.

The darts were laced with poison.

Her vision blurred and her knees buckled. Turning back, she saw the man was walking toward her. A blade glinted in his hand.

No, I can't die now, she told herself. There were too many things that she still needed to do, too many questions unanswered in her mind. It would be a terrible irony if her life were to end tonight, under the exact same circumstances as her father's death, at the hands of the same man.

"Aihui Min!"

Urgent footsteps pounded in her direction. Help was arriving.

In her delirious state, Ying saw someone sprinting down the corridor toward her, the blurred outline of a straw hat bobbing up and down. She should have been elated, but the pain that was burning through her arm was too much to think.

Maybe I'm not going to die today. Maybe…

Her world went black.

When she opened her eyes, a flickering oil lamp was wobbling precariously overhead, courtesy of the light breeze. Ying was lying on a bed of prickly straw. She turned to her left and realized that she was not alone. The stall she was in already had an inhabitant, who was stomping his back hooves and flaring his nostrils as if to convey his displeasure at having to share accommodation.

"You're awake?"

She turned to the other side. Ye-kan was sitting there with his back against the wooden paneling of the horse's stall, his veiled hat lying on the straw beside him. He wore a stiff, uncomfortable expression, made slightly comical by the fake blisters on his face.

Ying struggled to sit up, but when she put weight on her left arm, the burning sensation flared up once again. She winced, collapsing back down on the hay. "How long have I been out?" she asked.

Her heart tremored at the thought of her near brush with death. Had Ye-kan not showed up when he did, she would already be reunited with her parents on the other side, having accomplished nothing since coming here. The sight of the assassin's scar flashed across her mind's eye—as did the memory of her father's blood staining her hands.

He knows that I'm here.

She wasn't certain if the assassin knew who she really was, but using the Aihui name in the guild trial had placed her in danger. She was no longer safe, not even within these heavily guarded walls.

"It's probably been less than one stick of incense worth of time." Ye-kan could barely look at her. "You were attacked. I think it might have been a robbery. Everything in the dormitory was in a mess."

Ying waited for the rest of the story, but Ye-kan just sat there fiddling with his own fingers instead, looking like he had no intention of continuing.

"What happened to the…thief?"

"He escaped through the window when I ran over. Don't know why anyone would think of robbing the place though. All your bundles are filled with cheap clothes and useless books." Ye-kan paused, then he yelped, "Wait a minute, what if he was trying to steal my things? What if someone knows I'm here!"

Ying rolled her eyes. The kid was too dramatic. He needed to get over his princeling attitude. Their other roommates heralded from distinguished clans across the nine isles—hardly the poor riffraff that he always described them to be.

"What are we doing in the stables then?" Ying croaked. Propping herself up with her good arm this time, she sat up, taking another look at their surroundings.

"You got poisoned," Ye-kan replied, his eyes darting furtively from left to right, refusing to meet Ying's gaze head-on. He was wringing his fingers, then pulling at them one by one to make them pop.

Ying glanced down at her injured arm. The purple streaks she remembered seeing on the back of her hand had faded, and although her arm still hurt, it felt considerably better than when she had fainted at the dormitory doorway. She slid her sleeve up—no weblike venation there either.

"I pulled out the needles and gave you an antidote to help clear the poison," Ye-kan added when he saw her examining her arm. He tossed the two innocuous, shiny culprits onto her lap. "Do you know how valuable that was? Only our clan physicians know the formula. It treats almost all known poisons. I had just the one."

"Thanks," Ying murmured.

"That's all?" Ye-kan leapt up to his feet, bristling with irritation. "After everything I did for you, that's all I get? I should have just left you there to die—or let your secret be discovered first, and then die."

Her secret?

The realization dawned. Ying clapped one hand over her mouth, her other hand clutching on to the front of her top in alarm. She was passed out when Ye-kan had found her. If their roles were reversed and she had been the one to discover an injured man lying on the ground, the first thing she would have done would be to remove his robes to check the wound.

Ye-kan knew. He knew that she was a girl.

"Stop looking at me like that!" the prince yelled. "What do you take me for? Some kind of pervert? You're not even worth a second glance." Realizing his words could be misconstrued, Ye-kan quickly shook his head and corrected himself. "What I meant is that you're not the least bit attractive—I mean, I didn't see anything except the, the, the—" He waved his hand about his chest, trying desperately to convey his meaning, to no avail. He sighed, sinking back down onto the straw in resignation. "I didn't see anything," he muttered.

Ying could guess what the prince was trying to drive at. She had bound her chest with white bandages so that she would look more convincing as a boy, so if Ye-kan had attempted to remove her clothes to check her injuries, that was likely the first and only thing he saw before he panicked.

Looking at his blushing cheeks and sour expression, she couldn't resist letting out a light laugh. Her anxiety dissipated.

"Thank you," she repeated herself, slowly and sincerely. "Not just for saving my life, but also for helping me keep my secret."

Ye-kan wasn't obliged to do either, but he had done both. Now she realized why they were sitting in the stables. If he had called for help or left her there for someone else to find her, then the guild physicians would have been summoned and her identity would be exposed. Instead, he had gone through the trouble of sacrificing his antidote and transporting her here, just so her secret would be safe. She owed him one.

The prince sniffled, looking somewhat appeased. "I didn't do it for you," he said. "I did it for myself. Now that I know your secret, you can't go blurting mine." He folded his arms across his chest, a smug smile appearing.

Ying shook her head. "You're really determined to stay in the guild, aren't you?" she asked.

"Of course!"

"But why? You're a prince. You could enjoy life in your manor with every material comfort a person could wish for. When you come of age, the High Commander will grant you a title and possibly even give you command over one of the Eight Banners. Isn't that good enough a life for you?"

"Who wants that?" Ye-kan scoffed. "I'm going to be the best engineer the nine isles have ever seen. One day I'll be the grand master of this guild, just like my grandfather." He puffed up his chest like a proud peacock. "As if you can talk, anyway. What's a girl like you doing in the guild? You can't be Aihui Min, so who are you really?"

"His sister, Aihui Ying," she admitted. After a moment's hesitation, she said, "My father used to be a guild master. I want to follow in his footsteps, but I can't because the guild doesn't accept female apprentices."

It wasn't the whole story, but it would have to do.

Two people now knew of her hidden identity—Ye-yang and Ye-kan. She hadn't yet told Ye-yang the whole truth about her being here, and she wasn't sure she trusted Ye-kan enough to reveal everything. If word of her investigation reached the ears of the mastermind, then she would come to regret her candor.

"You? A guild master?" Ye-kan threw his head back and laughed till the tears spilled from his eyes. "You're a girl. Why would you even think of becoming an engineer? The guild isn't for girls."

"Oh, is that right?" Ying slowly picked herself off the hay, groaning as pain shot through her arm. She ambled toward Ye-kan, who instinctively leaned back and eyed her suspiciously.

"What are you doing?"

Scowling, Ying grabbed hold of his left ear and gave it a hard twist. "If a girl like me can't be in the guild, then neither can a kid like you," she scolded. "If I hear you spout such chauvinistic rubbish one more time, I'm going straight to the fourth beile to have you dragged back home. Have I made myself clear?"

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Try me."

Ying let go, proceeding to ruffle Ye-kan's hair the way she did to her younger siblings. Fire spouted from his eyes as he pushed her hand away. Smiling, Ying pushed open the door to the stall and headed for the stable doors. If they lingered for too long, the others would start getting suspicious.

A small crowd had gathered in their dormitory when Ying and Ye-kan returned, including Master Gerel. Raised voices spoke over one another, arguing about what had taken place. No one even noticed the duo entering the room, their attentions fixated upon the shambles around them.

Now that the lamps were lit, Ying could see the full extent of the disarray caused by the intruder. The mess was mostly restricted to her half of the room, although it wasn't only her trunk whose lock had been cracked and items ransacked. There were at least three other trunks that lay open, clothes, books, and personal trinkets strewn haphazardly around.

Ye-kan, who had since replaced his straw hat to avoid getting questioned by Gerel, pushed his way through the crowd, shoving past the others. He rushed to his own sleeping corner and flung aside the folded blanket that he had hidden his trunk under. When he saw that its lock was still intact, the young prince exhaled in relief.

"Where have you been?" one of their roommates asked. "You weren't with us at the baths earlier."

"Of course I wasn't. Why would I ever share a bath with all of you?"

The tall, hulking giant who shared their room—Muke—straightened out his back and seemed to grow a few inches, cracking his knuckles menacingly. He blew at his fist and swung it toward the oblivious Ye-kan. Ying could already see this ending in blood.

"Stop this nonsense!" Gerel bellowed.

Muke's arm froze in midair, his fist just a brush-width away from the veil that covered Ye-kan's face. The prince had backed himself into a corner, still hugging his trunk.

"This is the Engineers Guild, not some brawling pit. If you want to throw punches, then enroll in the military." Gerel jabbed at the foreheads of the gormless boys that were standing closest to him. "Clear up the mess and go to bed—all of you!"

"But, Master Gerel," Muke started, "aren't you going to question him?" He jerked his thumb in Ye-kan's direction. "He was nowhere to be seen during bath hour and his trunk's untouched."

Gerel rubbed his temple, eyelids fluttering in exasperation. "Fine," he said. "Bayara Ye-kan, where were you earlier?"

"Around," Ye-kan replied vaguely.

"Why weren't you with the rest of them?"

"He has a bad skin reaction, remember?" Ying voiced out from behind the horde, keeping her head down so that no one would notice that she was one shade paler than normal. "If he used the common baths, he could have spread it to everyone." It was a good thing that Ye-kan had drawn the attention away from her, but knowing the fourteenth prince, he was too stubborn and prideful to extricate himself from this hole, and the longer this dragged out, the more likely he was going to let something slip.

Everyone suddenly remembered the pus-infested face they had witnessed in the morning. Someone made a retching noise.

"That's it then. It was probably a prank by one of the boys in the other dormitories," Gerel said dismissively. "None of you have anything worth stealing anyway. Now go to bed unless you want your name scratched off the list for the next stage of the trial."

"But why would they break the locks then? Isn't that a lot of effort to go through just for a prank?" Muke offered.

A storm started brewing on Gerel's face, his eyes narrowing dangerously as they swept across the crowd of young faces. "I already said, there is nothing to investigate here. It would be prudent if all of you stopped wasting time on conspiracy theories and spent more of it studying your books," he barked. "Pack up and go to sleep!"

The boys moved quickly. Those whose belongings had been ransacked scooped everything up and shoved them back into their trunks. The rest of them leapt onto the platform and pulled their covers up. The lamps were hurriedly extinguished.

Gerel stood by the doorway and surveyed the room. Once satisfied, he huffed and slammed the doors shut, footsteps retreating briskly down the corridor.

"It wasn't a prank," Muke's deep voice rang out in the darkness. "Those locks were broken by a professional. One stroke of the blade. I've seen my father's men slice through locks like that before."

"Shut up," Chang-en said. "Master Gerel already closed the case and no one lost anything. Go to sleep."

There was a little more grumbling, then loud snoring took over.

Ying lay there staring up at the ceiling, pondering the events that had transpired. Even the other boys could tell that it hadn't been a prank, not with the way the locks had been sliced like tofu. But why did Master Gerel brush it aside, eager to label it as a mere case of mischief? What if he had known about the intrusion from the start—and collaborated with the scarred assassin? The fact that the assassin had managed to breach the guild's tight security would suggest that there was an insider working with him. The rivalry between Gerel and her father drifted back to mind, and the seed of suspicion that had already been planted inside her sprouted ugly roots.

She sat up, lifting the blanket to reveal the messy pile of garments she had swept aside when they all jumped into bed. Opening up her trunk in the dark, she started folding her clothes one by one and placing each item neatly back in the wooden box. Picking up the broken lock, she ran her fingers along the smooth edge, shuddering at the thought of the man's sword plunged into her chest.

Ying glanced to her right. Ye-kan was curled against the wall with his hat over his face, still cuddling his small trunk to his chest as if afraid that someone would steal it in his sleep. She lay back down, pulling the blanket up over her shoulders. The pain in her arm had subsided into a mild tingling sensation, yet it still provided a harrowing reminder of the poison that had flowed through her blood.

"You weren't with us at the baths either," Chang-en suddenly whispered from her left.

Ying startled. "I don't like the common baths. You know that." She angled herself away from Chang-en, afraid that he would see through her excuses.

"Where were you, then?"

"Are you accusing me of something?"

"No, you're so scrawny you probably can't even lift a sword, much less slice those locks in two. Just—where did you go after the test? You ran off all of a sudden."

"I went to the guild archives," Ying whispered.

"The archives? Whatever for?"

"I wanted to take a look at my father's old record books," Ying said quietly. "Wasn't allowed in." She had been so close. Her father's books were sitting somewhere on those shelves, locked in that pagoda. "Do you know anything about the guild's archive keeper?" she asked, recalling her run-in with the eccentric woman. It felt like such a far-off memory, even though it had only happened earlier in the day.

"No. There's an archive keeper?" her friend replied. When he got no reply, Chang-en sighed, saying, "Your father never told you about any of the things he did while he was in the guild, did he?"

Resentment flared inside her at the reminder of the secrets her father had kept. "He didn't like to talk about his time in Fei," she said.

"Must have been a nasty split with the guild then, looking at how Gerel and the other guild masters are always picking on you. I don't know much more than what I've already told you. You could try asking An-xi though, he might know more. Bookworm." Chang-en yawned. Moments later, Ying could hear his breathing settle into a steady rhythm as he drifted to sleep.

Closing her eyes, Ying tried to do the same.

In her dreams, faceless strangers clad in black chased her through the darkness, with insidious holes where their eyes should have been. She ran as fast as she could, but somehow the cold tips of their swords pricked against the skin of her back. A tiny spot of light appeared in the distance. It grew and grew, until she could make out a figure standing there, beckoning to her.

Her father.

"Ying," his familiar voice called out, like a ray of sunshine piercing through the endless night. He was holding out his hand to her.

She stretched.

Their fingertips touched.

But then, instead of the kindness and warmth that she remembered, her father's eyes flashed with anger. "I told you to burn it. Why didn't you burn it, Ying? Why didn't you listen?"

He was accusing her, berating her for not following instructions. He lowered his hand. He wasn't going to rescue her anymore—she didn't deserve it. She turned her head, only to find that the faceless monsters were still there, hot on her heels, their raised blades gleaming—hungry for blood.

"A-ma, please, I didn't mean to. I just wanted to know the truth. I wanted to know why that book, why those drawings were so important. I wanted to know why you had to die because of it," she cried, desperately clutching at her father's retreating figure. She ran forward, tripping over herself and falling to the ground.

She was kneeling in a puddle. Warm and sticky. Blood. She was kneeling in blood.

She opened her mouth to scream, but no matter how hard she tried, there was no sound coming from her lips. Behind, the distance between her and her pursuers continued to shrink.

The light in front of her was gone now. Her father was gone.

"Ying," another voice called to her. She felt someone's hand on her shoulder, gentle and comforting. She looked up.

It was Ye-yang. He held out his hand to her and she grabbed hold of it gratefully, clutching on to his fingers like a drowning person clinging to a piece of driftwood. He pulled her back up to her feet and lifted her into his arms. Then, he started running. Resting her cheek against his chest, she could hear the slow, rhythmic beating of his heart, like a soothing lullaby.

"You're safe now," he said. "You're safe."