Chapter 16

Ying recognized the eccentric archive keeper straightaway, even though she was no longer hiding behind a gas mask and her frizzy hair had been pinned behind her head with two wooden chopsticks. This was not how she had expected them to meet again.

"It's Master Lianshu to you," the woman replied haughtily, tossing Ying a sideways glance. She surveyed the group of students, seemingly oblivious to the shock and incredulity written all over their faces. "Not bad, the few of you. Looks like you've accomplished your task within the time limit," she said. "Although I don't think you would have been able to do it without a push from my little friends."

She opened her right fist and a golden bee rose from her palm, hovering beside her like an obedient pet. Except it wasn't really a bee after all.

Now that they were studying it up close without the fear of being stung to death, they could see that the creature was entirely mechanical. An automaton with a round body crafted from bronze, suspended in the air by the rapid flapping of its thin, metallic wings. Ying had seen something similar—and more intricate—before.

It had been a mechanical butterfly with the most beautiful silver filigree wings, made by her father for Nian's twelfth birthday. A dancer for his dancer, their a-ma had said as he released the little automaton and let it twirl about in midair.

Still staring at the bee, Ying wondered if it had been created from the same design that Nian's butterfly had been.

Arban was the first one to snap out of the trance. "You sent those bees?" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet in a rage. "How dare you! What if one of us got hurt? You can't take responsibility for that!"

"Arban, shut up," An-xi hissed tersely from the side.

Master Lianshu was unfazed. She regarded the furious boy with a cool gaze and said, "I don't have to take responsibility for anything. All of you have already wagered your lives by entering the guild's apprenticeship trial. If you are incapable or unwilling to sacrifice yourselves for the High Command and the guild, then you should run back home now instead of wasting everyone's time."

The sharpness in her voice felt like a clean blade slicing through steel, and even the bearlike Arban, who was almost two heads taller than the guild master, seemed to wither under her scornful words. Everyone else cowered in fear. This woman carried an aura of authority and gravitas that was impossible to dismiss, with a keenness in her gray eyes that—

Ying took a double take.

Without the hazy glass distorting Lianshu's eyes, she could distinctly see those eyes were the shade of stormy skies. Like Ye-yang's. Like the High Commander's.

Lianshu…Aogiya Lianzhe…Aogiya Lianshu?

She leaned toward Ye-kan and whispered, "Do you know Master Lianshu?"

"You mean do I know my own aunt? Of course I do," Ye-kan muttered. "Look somewhere else and stop drawing attention to me." He had his head bowed, long strands of wet hair purposefully plastered over his face so that no one could actually see what he looked like.

Suddenly things began to make sense.

If Lianshu was an Aogiya, then it would explain why she had been allowed into the guild and even elevated to the position of guild master despite being a woman. She was the sister of the High Commander and the daughter of the guild's founder. If there was one thing that could overrule tradition—it was power.

The hope that had sprouted in Ying's heart at seeing a woman occupy a position of authority within the guild was mingled with the bitter realization of the double standards they faced. The Aogiya name alone unlocked every door for Lianshu that a girl from any other clan could never open.

Ying shot her hand up into the air. "Master Lianshu, I have a question," she said, cautiously depressing her voice, in case the guild master, as a fellow woman, saw through her secret.

A brief flicker of surprise crossed the guild master's eyes. "Yes?"

"At the start, we all thought we had been going in a straight line, but in actuality we were going in circles. Why's that so?"

Some of the other boys had suggested various supernatural reasons for the phenomenon they had experienced, but Ying didn't believe that. She believed in engineering—and this was Strategy class.

A smile quirked upon Lianshu's lips. "Ah, you noticed?" She hopped off the rock, then lifted the top fifth of it as if she were removing a hat off someone's head. Everyone quickly scrambled to their feet and moved forward to take a look, all of them flabbergasted to find that the rock was in fact hollow, its interior emptied out to house a complex set of pulleys and thick metal chains that descended down a dark pit burrowed deep into the earth.

Master Lianshu pulled two levers and the earth rumbled—the forest began to move before their eyes.

From their vantage point, they could see different sections of trees slide back and forth, seamlessly changing positions as if they sat on invisible wheels.

This is incredible, Ying thought. There's an entire mechanical system buried underground controlling the movement of different plate fragments. We were walking in a straight line. It was the orientation of the forest that was changing without us realizing…

She turned her attention toward Master Lianshu's hands, which were deftly rotating a series of knobs on a simplified map of the forest, modeled out of shimmering tortoiseshell fragments.

"Not many people outside of the Engineers Guild and the High Command know that Wu Lin was artificially created as both a training ground for the bannermen of the Order and as a defensive barrier against any potential attacks from the eastern side of the isle. We call them ‘mobile terrains.' This is your introduction to how engineering strategy and military strategy can come together to greatly enhance the capabilities of an army."

There was a fire burning in the guild master's eyes as she spoke, an infectious enthusiasm that stirred endless possibilities in Ying's mind.

One day, I'll be exactly like her, she thought.

"Okay, end of class. Get yourselves back to the guild now," Master Lianshu declared.

"How are we supposed to get back?" An-xi asked.

"Is that my problem?" The master turned and began striding away toward the city gates, leaving her shivering and exhausted charges to fend for themselves.

Ying quickly got up and chased after her.

"Master Lianshu," she panted, "there's something I want to ask you."

"What is it?" Lianshu snapped, not slowing down her pace.

"Can I please access the guild archives? I won't make a mess or look at anything that I shouldn't. I only want to take a look at my father's old books, that's all." Ying kept her head down, wary of facing Lianshu in such close proximity.

The master stopped, whirling around abruptly. Her eyebrows twitched to the agitated rhythm of those pulsating veins at her temples.

"You're the one who broke my booby trap system!" she said. "I already made it very clear, I will not have any opportunistic scoundrels trying to pull wool over my eyes and—"

"Look." Ying untied her clan pendant from her waistband, holding it out in front of Lianshu. It was a circular piece of pale green jade, with the characters "Aihui" carved by her father's own hand. "Every member of my family carries one of these. My name is Aihui Min, and my a-ma carved this for me when I was born."

Lianshu stared at the pendant for a moment, then she grabbed it from Ying, running her thumb along the grooves of the engravings. Her hands trembled. She looked up and shook Ying by the shoulders. "Where is he? Where's Shan-jin?"

"I told you before," Ying stammered, shaken by Lianshu's violent reaction. "My father is dead. He died three months ago."

"He…what?"

Lianshu had been standing by the window for the longest time, and for a moment Ying wondered if the news she had brought had done enough damage to petrify the woman. A little like how monks were said to remain frozen in their lotus meditating positions when they attained enlightenment and their spirits moved on to the next realm. She was surprised that Lianshu didn't know about her father's death—but then again, the woman seemed to lead a reclusive existence.

She was sitting on the highest floor of the little pagoda that housed the guild archives, which she now knew to be the place where Lianshu had been hiding while everyone else invented tall tales about her skulking about in some rat-infested cellar. The room reminded her of her father's workshop—tools hanging from their hooks, neatly rolled-up scrolls sitting in piles, and shelves filled with stacks and stacks of books. She had been trying to catch a glimpse of Master Lianshu's brush writing, to see if it resembled that of the equations left on the back of her father's parchment, but she found no way of doing it without being too obvious.

Seeing that the master was still preoccupied with her own thoughts, Ying tried to inch a little farther right, trying to reach for a partially unrolled scroll lying on Lianshu's desk.

"We were supposed to climb the Kunrun peaks together, you know," Lianshu suddenly said.

Ying almost fell off her chair.

She bolted upright and retracted her outstretched hand, placing it stiffly upon her lap. To her relief, Lianshu hadn't turned around and noticed her suspicious behavior.

"There was a legend about an old hermit who lived up on the highest peak, who supposedly had a mystical book left by the gods. The book contained the greatest engineering secrets that could be known to humankind, and he who owned the book would wield power beyond comprehension." Lianshu laughed bitterly, shaking her head. She walked over to Ying and sat down across the circular table. "Shan-jin didn't believe that horseshit. I was the one who was fascinated with the myth and insisted that we make the trip one day. He didn't have the heart to turn me down."

"You must have been close."

"We were best friends. Shan-jin, me, and…never mind. It's all bygones now. Did your father not tell you anything about his time in the guild?"

"My father hardly spoke about his time in Fei or the guild. He didn't seem to like dredging up those memories."

Lianshu sighed deeply, emptying a cup of bland tea into her mouth. "If you want to look at your father's old works, they're on the second floor. You can take some of those books with you when you leave, but don't tell Gerel I let you, else he'll be nagging endlessly. Like a noisy cricket, that one." At the mention of the other master, Lianshu rolled her eyes emphatically.

"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly happened to my father here in the guild? Why did he choose to leave?" Ying asked, leaning forward. Lianshu was the first person she had met who seemed able to provide some of the answers that she was seeking.

Lianshu's fingers tightened around her ceramic teacup, shoulders visibly tensing. "There's no point in digging up the past," she said. "It's nothing. Some minor disagreements here and there. It would be disrespectful of me to tell you all these things when he explicitly wanted to keep it from you."

"But if you could just tell me—"

"No!" Lianshu shrieked. She pushed her chair back with a harsh screech and walked back to the open window. "I'm tired. Go downstairs and fetch the books you wanted and leave. They're on the third shelf from the left, shelved by clan name."

Alarmed by the sudden outburst, Ying got up and dashed for the door, turning back to take a final look at the guild master before she stepped out. Lianshu's back was hunched and her shoulders trembling. Was she crying? But why?

There were things that the guild master was keeping from her, things about her father's past that could shed light upon his death—and she was determined to find out what they were.

Ever since Lianshu granted her permission to take the books out of the archives, Ying spent almost every night scouring the pages, trying to find clues hidden between the lines, anything that would take her one step closer to the truth behind her father's death. While everyone else was fast asleep and snoring, she would sneak out of the dormitory and sit outside by the little gourd-shaped pond in the courtyard, flipping through her father's old record books.

Tonight was no different. Her nose started stinging at the sight of her father's familiar handwriting.

Unlike the neat, narrow characters that she was used to seeing, her father's brushstrokes in his younger days seemed more carefree and buoyant. The brush danced across the page with vivacity, revealing a glimpse of the youth that Aihui Shan-jin used to be. In the margins of the pages, she also spotted several messy scribbles of jokes and nonsensical one-liners by someone else—presumably one of her father's close friends—that reminded her of what Chang-en kept doing in her books. She wondered if that person was Lianshu, but even if it was, the writing didn't match what was on her father's parchment or the letter sent to Wen, so it provided no answers as to the identities of those people.

It was difficult for her to imagine a youthful version of her father, going through life as a guild apprentice exactly the way she was now, yet these record books proved that such a time existed.

When her father had been happy here.

It would have been much easier if Lianshu would tell her everything she knew, but she wasn't going to harbor any expectations. Aogiya Lianshu was too much of a wild card, and she wasn't sure she could trust the woman either, not after she set a swarm of deadly bee automatons upon unsuspecting novices.

I'll need to work faster, she thought. Assassin attacks, guild master challenges, it was as if a lethal trap was waiting for her at every corner. If she didn't arm herself properly, her luck would run out eventually. With the new discovery of her father's association with Lianshu, she needed more time in the guild to investigate this new thread. If they had been best friends as Lianshu claimed, then it seemed strange that her father had never so much as mentioned Lianshu before.

In the earlier entries of her father's old notes, his work had been very conventional—improvements to existing vehicular engines and structures, adjustments to fertilizer composition, models of irrigation networks—the usual areas of engineering that apprentices were commonly put to work on. But as she progressed through the pages, she noticed a change. It started with tweaks to airship engines and sail structures, then ballonet and lift gas–related upgrades, then the pages were crammed with detailed sketches of old cannon models and gunpowder recipes.

Her father had been obsessively studying every single part of the airship before his spark of an idea for the air cannons came into being. Then his days in the guild were filled with nothing but.

This was when Ying hit a snag. In the final pages of her father's records, a hefty portion had been ripped out, leaving behind jagged edges where the pages should have been. Perplexed, Ying had flicked through the entire set of books again and again, but those missing pages were nowhere to be found.

If the trend in her father's research continued, then the missing pages likely contained more records of cannon development—much like what was in the secret journal he had asked her to burn. She pulled out that journal from between the folds of her robes and opened it, laying the books side by side.

He must have been on the brink of an important discovery, she mused to herself, the furrows across her forehead deepening as she considered everything she knew.

Her father's research might have treaded into risky territory, culminating in him leaving altogether. However, he hadn't given up on his work. Instead, he had carried on in secret back on Huarin—his journal was evidence of it. But some secrets couldn't be kept forever. Whoever it was who knew about her father's work in the guild had eventually extended their treacherous hand to Huarin, making another attempt to steal her father's knowledge.

Could it have been Gerel?

His inexplicable hatred for her father had transcended the decades. Perhaps jealousy was enough to drive a man to commit heinous crimes, beginning with theft and ending with murder.

Or could it have been one of the beiles or the noble clans?

The race for the High Commander's position was heating up, and different factions were constantly locking horns as they tussled to get their preferred candidate into the lead. Given the level of importance the High Commander had placed upon this military campaign against the Qirin empire, it was entirely possible that someone had thought of stealing her father's weapon designs so that they could claim credit for them.

She sighed, picking up a stray pebble and tossing it into the pond. "But where does the dragon symbol come into the picture?" she wondered out loud. She hadn't found any signs of dragons since arriving in the guild, and close to four months had already passed.

Unless the mastermind was a turncoat, selling the engineering secrets of the Antaran territories to the Empire?

"Why do you look so shocked?" Ye-kan's voice interrupted her train of thought.

Ying turned and saw the boy walking back toward the dormitory. She quickly stacked all the books together, slipping the one she had brought from Huarin right at the base. Ye-kan stopped beside her and peered down, arching one imperious brow.

"Well?" he demanded irritably. "What are you doing out here in the middle of the night? Haven't you learned your lesson about wandering around alone?"

Ying straightened herself up and smacked Ye-kan across the head. "Stop talking to me like that," she said. Ignoring the dismay written all over the boy's scrunched-up face, she pinched his right ear and gave it a good twist. "I'm older than you, so show some respect."

"I will not!" Ye-kan spat. "How many times must I tell you that I'm not a child! I'm also a prince of the nine isles—why can't you treat me the way you treat Ye-yang?"

Her mood lifted. Ying laughed, letting go of the boy's ear. "Where have you been? Looks like you're the one who's been wandering about after hours."

He scowled. "Getting a scolding," he said. "Turns out my aunt spotted me right from the beginning. She was only pretending not to so that it would keep me on edge. Today, she finally summoned me to the archives and gave me a good whipping with one of her sadistic machines. I swear that woman is unhinged!"

There was a fine line between being utterly brilliant and being completely delusional, and to Ying, Aogiya Lianshu was the former. Over the course of the few Strategy lessons they had received, she was awestruck by the wild feats of engineering the woman seemed to be capable of.

Ying's smile widened, and she reached over to ruffle Ye-kan's hair. She knew he hated it, which made her like doing it even more. "So what did she say? Is she going to tell the other masters? Have you sent home?" she asked.

The prince glared at her in annoyance, smoothing down his messed-up hair. "Thankfully not. She had a massive argument with my a-ma a few years back and hasn't spoken to him since, and she absolutely detests my e-niye, so she's not going to break precedent on my account. She only warned me not to give her any trouble, that's all," he grumbled. "I think she's happy that I'm here because she knows how much it'll tick off my e-niye when she finds out."

The Aogiya clan truly had some complex politics, Ying thought, and feuding siblings seemed to be a staple. She was immensely grateful that there had never been such problems in her own family, even if Wen occasionally grated on her nerves. How was he coping with his new position as clan chieftain? And what of Nian, who would no doubt need to serve as their brother's voice of reason when he went off on one of his moods?

"What's all that?" Ye-kan pointed at the stack of books sitting on the ground. He bent over and picked up the top one, flipping through it casually. He rubbed his fingers together, looking disgusted at the little dust bunnies that started to form. "There's so much dust on these pages. Where did you dig these up from?"

"They're from the guild archives. Apparently Master Lianshu and my a-ma used to be on close terms." She was going to have to verify exactly how close that relationship was. Ying took the book from him, peeling away remnants of dust that still clung to the pages. "They're his work, from when he was an apprentice in the guild. Nothing special though, only the usual mundane things that junior apprentices work on."

Ye-kan squatted down by the edge of the pond and grabbed a fistful of grass from the gaps in the stone tiles, then he started plucking out one blade at a time, tossing them onto the water's surface. "You were really close to your father, huh? For you to come all this way, disguised like that"—he wrinkled up his nose—"just to accomplish what he didn't."

"Yeah, I was. We were inseparable. My little sister Nian—she's about your age—used to get jealous because A-ma and I spent so much time together tinkering in his workshop. But when I asked her to join in, she would get bored midway and scamper off to do other things instead."

"Must be nice to be able to spend that much time with your father," Ye-kan muttered.

"I'm sure the High Commander wants to spend more time with you too, just that he's too busy because, well, he is the leader of the Antaran territories," Ying offered. "I never knew boys cared about these things. My brothers never did. They'd rather spend their time riding horses and hunting pigeons."

Ye-kan puffed up his cheeks, sullenly yanking at the pathetic remains of grass. "Doesn't matter," he grumbled. "And stop looking at me like that! I don't need your sympathy."

"Of course not." She clutched her father's old books close to her chest, as if doing that would bring him back to her side once more.

If there was someone in need of sympathy, it was probably her.

Instead of heading back toward the dormitory, Ying turned and walked down the passageway leading to the workshops in the east wing. Ye-kan chased after her, bewildered.

"Aren't you going back to sleep?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep for a while, so I might as well not waste the time. I'm going to practice mixing that fertilizer formula that we were taught today." Or work on the Peony a little more. "Go back, you don't have to follow me."

But she didn't manage to shake the prince off her tail. Ye-kan insisted on tagging along, claiming that he wasn't sleepy despite his frequent yawns.

The duo wound their way down the dimly lit passageways. In the night, the guild felt even more forbidding and unwelcoming than it already did in the day, shadows flickering across its dusty gray floors and walls. The winds echoed down the narrow corridors, whistling a creepy tune.

"What's that?!" Ye-kan suddenly hissed, making Ying jump right out of her skin.

The boy was pointing toward one of the workshops at the far end of the long corridor that they were on, whose wooden latticed door was slowly swinging shut. Someone had just left the workshop, light footsteps tapping against the stone floor and receding into the distance.

"That looked like Master Gerel," the prince added, rubbing the back of his head thoughtfully. "But why's he here at this hour?"

"Same reason we are?" Ying offered, though she hardly meant it.

She wasn't certain it was Gerel—all she managed to catch a glimpse of was a corner of a dark robe that could have been maroon or black or any other shade in between. The workshop that had been vacated did belong to the guild master though.

Sensing the opportunity, Ying picked up the pace and walked quickly toward the workshop in question. She stopped in front of the doors, sucking in her breath as she stared at the crisscrossing latticework on the door panels. It wasn't locked. She reached out to push them open.

"Wait, what do you think you're doing? You can't just break into a guild master's workshop like that." Ye-kan caught up to her.

"If I don't say anything and you don't say anything, who's going to find out?" Ying replied. "Besides, it's not like I'm going to steal anything. I'll just take a quick look. You can stay outside if you want." She would rather not be doing this with Ye-kan around, but the opportunity was too good to be missed.

She stepped across the threshold and entered the workshop, standing still in the darkness while her vision acclimated. Unlike her father's workshop, or Lianshu's, Gerel's space was far neater and more orderly, almost like he had a compulsion for tidiness. The tabletops were spick-and-span, brushes hung from their racks in precise order of size, tools were kept in long wooden receptacles that sat in neat rows on the shelves—everything was in perfect harmony.

It did not, at first glance, look like the room of a traitor and spy.

But looks could be deceiving.

Ying moved quickly. She started with what looked to be Gerel's main workstation, where an ornate ink slab carved with motifs of cranes sat in one corner beside a small rack of brushes and a pile of neatly stacked books and scrolls. The creases on her forehead deepened as she flipped through the content, looking for a clue. Familiar brush writing, dragon symbols, mentions of her father's work—anything.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. Just typical engineering books of the most boring nature, as was expected from a prude like Gerel.

"What are you doing?!" Ye-kan hissed from the doorway. "Get out of there now." His eyes darted back and forth anxiously.

Ying ignored him, moving on to a nearby shelf, where she spotted a few hefty stone jadeite seals. She lifted them one by one, turning them around to study the patterns carved on their undersides.

Nothing. None of it matched the seal that had been stamped onto the letter.

Incriminating things would be locked away, she thought, surveying the surroundings for any locked cupboards or drawers. There was only one, a low rosewood cabinet sitting by the windows on its curvaceous legs, with a large bronze padlock keeping its contents hidden away from prying eyes. Ying hurried over.

"Stop!" Ye-kan ran in and grabbed her by the arm before she could get her fingers on the lock. "Do you know how much trouble we could get into if anyone catches us here? We shouldn't even be in here!"

"Let go of me. I need a while more to—"

"What are the two of you doing in my workshop?!"