Chapter Ten

Early in the morning, we set off for Zhongwei.

Wenshu and I packed up the tent while Zheng Sili pretended to help but mostly folded and unfolded fabric, then the three of

us rode toward the horizon, shivering from the early morning air that cut through our too-thin desert clothes.

At night, I'd dreamed of the Empress's hand at my throat, the two of us tangled in crimson thread. I woke long before the

others and stared at my three opals for hours, imagining the beauty of Penglai. The opals' perfect clarity and smoothness

somehow felt like mockery, because on their own, they were useless.

I'd tried clutching them and thinking only of Penglai while alchemy fired through my veins, but I couldn't conjure even a

weak transformation. Clearly, something was missing, and the answer was probably encoded in the rest of the transformation.

Perhaps another alchemist could help me figure it out—even if the Arcane Alchemist wasn't the Empress's pawn, maybe he'd know

what the other lines meant.

But something told me a man on a wanted poster wouldn't be that benevolent.

About an hour into our ride, Wenshu slumped forward in the saddle. He started sliding off the horse before I could stop him, and when I grabbed on to his robes, I only managed to throw myself off with him, both of us crashing into the sand.

My shoulder hit the ground first, and Wenshu landed heavily on top of me. I curled into myself, trying to shield my face from

hooves, my heartbeat thundering through my bones. I had already had my face smashed in once by a horse, and I didn't trust

Zheng Sili to put me back together the right way if it happened again.

I heard the horse's steps slowing and tentatively sat up, wincing at the stiffness in my shoulder. I turned Wenshu over and

frowned at the cut on his forehead, but it didn't seem that deep. Durian peeped and poked his head out of my bag—luckily we

hadn't squished him in the fall.

Zheng Sili turned back and dismounted, hurrying toward us, our other horse lingering nearby.

"This is a very inconvenient place to crack your skull open," Zheng Sili said, squatting beside us and looking between me

and Wenshu. "Can you still ride?"

"Give me a fucking minute," I said, rubbing my shoulder. My fingers felt numb, so I fumbled through my satchel with my left

hand, pulling out a few moonstones and trying desperately not to think about how dangerous it would be for us to keep riding

horses with Wenshu like this. It had only been a day since he had last collapsed. Normally we had more respite from the episodes.

I pictured the holes in the fabric of his soul tearing wider, his soul wandering farther and farther from the river.

The cut on Wenshu's forehead had already stopped bleeding, so I turned my attention to my arm instead and pressed three moonstones to my shoulder. The pain ebbed instantly but didn't completely vanish, a muted current just beneath my skin. My fingertips grew colder, so numb I could hardly even feel them.

"You need to pop it back in first," Zheng Sili said, like it should have been obvious. "You're trying to heal something in

the wrong place. It's like mending a cut on a severed arm."

"Excuse me?"

He pointed to my shoulder. "You can tell because it's lower than your other shoulder. You always had bad posture, but now

it's even worse."

I grimaced, looking down at my shoulder, which did slope down a bit more sharply than it probably should have. I swallowed,

nauseous, glad I'd at least numbed the pain before Zheng Sili pointed it out.

"I'll do it," he said, standing up.

"Absolutely not," I said, scooting back.

He sighed. "We have places to be, hùnxiě. You're bad enough at riding with both arms. If you fall off again, then you'll have

two useless arms instead of one."

He reached for me again, but I kicked sand in his face.

"You're not touching me," I said, not really because of propriety but more because I didn't like the idea of being in pain

in Zheng Sili's arms. "Wake my brother if you want to help so bad," I said. "He can do it."

Zheng Sili sighed, then wound back and slapped Wenshu hard across the face.

Wenshu sucked down a sharp breath, then coughed out sand, face turning red. He looked between me and Zheng Sili, then our

abandoned horses.

"Shit," he said, running his hands across his chest as if checking for injuries.

"Don't worry," Zheng Sili said wryly, "your sister broke your fall."

He whirled around to face me, expression sliding into a frown as his gaze immediately locked on my shoulder.

"Just pop it back in for me," I said airily, far more confident than I felt.

He sputtered, shaking his head. " Just pop it back in? Zilan, I'm not a healer."

"None of us are," I said. "You at least have fine motor control that I trust."

"Popping a shoulder back in isn't about fine motor control," Zheng Sili said, scowling.

"How do you even know this?"

"Because I'm not ignorant?" Zheng Sili said, shoving my other shoulder. "Lie down."

I clenched my jaw and tried not to make a sound as Zheng Sili wrenched my arm up and shoved it in with all the gentleness

of a battering ram. I stared up into the desert sky, the sun a bright flash across my vision, and for a moment it was all

I could see. I felt so small beneath the bright expanse of white sky, and tears burned at my eyes and I felt thoroughly pathetic,

crying in front of Zheng Sili.

The Scarlet Alchemist doesn't cry , I told myself, sitting up and turning away, clenching my hand into a fist. The Scarlet Alchemist has killed monsters, so she shouldn't be afraid to get back on a horse. Don't be ridiculous, Zilan.

"Can we keep going now?" Zheng Sili said.

I wound back and gave him a solid punch to the arm. My shoulder stung at the motion, but at least I could clench my fist.

"The hell was that for?" he said, clutching his arm.

"Just testing out your repair," I said, standing up. "This will suffice."

"I'm glad," Zheng Sili said, shooting me a dark look as he grabbed the reins of his horse.

Zhongwei was the northwest's last stand against the encroaching desert, the sands sectioned with straw checkerboard barriers

to keep the desert from swallowing the city whole. The city had no northern gate, because the world ended in the vast expanse

of deadly, sweeping gold. How strange it was that Chang'an had paved its streets in gold, yet couldn't compare to the vast

golden landscape of desert cities like this one.

We arrived at the gates by late afternoon, riding through the gravel fields of watermelon at the outskirts, our eyes scratched

red from sand carried along the wind. Our horses seemed tiny in comparison to the camels that people pulled through the streets,

spitting white foam, bulbous pink tongues hanging out of their mouths. The city sloped uphill, and just over the crest, I

could make out the river bridging the city from the mountains, its water dyed sunset orange from all the red dirt and sand.

People stared at our horses as we passed, perhaps thinking us cruel for bringing them through the desert. I hoped it wasn't

because they recognized Wenshu as the prince. Or maybe it had more to do with Zheng Sili scowling at everyone who passed by.

"You're scaring people," I said, shoving his arm. "You look too angry."

"I am angry," he said. "Thinking about anyone helping the Empress does that."

" You helped the Empress," Wenshu said.

Zheng Sili waved his hand dismissively. "I've redeemed myself."

" You're not the one who gets to decide that! " Wenshu said.

But his yelling was attracting even more attention, so I tugged a horse between him and Zheng Sili.

Wenshu sighed and snatched the reins from me. "I'm going to find a place to tie up and feed the horses so we stand a chance

at blending in here," he said. "You two figure out some way to use alchemy to find him."

Zheng Sili wrinkled his nose. "Don't leave me alone with her! We're obviously not related, so people will think she's my wife."

"You should be so lucky," I said, rolling my eyes. Wenshu was clearly no longer listening to either of us, holding his hand

out for gold coins, which I reluctantly passed him. He pocketed them, then led the horses away without another word.

Zheng Sili made an exasperated noise and started storming in the other direction.

"Is that your plan?" I said, hurrying after him. "Throwing a tantrum?"

"No," he said. "I'm looking for a stone merchant, since I apparently have to do everything around here."

"I see someone's not feeling hungover anymore and is back to being an ass," I said, following him into the town center.

Stones were harder to come by in Zhongwei, but we managed to find a merchant with a cart full of stones tucked between the

cabbage salesman and another cart selling seaberries. I thought back to the opals in my pocket, still unsure what I could

even do with them. But the solution couldn't have been that obvious, or else Zheng Sili surely would have told me just to

make fun of my idiocy by now.

Zheng Sili filled a tray with a handful of lodestone and some desert kyanite, a blue stone I had never seen in person before, then turned to me for gold. By the time I paid the merchant, Zheng Sili was already walking away, picking out a bunch of grapes and waving me over to pay.

"Desert grapes contain sodium," he said as I counted out coins.

"If that was what you wanted, we could have just bought salt," I grumbled, but didn't protest further, since I didn't have

any better ideas for how to find the Arcane Alchemist.

Zheng Sili was already walking away, mumbling something about stones to himself. I caught up to him with the armful of grapes

as he ducked into an alley, moving to the deepest part, hidden in the shade between buildings. He spread his stones out on

the ground before him and closed his eyes as if thinking. I peeled a grape and bit it in half, holding it in front of my bag

until Durian poked his head out and snatched it.

"I need those," Zheng Sili said, glaring.

"For what?" I said. "Care to explain?"

"You bought some ying waterstones back in Baiyin, right?" he said, as if I hadn't spoken.

I sighed and dug them out of my satchel, tossing them to the dirt, where he carefully arranged them in a pentagram with the

other stones.

"I'm making a compass," he said at last. "It's a magnet that can point us in the direction we need to go."

"I know what a compass is," I said, frowning. "But I already know which direction is north. Why would that help us?"

"Because," Zheng Sili said, "instead of pointing north, it will point us toward the strongest concentration of alchemical

energy."

I frowned. "So we need to catch this guy midtransformation?"

Zheng Sili rolled his eyes. "Transformations are like qi fireworks going off all at once, and the more powerful, the longer they linger," he said. "Did you really never learn this? You just knocked some stones together and hoped for the best?"

"Says the guy who never became a royal alchemist," I said, crossing my arms. In truth, I felt foolish for not thinking of

this myself. Of course no alchemy stone could bring us to a man whose name we didn't even know, but it could bring us to other

transformations. It would have been useless in a city like Chang'an that brimmed with alchemy, but this far north, where alchemists

were few and far between, it could work. I supposed Zheng Sili's education hadn't been entirely wasted on him.

"Cover me," he said.

"Cover you with what?"

But he didn't wait for my response, resting his hands over the pentagram, blue light rising like small bursts of lightning

between his fingers. I jumped to my feet and stood in front of him, doing my best to block anyone else's view into the alleyway

with my skirts.

"I'm not a human wall, you know!" I said over my shoulder.

The crackling sounds died down, the light mercifully fading. "Not my fault you're a string bean," he said.

I turned around, frowning at the round compass clutched in his palms, a flat piece of black stone with a blue arrow that shifted

in his hands, pointing toward the horizon.

"What are the grapes for?" I said.

"Oh! Right." He leaned over and popped three of them in his mouth. "I was hungry."

Before I could start yelling, he snapped the bunch in half and held the other half out for me. "I got you some," he said.

" I paid for them!" I said, snatching the grapes.

"Yeah, with the prince's money, so don't act all high and mighty about it," he said. "At least I gave you half."

"Half for you, and half for me and my brother to share?"

He shrugged. "I forgot about him."

As if summoned, Wenshu appeared at the mouth of the alley.

"Have the two greatest alchemists in Lingnan found a solution yet?" he said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

"One of them has," Zheng Sili said, popping another grape in his mouth and rising to his feet, compass in one hand.

We followed the compass deeper into the city, but had to loop around the market to go where it pointed, not wanting to scale

the walls of the ward with so many people watching. After half an hour, I started to suspect it was leading us in circles.

"Are you sure this is actually real?" I said, reaching out my hand expectantly. "Let me see it."

"Don't break it," Zheng Sili said, reluctantly handing it over.

At once, I could feel the hum of alchemy ignite in my bones, like I was holding a piece of the sun. I turned in the opposite

direction and the arrow snapped back toward the direction of the sunset. It seemed real enough to me.

"How did you even make this?" I whispered.

"Intelligence," Zheng Sili said, snatching the stone back. "You want me to be your alchemy tutor, pay me."

"We're literally buying all your food," Wenshu said, but Zheng Sili ignored him.

We followed the stone even farther across town, down winding pathways, ducking around fruit carts and through stores. Zheng

Sili seemed so singularly focused on the direction of the arrow that he saw nothing and no one else, and we had no choice

but to follow after him, even when he brushed past families and ran through storefronts.

The sun set quickly after that, practically crashing into the horizon, a swift cold washing over the town. At last, Zheng Sili drew to a stop in the middle of a street. A sudden gust of wind blew my hair into my face, and I realized that one of my hairpins had fallen out somewhere along the way.

"Well?" I said, raking my hair out of my eyes.

He was glaring at his palm. "I don't understand," he whispered.

I sighed and grabbed the compass. This time, he didn't even fight me, but merely stared at his empty hand.

The compass arrow spun in dizzy circles in my palm, no longer settling on one direction. Wenshu watched over my shoulder,

frowning. I held the compass up to my eye and squinted in the setting sunlight until I saw a crack straight down the center.

"It's broken," I said, handing it back to Zheng Sili.

He shook his head, not moving to take it. "That doesn't make sense. How could it break? It's made of strong stones, and it's

not as if I dropped it."

"Well, can you make another one?" Wenshu said.

He shook his head. "I don't have any waterstones left. Someone wouldn't give me any more money."

"We can't use up all of our waterstones on your flimsy compass that brought us nowhere," I said. "Remember what happened the

last time we were out of waterstones?"

Zheng Sili grimaced. He looked around at the street we'd arrived on, as if snapping out of his trance. We stood on a quiet residential road. Lanterns had burned down low, casting the street in soft darkness, edges blurred away by shadows. An old woman emerged from her house, shooting us a curious glance before dumping a bucket of soiled water into the street. There was a pub a few houses down with a fluttering banner of a panda eating a watermelon. It hardly seemed like a great hideout for a thief.

"Maybe you made it wrong," I said.

"How would you know?" Zheng Sili said, glaring. "You can't even make a normal magnet, much less one this advanced. Maybe we're in the wrong

city."

"Well, can you make a rock that can take us to the right city?" Wenshu said from behind us.

Both of us turned to scowl at him.

"A rock ?" Zheng Sili said threateningly, at the same time I said: "What kind of rock do you think can track elusive alchemists across the country?"

Wenshu put his hands up in surrender.

Zheng Sili let out a frustrated sound. "I'm hungry," he said, abruptly turning down a side street and waving us after him

like servants.

We showed the flyer to merchants as we approached the city center. Most of them had some vague recollection of the Arcane

Alchemist, but couldn't remember when, or what he looked like, or where he'd gone. Wenshu bought a few lamb skewers and congee

and passed them out, which Zheng Sili somehow found a way to complain about even while eating as if starved.

"You guys are just cheapskates," he said, eating the lamb all the same. "It's not even your money."

"I didn't pack the entire palace treasury," I said. "The money will run out eventually, and then what? You'd have to eat weeds

like a peasant ."

Zheng Sili shuddered, licking the sauce off his skewer. He glanced down at his dirty hands. "Anyone have a rag?"

"Not for you ," Wenshu said.

"Isn't everything you wear basically a rag?"

Wenshu made a face that I knew meant he would start yelling, so I reached into my pocket to sacrifice one of my rags rather than listen to them argue.

My fingers closed around a torn scrap of paper. I pulled it out, turning away from Zheng Sili and Wenshu and moving toward

the light so I could read it.

"We don't have to take you with us and pay for your food, you know," Wenshu was shouting behind me, but his words barely registered

as I read over the scrawled handwriting again and again.

"Are you forgetting who carried you to Baiyin?" Zheng Sili said.

"Zilan did that!" Wenshu shouted.

"Gēgē?" I said, turning around. When he kept shouting at Zheng Sili, I yanked his sleeve. They both turned to look at me.

"The Arcane Alchemist is back where the compass broke," I said.

"How do you know that?" Zheng Sili said as I passed Wenshu the note.

At the top, there was a hasty sketch of a panda eating a watermelon. Beneath it, a few crudely scrawled words:

Blue robes

Stain on right sleeve

Freckle near eye

"This was in my pocket," I said. Wenshu's expression softened as understanding dawned on him. Surely he recognized the handwriting.

"Did a child write this?" Zheng Sili said.

I shoved his shoulder, smashing him against a building.

" What? " he said. "I only—"

"It's my handwriting," I said.

"What?" Zheng Sili said, massaging his shoulder. "When did you write that?"

"I don't remember," I said. "I have no memory of writing this, which means—"

"That the Arcane Alchemist is here," Wenshu said. "We've already found him."