Chapter Twelve

Wenshu didn't even make it back to the city gates.

We'd only walked a few minutes through the watermelon fields when he wordlessly passed me the bag where Durian was sleeping.

"I have to be the brawn and the pack mule?" I said, taking the bag anyway. Wenshu had stopped walking, staring off into the distance.

Zheng Sili realized what was happening a moment before I did. He grabbed Wenshu's arm just as he fell forward, managing to

slow his descent and lower him gently onto his back.

"Come on, don't do this right now," I said, kneeling in the gravel beside him and shaking his shoulder.

"This is becoming more frequent," Zheng Sili said, as if that wasn't already painfully obvious. I ignored him, hooking Wenshu's

arm around my neck and trying to stand up.

My shoulder flared with white-hot pain. I clenched my jaw so I wouldn't make a humiliating sound and quickly knelt back down,

my hand trembling with the effort not to drop Wenshu flat on his face.

"That's what you get for riding a horse with someone who turns into a corpse at random," Zheng Sili said, frowning down at me. Then he squatted down beside Wenshu. "Put him on my back."

I was too breathless for harsher words, so I did my best to manhandle Wenshu upright with one arm, draping him over Zheng

Sili's back. He rose unsteadily to his feet, swaying into me. He took a few halting steps, then fell back to the ground with

a pained sound.

"Did you fall off a horse too?" I said, glaring down at him. "What's your excuse?"

"That your boyfriend's body is stupidly tall, and therefore heavy," he said.

"You made a big deal about how I'll need your help when this happens, and now you can't even carry him?"

"Yes, I said I could help , not do it all by myself," he said, managing to shrug Wenshu off his back, letting him flop down in the dirt. "I have never

claimed to have that much physical strength. And need I remind you that I've been imprisoned for the last month while you

were playing princess? How much do you think they fed us there? I'm not exactly in my prime here."

" Then what good are you? " I said, the words angrier than I intended. Zheng Sili flinched at my tone. I had criticized him often enough, but I didn't

think I had ever sounded so furious, not since that time in the prison.

It wasn't his fault that Wenshu was an empty shell, that we were out here in a destroyed watermelon field instead of running

a kingdom, that everyone was dead. But if I didn't yell at someone , I was going to explode like one of those watermelons.

"I'm an alchemist, not a wagon," Zheng Sili snapped, reaching for his satchel and pulling out a few firestones. The light in his gaze sharpened the way it always did when he had an idea. "Give me your arm."

"Why?" I said.

He rolled his eyes. "It's covered in blood, and I need something to write with."

I looked at my sleeve, which I hadn't realized was still bloodied from where the Arcane Alchemist had scratched me while clinging

on.

"Before it dries," Zheng Sili said, waving me closer.

I'd already learned that he wasn't keen on explaining when he was in alchemy mode, so I sighed and knelt down beside him,

holding out my bloody sleeve.

He grabbed it in his fist, wringing out some blood until his hand was coated in red. With his other hand, he rolled up Wenshu's

left sleeve on the arm without the soul tag. With his finger, he quickly painted two characters in blood.

李

弘

Li Hong.

"What are you doing?" I said.

"We're alchemists," he said simply. "We shouldn't be dragging a corpse around when he can just walk by himself."

He cast a quick glance over his shoulder as if to check for witnesses, and then, before I could truly process the meaning

behind his words, pressed the firestones to Wenshu's chest.

Red light surged from between his fingers, like he'd grabbed handfuls of molten lava. Immediately, Wenshu gasped and sat up

so fast he nearly smashed his forehead into Zheng Sili.

He whirled around like a caged animal, edging away from the red embers still clinging to Zheng Sili's hands. When he turned to me, his eyes went wide.

"Zilan?" he said.

I opened my mouth to say something like obviously , or thanks for deigning to walk back to the inn by yourself , but something about the look in his eyes stopped me.

The way he'd whispered my name sounded so scared, the way you spoke when you were afraid of what the other person would say.

"Is it really you?" he said, moving closer. The blood from the mark on his arm was dripping down his palm, but he seemed not

to notice, raising a bloody hand to cup my face, looking at me with reverence, the way only one person had ever looked at

me before.

You will never look exactly like this again , he'd said . I want to remember this moment forever.

"Hong?" I whispered.

He reached for me, but his fingers hesitated a breath away from my cheek. As if a door had slammed shut, all the reverent

light in his eyes vanished.

He wrenched away, landing on his hands in the dirt, all the muscles in his neck taut, swallowing hard. His fingers curled,

scarring marks into the dirt.

Then his hands shot to his throat.

Zheng Sili and I moved at once, each grabbing one of Hong's arms and trying to pull it away. But Hong fought against us, fingers

white and tense around his throat, feet kicking up gravel.

" What did you do to him? " I shouted, barely dodging an elbow to the face.

But Zheng Sili didn't have a chance to answer, because the next moment, Hong surged forward and grabbed Zheng Sili by the throat, pinning him to the dirt.

"Don't ever do that again!" he said, and I knew at once from the tone of voice, the hard slope of his shoulders, the rage in his eyes,

that he wasn't Hong anymore.

I hated myself for the pang of disappointment that wrenched through my chest.

"Don't kill him," I said half-heartedly, tugging Wenshu's arm until he released Zheng Sili, who sat up and coughed.

"Hey, it worked," he said, backing away when Wenshu glared at him. "You're back, aren't you?"

"What the hell did you do?" I said, trying to scrub the blood off Wenshu's throat with my sleeve, because if he noticed he

was dirty, he might actually kill Zheng Sili.

"Well," Zheng Sili said, turning to cough as he massaged his throat, "you have one body with two souls who have a claim to

it. One of them vanished, and the other is sitting around waiting, so I figured we could just... borrow it for a bit?"

"You tried to resurrect him ?" I said, my grip tightening on Wenshu's sleeve.

He shook his head quickly. "It wasn't a resurrection," he said. "That would obviously require a huge sacrifice. I used jasper."

I clenched my jaw, not liking where this was going. Jasper was a firestone used to draw blood back into meat served to the

royal family, essentially making it fresher, winding back the clock. Transformations with jasper were always powerful but

short-lived.

"So it wasn't a resurrection as much as... holding a door open for a bit to see who wanders through," Zheng Sili said,

looking absurdly proud of himself.

"Where did you learn how to do that?" I said incredulously. "Who the hell would teach you that?"

He shrugged. "It made sense in theory, so I thought I'd test it."

"On me ?" Wenshu said, and he probably would have choked Zheng Sili again if I hadn't held him back.

"I know, I know," Zheng Sili said, rolling his eyes and wiping off his robes, "only your sister can do dangerous, experimental

alchemy on you."

He started walking, waving us after him like animals. "Come on," he said. "Let's get back to the inn before you go boneless

on us again."

Wenshu still looked ready to commit murder, but I tugged him to his feet, hurrying after Zheng Sili.

"Are you all right?" I whispered.

Wenshu didn't answer for a moment, still glaring at Zheng Sili's back. "I think so," he said at last.

"Why did you choke yourself?"

"I don't remember that," he said quietly. "It just felt like... I was fighting to be myself. Suddenly someone else was

alive inside my bones, and I had to get them out, no matter what."

Zheng Sili looked over his shoulder. "Probably because you wanted the body more."

Of course he was eavesdropping , I thought. "How would you know what he wants?"

"Because he's here ," Zheng Sili said. "Alchemy is about intention."

Unfortunately, I understood what he meant. Hong had resigned himself to waiting patiently to get his body back and never would

have fought my brother for it. But to Wenshu, the body now belonged to him as much as mine belonged to me. It was no wonder

he'd seized it back within moments.

My mind wandered back to the look in Hong's eyes, the first time I had seen him in the real world in so long. But treasuring that moment felt like a betrayal, so I clenched my teeth and tried to focus on the scent of watermelons and earth, the chill of the desert wind, the alchemy ring bright and warm on my finger... anything but Hong.

We reached our inn just before sunrise bled across the horizon. Wenshu dropped off to sleep right away while Zheng Sili stared

broodily out the window, but I stayed awake clutching the opal ring, watching the swirling clouds inside of it.

I huddled closer to the window and its pale light, quietly unfurling the Sandstone Alchemist's scroll. I read the second line

even though I knew it by heart, fingers tracing over the characters that were supposed to save us all:

Song of silver, the serpent's bite

I had no idea what it meant. All I knew was that the first line had pointed me to a stone held by one of the immortals, so

the second line was likely pointing me to a different one. Perhaps song of silver was a stone, and the serpent's bite was the person holding it? Silver was a metalstone that I'd often used in transformations, but that felt a bit too obvious

for such an esoteric transformation.

I drifted off to sleep for what felt like only a brief moment, but the next time I opened my eyes, the light had shifted sharply

in the room. Zheng Sili was gone, and the door was cracked open.

I sat up, checked that Wenshu was still breathing, and took the opportunity to change now that Zheng Sili was gone. I'd been

sleeping less and less lately, but it hardly seemed to matter, my body running on pure, glorious hope, the delirious dream

of Penglai.

I reached into my bag for Durian, but my hands only brushed across dry scroll paper.

"Durian?" I said, sitting up sharply. When he didn't appear, I tossed back my bedding, then forced Wenshu onto his side to check that he hadn't squished Durian in his sleep. He made a grumbling sound of protest and flopped over, but Durian was still nowhere in sight. My gaze snapped back to the open door.

Zheng Sili left the door open, and Durian got out.

What if someone found him and decided to eat him for dinner? My heart raced. I threw my shoe at Wenshu, who groaned in protest.

"Durian's gone," I said, already tugging on my robes.

I didn't stay long enough to hear his answer, shoving open the door and running out into the street. I hesitated at the door

of the inn, staring out at the quiet street, the morning tranquility that didn't match my panic at all. I couldn't just run

down the street calling out the name of a fruit that smelled like corpses. People would think I'd lost my mind.

I hurried down the street as quickly as I could without drawing too much attention to myself. I paused to ask a clay merchant

if he'd seen a duck, and he gave me directions to the butcher, which only made me want to cry. I couldn't imagine telling

Hong that I'd somehow lost Durian, that he was probably on someone's dinner plate.

A sandstorm must have passed through the city, because the air was thick and hazy, stinging my eyes and leaving a metallic

taste on my tongue. I squinted, bumping into people in the market as I kept my gaze locked on the ground for a duck caught

underfoot.

At last, I spotted Zheng Sili at the end of the street, squatting on the ground in front of an armory.

"Zheng Sili!" I shouted. My voice must have sounded too panicked, because half the street looked up at the sharp tone. Zheng Sili glanced over his shoulder and stood up, a piece of twine in his hand tethered to... Durian's foot.

I came to a stop a few feet away. Zheng Sili held one end of the leash in his left hand and a couple of marinated quail eggs

in his right. A few more peeled eggs sat on the ground, where Durian pecked at them. I looked between the two of them, Zheng

Sili's face bright red as he fidgeted with the string.

"Were you walking Durian?" I said at last.

He crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall of the armory. "It's not my fault your stupid duck is so spoiled! He was

so noisy I couldn't sleep anyway. And if he stopped you two from sleeping, your brother would just collapse more often, which

is already hugely inconvenient—"

"You made him a leash ?" I said.

"Well, I couldn't use your bag! It smells like a wet cow!"

"He's a duck! You just pick him up!" I said, resisting the urge to slam my head against the wall. I bent down in front of

Durian and scooped him up with one hand under his belly.

Zheng Sili looked down at Durian, eyes burning with resentment. "Pardon me, but they don't teach us duck handling in alchemy

school."

I rolled my eyes, tucking Durian under my arm. "Let's go back before Wenshu Ge comes running out here in his pajamas."

"Fine," Zheng Sili said, uncrossing his arms and pushing away from the wall. He moved away one second before the window exploded.

A slab of steel crashed through the window from the inside, punching both the paper and lattice frame out with a sudden crunch . Wood chips flew in every direction, the scent of fire and molten metal wafting over us. Zheng Sili yelped and leaped back before the steel could crush his toes. Inside, men were shouting over each other, the whole building trembling as more metal hit the ground.

Zheng Sili scowled and moved in front of the now-empty window.

" You could have killed me! " he shouted. "Have you lost your mind?"

No one inside acknowledged him, except to toss an iron hilt out the window, which Zheng Sili barely dodged.

"Okay, that's it," he said, storming toward the door.

"Have you lost your mind?" I said, grabbing his sleeve. "Isn't it a bit early to pick a fight?"

"It would have been such an embarrassing way to die!" he said. "They should at least compensate us now! My father would have

them shut down if he were here."

He yanked his sleeve away and stomped inside the armory. I sighed and tucked Durian into my bag before following. Picking

a fight with a merchant was an easy way to get skewered, and I would need to do damage control if I didn't want to drag Zheng

Sili's corpse back to the inn.

Metal covered every wall of the armory, alight with the reflection of the fire burning at the center. There were gleaming

bronze plates sewn into lamellar shirts, twinkling chain mail hanging from hooks, gold-plated helmets on shelves. Two men

stood in the corner, one of them holding up a red-hot poker that he seemed to have pulled from the welding table. An older

man stood in front of them with a sword held threateningly above his head. All of them turned as Zheng Sili and I entered,

frowning at us before quickly looking back to each other.

Zheng Sili's bravado seemed to drain out of him at the sight of weapons. He stepped to the side, just slightly behind me,

as if I was the one who'd decided to storm in here.

"They're trying to rob me!" the older man said, jerking his sword at the younger men.

"With iron pokers?" I said, crossing my arms.

"No one asked you," one of the younger men said, waving the poker clumsily in my direction. He probably expected me to flinch,

but I only frowned and watched errant sparks spiral to the floor.

I crossed the room and grabbed his wrist, dodging a half-hearted swing at my face. He lurched back, but I held tight to his

arm and twisted it until the poker clattered to the floor. It was easy to tell the difference between someone who actually

knew how to fight and someone just throwing a weapon around. The merchant clearly knew how to wield a sword—he'd forged it,

after all.

"I have sympathy for people stealing food," I said, twisting his arm a fraction farther and pulling a pained cry from his

lips, "but I can't imagine why you need armor badly enough to pick a fight with someone who could cut you in half."

"It's our master's orders," the other young man said, backing farther into the corner. "If we don't listen, he'll cut us in half."

"He ordered you to hold up a blacksmith with a fire poker?" Zheng Sili said, raising an eyebrow.

The man in my grasp shook his head. "He just said to prepare for a journey south by sunrise, but everyone knows what he means.

If we don't have proper protection, we'll be dead."

" South as in Chang'an?" I said, my lips pressed into a tight line.

Both men nodded. "He wants to stake his claim to the throne."

Zheng Sili rolled his eyes. "The royal army is better trained than you fools," he said. "They'll cut you down where you stand."

"The royal army is all but dissolved," the merchant said.

I turned around, releasing my grip on the young man. "What?"

The merchant sheathed his sword. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, handing it to Zheng Sili. "The crown may be up for grabs," he said, "but that doesn't mean my armor is."

"The crown is not ‘up for grabs,' ? " I said, turning to Zheng Sili for explanation.

But he had gone very still, his knuckles white around the paper, angled so I couldn't see it. "Where did you get this?" he

said, turning to the merchant.

"The flyers were posted this morning, came up from the postal carriers, straight from the capital."

"What does it say?" I said, stepping closer. But Zheng Sili took a step back, pressing the flyer to his chest.

"I don't think you should—"

I tore the paper away from him and flipped it over.

It was an illustration, the ink faded from a stamp pressed down too many times, but the image still clear.

The gates of Chang'an, a hanged woman dangling from the center, wispy robes shifting like ghosts in a soundless breeze, long

black hair, bare feet.

At the top, in bold, black ink:

THE EMPRESS IS DEAD

Zheng Sili came up behind me, clearing his throat. "It says—"

" I can read! " I said, angling away from him, a strange coldness washing over me as I kept reading.

Empress Wu hanged in front of imperial palace after siege by private armies. Crown Prince Li Hong and concubine Fan Zilan

reported missing. With no surviving members of the House of Li to be found, the future of the crown is uncertain. The Tang

Dynasty may have come to an end.

Slowly, I folded the paper in half and tucked it into my bag. Everyone was staring at me, but I felt very far away. So this was why they were robbing this man , I thought. Their master is going to Chang'an to claim the throne because the Empress is... Yufei is...

Behind me, Zheng Sili shifted from foot to foot. "Are you..." he trailed off, the unasked question hanging in the air.

I felt like I'd fallen into a frozen pond, like the world around me was suspended in slow motion. Yufei was never someone

I had to worry about. Out of the three of us, she knew how to protect herself the best. Leaving her had felt like the most

logical decision, something none of us had thought twice about. But we'd left her to die alone.

"I need to get to the river," I said, tightening my grip on Durian and shoving through the door.

If it hadn't been too long since the Empress's body was hanged, maybe I could still find Yufei at the river of souls and tether

her there like Hong until we could reach Penglai Island. Yes, that was what I would do. Death was only temporary for a resurrection

alchemist, after all. Yufei was only a little bit dead, and soon she would be perfectly fine once more.

But news traveled slowly across the country, even something as important as this, and I knew that unless Yufei had the mental

fortitude to try to hang on, she would be gone within a day. I'd only just managed to tether Hong before he wandered off,

and I'd done that only hours after his death. Surely for something like this to have been printed and reached the northern

borders, days had to have passed.

I ran faster, ducking around families and merchant carts and old men while Zheng Sili hurried behind me. Up ahead, a cart

turned sideways blocked the road, a crowd of people gathered like a dam in the river. I tried to shove my way through, but

the crowd was too dense.

When I came close enough, I saw the wheels of the cart lodged in the mud, the horse trying futilely to pull it through. I shoved Durian into Zheng Sili's arms and started fishing through my bag for stones.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Zheng Sili said, his voice high-pitched and nervous. I ignored him, pulling out three

earthstones and sinking my hands into the mud. With a warm pulse of orange light, the mud rose and swayed like ocean waves,

lifting the cart out of the pit before solidifying beneath my palms. The horse raced forward at the sudden lack of tension,

the crowd parting at once to not get run over.

I held my muddy hands out for Durian, who Zheng Sili passed me without comment, his expression pale. People were staring at

us now, but I had never cared less about being a spectacle. My mind was already halfway in the river plane, writing Yufei's

name again and again across the sky. Once I was back in our room, with Wenshu as a conduit, I could save her.

I tried to force my way through the dispersing crowd, but a hand closed around my arm and yanked me to a stop.

"Let go!" I said, expecting Zheng Sili.

But I caught Zheng Sili's startled gaze a few feet away, his bag of quail eggs clutched protectively to his chest. A man in

a soldier's uniform glowered over me, grip tightening around my arm.

"Most alchemists are a bit smarter these days," he said.

Another man in the same uniform appeared beside him, shoving Zheng Sili into the mud.

"I doubt a stupid little girl like her can make life gold," the second one said, "but we get paid either way."

Stupid little girl? I thought, the words burning like a soul tag seared into my skin. Not because I thought they were wrong, but because I knew

they were right.

Like the Empress said, I was only alive because I'd gotten lucky.

The grip on my arm tightened as the man wrenched my wrist behind me. My hair fell in front of my eyes, and I made no move

to brush it away so no one would see me cry.

My sister is dead, and I can't save her.

"Hey, hùnxiě!" Zheng Sili shouted.

I looked up. Zheng Sili had cast his bag of quail eggs to the ground, and was shuffling three alchemy stones in his palm.

"Don't!" I said. They'll know you're an alchemist too , I thought.

But Zheng Sili only rolled his eyes. "Get out of my way," he said. "I need a clear shot."

Then he reeled back and hurled the firestones at the guard. I jammed my elbow into the guard's stomach and twisted myself

out of his grasp a moment before the firestones hit his face, flaring into a bright ball of orange flame that gnawed through

the top half of his uniform, as if he'd been devoured by the sun.

I tucked Durian under one arm and pressed my hand to the other soldier's breastplates. The iron in my rings catalyzed the

reaction, the metal of his armor bending into spikes that lanced between his ribs. He coughed and tumbled back into the other

soldier, crushing him into the ground. I glared down at them, hands twitching with anger.

"Hùnxiě—" Zheng Sili said sharply, but he never finished his sentence, because a third guard appeared behind me.

I ripped three firestones from my bag, whirling around to grind them into his face, make all the bones collapse into his brain,

blast his teeth away into a thousand shards, make him swallow his own tongue, anything to get him out of my way, to get back

to Yufei.

But my fingers stopped a breath away from his face, firestones falling from my limp fingers, lost to the mud.

Why can't I move any closer? I thought, my fingers trembling, coldness spreading fast through my whole body, starting at my stomach, where it felt like

I'd swallowed a ball of ice.

I dropped my gaze down, following the lean line of the guard's spear, which had plunged straight into my stomach.

White-hot pain swelled just beneath my rib cage, and when the guard yanked his spear back out, it felt like he'd sheared my

soul to pieces.

My ears rang as I crashed to the dirt, distantly aware that a river of blood was spouting from my stomach, far too much of

it to be safe, to be survivable. I had seen death many times, and I wasn't foolish enough to think this kind of wound could

be healed.

Zheng Sili was shouting something, but I couldn't make sense of his words, my mouth welling with blood, choking me. I forced

myself onto my side and it spilled hot and fast from my lips.

I'm not ready yet , I thought, helpless to stop the tears stinging my eyes. I was supposed to save everyone.

I imagined the way they would write about me, if they even cared.

The Scarlet Alchemist, who caused the death of all the royal alchemists and the last heir to the House of Li, then died on

the street in a desert city. She didn't die protecting someone, or fighting for something important, but because she lashed

out like a child, because she was never a royal alchemist, not really. Royal alchemists were cunning and wise and earned their

place in the palace, but she was just a little girl who got lucky, until the day she didn't.

Being unique cannot make up for skill, or education, or talent , the Empress had once said to me, as I'd knelt before her in a courtyard full of blood that had become my namesake. All of this time I'd lived beyond my death was stolen from other people, and finally, it had run out.

With a heavy thump, the world trembled, and the soldier lay on the ground in front of me, his face shattered in. It reminded

me of the stand-in corpses the Moon Alchemist had used to fake the death of Hong's little sisters. Who had the bodies belonged

to again? Were the real princesses all right?

Then warm hands were forcing me onto my back again, and Zheng Sili was above me, his stern face blocking out the searing white

of the sky, his expression unreadable.

He grabbed the torn fabric of my dress and ripped it farther. Without thinking, I reached out to shove his hands away, but

he brushed them aside as easily as falling leaves, and my hands dropped to the dirt while he ripped my dress wider. The ground

felt wet and hot beneath me, Zheng Sili's hands now red gloves down to his sleeves.

How fitting for the Scarlet Alchemist to die covered in red , I thought, letting out a choked laugh. But the motion made my stomach clench, and I tossed my head back and gasped at the

sudden surge of pain, my vision blurring.

There were the five gates of Chang'an, the yawning darkness. That was the first time I'd met death, and now it was reaching

its hand out to me once more, welcoming me home. Was Yufei here? I tried focusing on her name, but the characters blurred

together into a murky soup, a tarnished sky overhead eating my thoughts.

Coldness bloomed in my abdomen, burning ice and white light.

"What did you do ?"

That was Wenshu's voice, and the panicked sound was enough to pull me back to the bright sun overhead. Zheng Sili pulled his hands back and peered down at me.

"That will stop the bleeding," he said, "but I can't fix internal damage."

"What do you mean you can't ?" Wenshu said furiously. I caught a glimpse of the blue fabric of his robes, his white hands clutching Zheng Sili's clothes.

"You're an alchemist, and you act like you're a great one. Alchemists can do anything if they sacrifice enough, so fix her !"

The rest of their conversation faded away as I melted into the dirt. The world flipped, and I was once again kneeling at the

Empress's feet, collapsed against the gold tiles, my soul tag on the ground in front of me. Fan Zilan, Fan Zilan, Fan Zilan , I thought, clinging to the name like an anchor. But my name wouldn't be enough to save me this time.

I choked down a breath, the sky spinning above me, and realized I was in Wenshu's arms, his heartbeat so slow against my side,

my own mockingly fast. I heard the sound of hoofbeats, then I tipped my head back just enough to catch a glimpse of Zheng

Sili, eyes wide. I forced another burning breath down my throat, because if I was going to die, I would be damned if it happened

in front of Zheng Sili.

He leaned forward and then someone was pulling me onto a horse, one arm braced across my chest to stop me from falling forward.

"Hold on, Zilan," Wenshu whispered, the words warm against my throat. I couldn't hold my head up anymore, and it rolled back

against his shoulder. "I'm no alchemist," he said, "but I'll find a way to fix this."