Chapter Thirteen

I am standing on the street in Zhongwei, my neck arched, looking up at the white sky. The morning is too cold for my thin

robes, and the air tastes of metal, the horizon spinning with desert ghosts.

"It's not my fault your stupid duck is so spoiled!" Zheng Sili says.

My gaze settles in front of me, where Zheng Sili has crossed his arms. A thin string—bright red—tethers his hand to Durian's

leg.

"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," I say at the same time as Zheng Sili, though his words are sharp while mine are dead

leaves falling from a rotting tree, brought to my lips unbidden.

Zheng Sili blinks, watches me for a long moment. "How did you know what I was going to say?" he says.

But I don't know the answer.

This moment feels like I'm looking at it through a diamond prism. Zheng Sili's words are a song I once knew. The morning has a pale tinge, all the colors weak as if stolen by the sun. Everything except the thread that Zheng Sili is holding, bright and brilliant scarlet.

I turn back to the main road, toward the sound of fighting inside the armory. Zheng Sili is speaking again, but the world

has narrowed, and I see nothing but the open door. I brush past him like a silk curtain, and he can't stop me, he never could.

I open the door, and there is no one inside, nothing but a wall plastered with flyers.

It is an illustration of a woman hanged from the gates of Chang'an, her bright red robes the same color as the thread in Zheng

Sili's hand.

At the top, in bold black ink:

THE SCARLET ALCHEMIST IS DEAD

Of course she is , I think. Everyone already knows that.

The Scarlet Alchemist died in the throne room, at the feet of the Empress.

I turn around, but Zheng Sili is gone. Night swallows the city, wooden carts and red dirt walls inhaled by a sudden wave of

darkness. Trees rise up to the sky, and I am standing at the edge of a riverbank, darkness just behind my heels, bone-white

tree trunks and prickly black leaves before me.

There is a red thread tied to the ring finger of my left hand, and it pulls me forward. I am a minnow pierced through with

hooks, dragged across the dark ocean of night.

I am lying in the streets of Chang'an, scarlet-red dirt and clay dust and lost dreams, and my mother is screaming.

My face is folded into itself, my teeth caught in my throat, eyes full of blood.

My father is speaking to me in a lost language, words that float away like dandelion parachutes, gone as soon as they leave

his lips. Firm hands lift me up, no patience or warmth, cold and hard like the surface of the moon.

"Follow me," she says, and begins to walk.

I can no longer breathe, my chest seizing, and when I reach broken fingers to my throat, they tangle with bright red thread.

I am at the Empress's feet, my cheek pressed to a hot tile floor coated in blood, my soul tag on the ground in front of me.

The red thread is tangled and frayed in my fingers. It weaves across the floor, through puddles of blood and spilled pearls,

and fastens tight around Hong's hand, where he lies dead on the floor, translucent skin and purple nails.

I can't move, can only shift the focus of my gaze from the prince's corpse to my own soul tag.

Su Zilan is what it's supposed to say. The merchant's daughter who was supposed to live and die in Guangzhou. The false name ripped

from my spine because it was never who I was.

But that is not the name before me.

There are far too many characters, and when the wall of fire and burning flesh flares bright behind me, echoed in the puddles

of blood, I can see the characters clearly.

THE SCARLET ALCHEMIST

I roll over, and I am in the sands of the Borderless Sea, wind pulling golden grains into my eyes, my muscles locked tight

from venom, the sun devouring me in bright white overhead.

The Sandstone Alchemist watches me die, the snake curled around his throat, golden eyes like two tiny suns. The red thread is gone from my fingers, and my brother is dead beside me, and the sun is opening its maw to swallow me whole.

This is just another way I was supposed to die, but I have always poured like sand through death's fingers, not solid enough

for him to hold on to.

The poison courses through me like a river of fire, my hands so tight they're curled into claws, every muscle clenched so

firmly that I can't even breathe.

The Sandstone Alchemist is supposed to leave me to die alone, but instead he stands over me, his eyes pure gold, his snake

curled tight at his throat.

This isn't right , I think. This isn't how it happened.

The snake slithers down the Sandstone Alchemist's arm and lands in the sand, curling smooth patterns into the sea of gold

until it's right in front of my face. It opens its mouth, its fangs bright moonstone.

The serpent's bite , I think as it draws closer.

My stones are spilled in the sand, my numb fingertips brushing across them, but I can't recognize them by touch alone like

usual. They're just vacant rocks, no alchemy to be found.

The snake sinks its teeth into my throat.

My fingers close reflexively around the nearest stones. With my other hand, I grab the snake by its tail and wrench it away

from me. Its fangs rip open my throat, a deep wound that bleeds hot and fast, soaking my dress in scarlet, pulsing loud in

my ears.

I cast the serpent to the side and rise to my feet, my shadow eclipsing the golden sands. I unclench my left fist, and in

it there are two bright red stones like drops of blood, like fang marks. The firestone that had once destroyed venom from

inside of me, ripped it from my veins.

Red zircon.

I close my fingers around them like a promise, then look out across the desert. On the white horizon, a figure stands backlit

by the sun, robes shivering in the breeze.

I woke to darkness.

Sensation came back to me in pieces—my feet numb and ankles tangled in blankets, an ache behind my eyes, a cool breeze shuddering

down my spine. At the sound of breathing beside me, I jolted upward, smashing my forehead against something firm.

"What is wrong with you?" Wenshu said, along with a few more colorful words, one hand clamped over his eye. "Literally the first thing you

do when you wake up is fracture my skull?"

I looked down at my clean robes—blue ones I'd never seen before. I tentatively touched my stomach, the memory of the spear

still lightning-sharp. But the skin beneath my palms was smooth and unbroken, cool to the touch.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I looked around at the small room—shelves packed with scrolls, windows dark with shadows

of crooked branches that rapped against them, a futon laid out beneath me, a desk piled with jars of alchemy stones, glistening

in the whisper of sunlight.

A thin wooden panel stood a few feet back from the door, blocking the light from the hallway but letting air pass through. The base was dark wood, but the center was a painted landscape of a ship far out at sea, mountains piercing through clouds in the distance. It was a yǐngbì—a spirit screen, that some people used to keep out ghosts, who supposedly couldn't move around corners. Most people built stone yǐngbì at the gates to their courtyards—I had never seen one in an interior room like this. Whoever owned this house must have been very superstitious.

I turned back to Wenshu, who was watching me intently. "What happened?" I said.

Wenshu crossed his arms. "You got yourself skewered."

"Yes, I remember that part," I said, trying to untangle my ankles from the blankets. "And after that?"

"Zheng Sili stopped the bleeding, but you wouldn't wake up," Wenshu said, not quite meeting my gaze. "No one in Zhongwei wanted

to risk helping an alchemist, so we followed the river until we reached Wuzhong and found you a healer who hadn't seen you

doing alchemy in broad daylight ."

I winced. That certainly hadn't been my brightest idea. Why had I even bothered? A memory itched at the back of my mind, but

the moments leading up to being stabbed had faded away into a white fog.

"We tried two different healers," Wenshu went on, "but since Zheng Sili had sealed the wound, neither of them knew what to

do for you. But there was one alchemist who saw us in the town center and agreed to help. We had no other options, so we brought

you to her home."

It sounded like a stroke of luck, but I could tell from the uneasy grimace on Wenshu's face that it wasn't all good news.

"What's wrong?" I said, clutching my abdomen. "Did she destroy my organs or something?"

"Do you feel like your organs have been destroyed?" Wenshu said, raising an eyebrow.

I hugged a pillow close to my stomach, shaking my head. "I don't think so."

"Her alchemy isn't the issue," Wenshu said. "It's the payment."

"What did you give her?" I said, hands clutching the pillow tight. Alchemists could be oddly pedantic about fair trades, and I knew Wenshu would have promised anything, even himself. "Gēgē—"

"All she wanted," Wenshu said, "was the ring."

My gaze snapped down to my left hand. I still wore my remaining iron rings, plus the gold ring the prince had given me the

day he died, but the opal ring was gone.

" And you just gave it to her? " I said, so loudly that Wenshu shushed me, glancing over his shoulder.

"You would have died if I hadn't," Wenshu said flatly.

I groaned and flopped back down across the futon, my fingers twitching as if remembering the ghost sensation of the opal ring.

I should have just kept it in my bag rather than worn it on my hand. Even someone with no knowledge of alchemy stones could

tell at a glance that it was by far the most valuable thing we carried. It glimmered like a stolen piece of the moon, and

the swirling inside the gem spoke to its great alchemical power. This healer alchemist probably thought she could sell it

and buy a new house. It was a safer purchase than asking us for gold, because its value wouldn't fluctuate.

There was only one good thing about this situation: we'd found another powerful alchemist up north.

"Maybe we have another candidate for the Empress's accomplice?" I said, turning my head toward Wenshu.

Wenshu blinked quickly as if considering this. "Would she have healed you if that were the case? Doesn't she want you dead?"

"She wants me on a leash," I said, thinking back to the way Zheng Sili had leashed Durian. In my dream, the string had been

red, like the red thread of fate...

Cold seized my body. All at once, I remembered the headline on the flyer in the armory. How could I have forgotten? And how much time had passed since I was stabbed? Surely Yufei's soul, if it had ever been waiting at the river, was long gone by now. The chances of finding her soul had already been so slim, and now they were almost nonexistent.

"Gēgē," I said, grabbing his wrist. "There was a flyer, an announcement from Chang'an about the Empress."

"Oh, that," Wenshu said, rolling his eyes. "Yes, I saw that in your pocket when they gave me your clothes. I didn't know printing

presses could reproduce illustrations so clearly."

I waited for him to say more, but he only sat down at the nearest desk and crossed his arms. Were we speaking the same language?

Had he actually read the flyer?

"You know what this means?" I said.

He nodded. "It means we need to wrap up this business with Penglai Island as soon as possible so we can sort out the mess

at the palace before there's a war of succession," he said. "And it means I need to be extra careful that no one recognizes

me. Maybe I should grow a beard?"

"What about Jiějiě?" I said, my fist tight around the sheets.

"What about her?" Wenshu said, raising an eyebrow. "I'm sure Yufei will come back to the palace when she hears that we've

returned."

"Come back?" I said. "Gēgē, the illustration—"

" It isn't her! " he said, slamming his fist on the desk.

I flinched, tugging the sheets tighter. A breeze rushed through the windows, tearing Wenshu's hair back, curtains billowing

behind him. Facing away from the light, his brown eyes looked starkly black. For a single moment, as he looked down at me,

I saw one raw glimpse of his anger, dark enough to devour the world.

He took a steadying breath as the wind died down, and when he opened his eyes, he looked calm once more.

"She wouldn't let this happen," he said, waving his hand as if waving a cloud of smoke from the air. "Besides, did you see

the drawing? It doesn't look like the Empress. She's not even wearing shoes."

I said nothing, too terrified to argue with him. Because if he truly understood that Yufei was gone, he would hate me for

it. He had left the palace for me , to help me fix my mistakes.

Something in my expression must have given away my thoughts, because he sighed and knelt back down on the floor in front of

me.

"Do you really have so little faith in her?" he said.

I shook my head. "It's not about faith," I said.

"It is," Wenshu said, frowning. "I have faith in Yufei, and in you."

All at once, I understood. Even if Yufei was dead, Wenshu thought I could bring her back.

I shouldn't have been surprised. Thanks to me, Wenshu had only ever seen death as a temporary state, something I could fix

for him given the right ingredients. I didn't know if he could even comprehend the permanence of death. He had never had to

drag those he loved back from the other side. He had never held the corpse of someone he cared about. Death was an abstract

idea to him, like the Confucian philosophy he studied.

"Show me a body, and I will mourn," he said. "Bring her corpse to me, and I will plan a funeral. But my sister is alive, and

I will not mourn the living."

"Right," I said quietly. What else could I do but pretend to believe him? He thought I was the Scarlet Alchemist, the girl who would save the entire kingdom, and more importantly, our family. To him, this didn't change our plans. Either Yufei had somehow escaped and would return to us in time, or I'd bring her back once I got to Penglai Island. Slowly, I released my grip on the sheets. Wenshu believed Yufei would be fine in the end, and Wenshu was usually right.

"Where is Durian?" I said quietly.

Wenshu's jaw unclenched, perhaps relieved that I'd dropped the subject. "Downstairs, where Zheng Sili is entertaining the

alchemist who saved you."

"And where are my clothes?"

Wenshu passed me a pile of clothing, surprisingly free of bloodstains. I gestured for him to turn around while I changed.

I rose to my feet, shaking the numbness from them, then smoothed down my dress. My face felt scraped raw, and I was sure that

meant Wenshu had scoured it with a wet rag while I was asleep. "All right," I said. "I want to see what kind of alchemist

managed to save me."

We passed through a long hallway of arched doorways on the way to meet the mysterious alchemist, and every single one was

blocked with a painted yǐngbì—some showed terraced fields of rice, others misty mountains, and others twisting rivers that

led to the sea, almost as if each door was a passageway into a new world.

"This alchemist is very superstitious," I said as we reached the staircase.

"You could say that," Wenshu said under his breath.

The temperature dropped steeply as we went down the stairs, the tiles sharply cold beneath my socks, the banister like ice

against my palm.

"Aren't we still in the desert?" I said, looking over my shoulder at Wenshu, whose teeth were already chattering. "How is it this cold?"

"The alchemist said something about slate tiles retaining cold," Wenshu said, though I could tell from his expression that

he wasn't convinced. He pointed toward the end of the first-floor hallway, where another yǐngbì blocked my view of the room.

This one was not a landscape painting, but a scene in a dark pit carved from black rock, alight with red fire. Fanged monsters

dragged naked figures across the ground, bound them with chains, and fed them into the depths of the pit. Religious conceptions

of the afterlife had all but vanished in the golden age of alchemy, but I remembered Auntie So's stories about the ten courts

of Buddhist hell, and this sure seemed like one of them.

I stepped around the yǐngbì, into the room.

The first thing I saw was Zheng Sili, seated on the floor, clutching Durian in his lap. His gaze snapped toward me when I

entered, something close to a smile crossing his face before he carefully smoothed out his expression again.

Across from him, a young woman with hair the color of starlight sat on a wooden chair before a low table, where one steaming

teapot sat surrounded by five small white cups. The wall behind her—in fact, all the walls in the room—were shelved, packed

tight with glass jars that twinkled in the weak sunlight. The jars looked empty as far as I could tell, but each one had one

or two colored ribbons tied around the neck. My breath fogged the air in front of me as I stepped into the room, the cold

tiles numbing my toes.

The woman's eyes tracked me with an odd sort of intensity as I approached, the way my uncle appraised his clay creations. The sharpness of her gaze and the long mane of white hair over her shoulder made her look like a winter fox, ready to devour me.

As she raised a teacup to her lips, I caught a glimpse of the Arcane Alchemist's opal ring on her finger. On her other hand,

she wore a gold ring with a bright red gemstone.

I drew to a stop.

Red zircon , I thought, my pulse hammering in my ears, the image from my dream echoed across my vision.

Before I could get a closer look, Wenshu nudged my shoulder, pushing me farther into the room. The white-haired woman set

down her teacup and folded her hands in her lap.

"Zilan, this is the Silver Alchemist," Wenshu said, gesturing to the woman.

I stepped around the table and knelt down on the floor, pressing my face to the freezing cold tiles in a deep bow. "Thank

you for saving me," I said.

"Alchemists are a dying breed," she said, her words light as silk. "I could hardly let you go to waste."

I lingered on the floor, my forehead chilled against the tile, for she hadn't exactly given me permission to stand up yet.

"Well," I said, after an awkward stretch of time, "I'm grateful for what you've done."

"Indeed," the woman said airily. Then, at last: "Come, sit with me. I've been waiting to speak with you."

I peeled my forehead from the floor, blood rushing from my head, and sat down in a chair that creaked as if in agony beneath

me, the sharp edge biting into the back of my thighs even through my skirts. Wenshu sat in the chair next to me, while Zheng

Sili remained on the floor.

"I would ask how you're feeling, but I know that you're fine because I healed you," the Silver Alchemist said. "So please don't take my lack of concern for rudeness."

"Oh, I didn't," I said, leaning to the side so the sunbeam glaring off one of the jars wouldn't hit me in the eye. "What are

all the jars for?"

"They're containers," she said, as if it should have been obvious.

"Yes, but what will you put in them?" I said. I must not have done a good job at sounding polite, because both Wenshu and

Zheng Sili shot me warning looks.

The Silver Alchemist only raised an eyebrow, a slight smile curling one side of her face. "They're already full," she said.

The sunlight shifted through the window, lighting up the far wall of glass jars, each one undoubtedly empty. Wenshu's gaze

could have burned a hole in the side of my face, but he shouldn't have worried—I knew when to drop a topic. It didn't matter

to me how this alchemist wanted to decorate her house, only that she gave me my ring back.

"I'm very grateful for your help," I said, leaning around a servant who hurried to pour me a cup of tea, "but about your payment—"

"What does your duck eat?" the Silver Alchemist said, eyes fixed on Durian, who had hopped from Zheng Sili's lap and was trying

to sit down on an empty tea saucer.

"Whatever we can find for him," I said, trying not to let the irritation at being interrupted show on my face. The rich had

always talked down to me when I was a merchant, but it had been a long time since anyone had dared. "He eats fruits. Sometimes

he finds bugs—"

"Servant boy!" the Silver Alchemist called.

At once, a pale boy appeared in the doorway, as if he'd been waiting somewhere close by.

"Go dig up some worms in the yard and bring them here," the Silver Alchemist said.

"Oh no, please don't go to that much trouble for us," Wenshu said, looking between the Silver Alchemist and the servant. "He

doesn't go hungry, I promise. Besides, he probably can't eat whole worms."

"Cut the worms up when you find them," the Silver Alchemist said to the servant. "But not with the good knives, for Heaven's

sake." She turned back to me and smiled, her teeth vivid white. "It's no trouble at all," she said, leaning forward and stroking

Durian's head with one finger. "We have to find joy where we can these days, don't we?"

"I'll say," Zheng Sili said, downing the rest of his tea like a shot of alcohol and not even glancing to the side as a servant

girl appeared, refilling his cup. There was a strange edge to his voice that I hadn't heard before, his words tight and precise.

I cleared my throat. "About your payment—"

" Shut up and drink tea, you're being rude ," Zheng Sili said in Guangzhou dialect, then turned back to the woman with a practiced grin. "Sorry, she has trouble with

northern dialects," he said. The back of his neck had broken out in sweat, his eyes darting nervously between me and my brother.

Part of me wanted to smack him, but Zheng Sili had rarely seemed so nervous, so surely there was a reason for it. He'd been

waiting down here alone with the Silver Alchemist for a while, after all. Had he seen something we hadn't?

"I'm sorry to meet you under these circumstances," the Silver Alchemist said, leaning back in her chair. "The way alchemists

are treated now is despicable. We should be proud of our powers, not cowering at the sight of swords. Alchemists built this

kingdom, after all. The people are in our debt."

I took a sip of tea to hide my expression. I had never considered anyone in my debt just because I was an alchemist. If anything, I'd trampled over others to gain my position.

"Were you a royal alchemist?" I said.

The Silver Alchemist let out a sharp laugh. "I would rather pour sand in my eyes than serve the House of Li," she said. "And

it's a good thing I didn't, isn't it? Now all the royal alchemists are dead."

Except for me , I thought. But the Silver Alchemist didn't seem to know who I was, and I saw no reason to enlighten her. "You don't like

the House of Li?" I said instead.

The Silver Alchemist shook her head. "My family served theirs since before the Tang Dynasty," she said. "The men of that house

were like my brothers, but they lacked innovation. I had so hoped that Empress Wu would create her own dynasty before her

death, if only to seize power from men who took it for granted."

I picked up my teacup and sipped tentatively at the water that scalded my lips, sharing an uneasy glance with Wenshu over

the rim. If this was the alchemist helping the Empress, surely she'd try to be a bit more subtle about her loyalties. Besides,

she had a sharpness to her that I doubted the Empress would have appreciated. The Empress had wanted to rule alone, to surround

herself with docile puppets who trembled at the sight of her. She was probably working with someone who she could blackmail,

not someone tied to her through loyalty alone, which could be broken easily.

But even if she wasn't helping the Empress, she was still standing between me and Penglai Island.

"Can you ask her about my ring?" I said to Zheng Sili in Guangzhou dialect.

He tensed, smoothing over the motion by reaching for his cup. "Why me?" he said.

"Because you know how to talk to rich people."

That, and I didn't particularly want to pick a fight I wasn't sure I could win. If the Silver Alchemist had healed me, she

must have been a very powerful alchemist.

"Is something wrong?" the Silver Alchemist said, frowning and looking between us.

"Ah, well, there is one thing we should discuss," Zheng Sili said, straightening up, his voice smooth and commanding in a

northern dialect once more. "You see, my friend is a bit embarrassed by this whole situation," he said. "She's so sorry to

have inconvenienced you, and feels that we've gravely underpaid you."

The Silver Alchemist waved her hand dismissively. "Let's not talk of money, it's an ugly matter," she said. "What's done is

done."

"Well, unfortunately, I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than we've let on," Zheng Sili said. "My friend comes from a

rather... important family back home. We're traveling now, so we can't bring all our resources with us—you understand,

of course—but she can give you a letter of credit for a much more appropriate amount. It would make her feel much better knowing

that she's compensated you for your discretion. After all, it wouldn't do well for word of this to reach home. Someone her

age, unmarried, and traveling with two men..." He glanced over at me, wincing. "It does raise certain questions."

I clenched my jaw and did my best to look ashamed rather than angry. I hadn't even known that letters of credit existed among

the rich. It seemed Zheng Sili was good for something after all.

"I see," the Silver Alchemist said. "Well, in that case, of course I can accommodate. What kind of host would I be if I sent you away with unease?"

I smiled politely, even though I wanted to slam my face into the table. Was this really how rich people talked to each other?

So many words that meant nothing at all.

"There's just one small matter," Zheng Sili said, taking another sip of tea. "That ring she was wearing—it's truly worthless

in all senses but a sentimental one. It was from her late mother, who came from a much humbler family. It would be embarrassing

to pay you in such a cheap stone. Please allow us to provide you with something much more appropriate for all you've done."

For a long moment, the Silver Alchemist stayed still, as if contemplating the depths of her teacup. Then at last, a small

smile raised the corner of one side of her face. She set down her teacup and folded her hands, fingers laced over each other,

displaying the white and red rings, one a winter moon and one a bloody harvest moon. I narrowed my eyes to get a closer look,

and sure enough, the red ring swirled like a scarlet sky.

"I did not gain the kind of skill I have by bumbling around this world in ignorance," she said. "Do not insult my intelligence.

You and I both know exactly what this ring is."

"We didn't mean to insult you," Wenshu said quickly, shooting Zheng Sili a glare.

"No," the Silver Alchemist said, her glare sharp, silencing him, "you only meant to con me out of something infinitely more

valuable than gold." She turned to me once more. "I am going to ask you a question, and if you lie to me, I will kill you.

Do you understand?"

I swallowed, clutching my teacup, and nodded.

"What do you want with Penglai Island?"