Chapter Six

The man went very still, like a rabbit passing under the shadow of a hawk. "Hùnxiě?" he said tentatively.

I looked him up and down, the dirt smeared on his face, skin colored with bruises, hair tousled and damp with blood. His offensively

ungroomed mustache was thankfully gone, but in every other sense, he looked worse for wear. Like me, he had come all the way

from Lingnan and been tossed into the jaws of the Empress and her political games. But while I'd tried to stop her, he'd helped

her.

" You piece of shit! " I said, lunging for him.

It didn't matter that my hands were tied. I would rip his ears off with my teeth if I had to. I landed a kick against his

jaw, and his head slammed back against the bars. He made a wounded sound, falling to the dirt.

"Zilan!" Wenshu said, but I ignored him and pressed my foot into Zheng Sili's sternum, stopping him from sitting up.

"Hey," one of the prisoners said weakly in protest, but I shot him a murderous look and he backed away. People in here were probably too busy surviving to insert themselves in other people's problems, and I doubted someone like Zheng Sili had made many friends.

"You tried to save the Empress!" I said. "After everyone died to stop her, you tried to save her because a couple guards pointed

their knives at you? I could have you hanged if we were back in Chang'an!"

" I know! " he said, coughing as I switched my foot from his chest to his throat, pressing down threateningly. He looked like an overturned

beetle, legs in the air. "I know, okay? Just let me up, and I'll explain!"

" Explain? " I said, grinding my heel down. "Let me explain my foot to your mouth!"

"Zilan," Wenshu said warningly, standing up.

I sighed. I really didn't want to pause to explain this all to my brother. "I was dying on the ground when this guy tried

to save the Empress," I said, which seemed a good enough summary for the time being.

"Huh," Wenshu said, frowning. "Well, in that case." He turned and gave Zheng Sili a swift kick to the ribs, making him roll

over and groan. "You can't kill him, though," Wenshu said. "What if they don't take his body out? It will smell even worse

down here."

"Aren't you the prince?" Zheng Sili said, bloody drool pooling under his face.

"No," Wenshu said, sitting down.

I reeled back for another kick, but Zheng Sili jolted away, scrambling back against the bars.

"I'm sorry!" he said. "I'm sorry, okay? I didn't want to help the Empress, I swear! The guards threatened my family."

"Yeah, mine too," I said, glaring back at him. "They died so the Empress could die."

Zheng Sili winced. "I'm sorry," he said again. And for a fleeting, regrettable moment, I felt bad for him. He no longer sounded like the proud aristocrat who had torn my dress back in Lingnan. His gold molars were missing, his nose knocked off center, hair caked with blood.

"After you won the last alchemy exam, the Empress threw the rest of us in the dungeons," he said. "Half of us died down there

from some kind of sickness. They left their bodies in the cell with me, rotting. I didn't know how long I was down there talking

to corpses, but all I could think about was how I'd given my whole life to become the kind of person the Empress would respect,

and she'd thrown me out like a piece of garbage for some peasant girl." He winced. "Sorry, I mean, no offense. But you didn't

respect her the way I did."

"Because that's not what the imperial exam is about," I said. And I'm a merchant, not a peasant , I thought, but I doubted the distinction would mean much to an aristocrat.

"I know," he said, shoulders slumping. "I only got out when the alchemists took over the palace and set all the prisoners

free. But before I could even go home, some guards found me and threatened to kill my little brother if I didn't help them.

And that's... that's when you saw me."

The memory of that moment reignited the rage I'd felt upon seeing him. I could still taste my own blood as I'd lain half dead

on the stairs of the throne room, thinking that when I died, at least it would have been for something that mattered. And

then Zheng Sili had arrived, set his greedy hands on the Empress's dying body, and undone what I'd given everything for. Would

her soul still be clinging to the river plane if it wasn't for him?

"You have no idea what you've done," I said, not sure if it was truly fair to blame everything on him, but the rage pulsing through my sore muscles felt so much better than the harrowing pity from only moments before.

"I didn't want to help her," he said, slumping against the bars of the cage, no longer meeting my gaze. "I didn't know what

else to do, and I don't know if what I did was right. But do you want to know the worst part?"

"That all my friends and family died in vain?" I said, reining in the urge to kick him under the jaw again.

"Mine too," he said, letting out a dry, empty laugh that seemed to drain what little color was left from his face. Blood dripped

slowly from the curve of his lips to his torn robes in a slow, dark rain. "A private army trampled my brother in a raid a

week later. It was almost a relief when they captured me because I didn't have to figure out what to do next."

He looked so small in the darkness of the cell, withered into himself, pale from weeks without sun. I had long ago learned

that sometimes people's souls died before their bodies did. You could see it in their eyes, an undertow drowning them slowly

behind their irises.

But the world was full of sad stories, and Zheng Sili's was not the worst I'd heard.

I sighed, sitting down cross-legged and leaning against the wall. "This is exactly why you never became a royal alchemist,"

I said.

He looked up sharply, eyes narrowed. " Excuse me? " he said.

Maybe the rage in his expression, or even the blood dripping down his chin like a feral wolf would have scared some people,

but I had seen far worse than angry rich boys.

"Your brother died because of a world that you helped to build," I said. "You know that, yet you still aren't sure if what you did was wrong? Do you know how many other people's brothers could have died because of what you did?"

Zheng Sili choked down a startled breath. "Listen here, hùnxiě—"

" No ," I said, raising my voice. "If you want sympathy, go back to your mansion and cry to the other sons of aristocrats who've

never known suffering, because you won't get any from me. This is exactly why I beat you, Zheng Sili. Because people like

you give up the moment life isn't easy anymore."

He ground his teeth together, sputtering out a few indignant sounds as if he couldn't decide the best way to insult me. This

was the true Zheng Sili, the pathetic, sniveling boy I'd always known was beneath the aristocrat's exterior. I suspected that

all the rich were like this just below the surface, but no one had ever dared to talk back to them.

"When you're done whimpering," I said, "I need to know if you have any pearl teeth left."

" You knocked out my only pearl tooth when we were sparring! " he said, face red.

I sighed, closing my eyes. Just my luck.

"Any other ideas?" Wenshu said, looking down at Zheng Sili like he was a piece of rotten fruit.

I nodded toward Zheng Sili. "Maybe if he cries enough, the salt in his tears will make us some quartz in a few hundred years."

"I'm not crying, I'm sweating!" Zheng Sili said.

"Would you shut the hell up?" one of the prisoners shouted. Zheng Sili obediently clamped his mouth shut and scooted back

against the wall, shooting the man a dirty look. I sat down next to Wenshu, but something hard dug into my hip.

I tried to adjust it with my hands bound, but it only bit down harder, a bruising cold against my side. Had my pockets filled

with river rocks when I'd fallen overboard?

Then I remembered.

My hidden pocket. Durian's egg.

"Gēgē," I said sharply, startling Wenshu. "Reach into my pocket!"

"You have a pocket they didn't empty?" Zheng Sili said.

We both ignored him as Wenshu bent down at an awkward angle, his hands still locked behind him. He used to help Auntie So

make our skirts, which was technically women's work, but Auntie was never particularly impressed with how well Yufei and I

could sew. He found the pocket and managed to slip his hand inside, pulling out Durian's egg.

"Incredible," Wenshu said. "You could have snuck anything in with that pocket, and you brought one of your demon eggs."

"Where did you find a gold chicken?" Zheng Sili said.

Wenshu started to answer him, but I elbowed him in the ribs. "Ignore him, and he'll go away," I said in Guangzhou dialect,

motioning for him to pass me the egg.

"I speak Guǎngdōng huà!" Zheng Sili shouted, indignant. "I'm from Guangzhou!"

I had never heard Zheng Sili speak anything but the prim and proper dialect of Chang'an, fluent like any good aristocrat's

son. He sounded like an entirely different person in Guǎngdōng huà, his voice much higher pitched and younger.

"It's a duck egg," I said, angling away so he couldn't see.

"There are trace amounts of copper in eggs," Zheng Sili said, ignoring me and moving around Wenshu to get a better look. "Crack

it open, let's see what we've got."

I pressed back against the wall so Zheng Sili couldn't see the egg. "There's not enough copper for a transformation," I said, though I was sure he knew it was a poor excuse when we didn't have any better options. But I thought of Durian sleeping in my bag, the duck who had never even shown a trace of evil, nothing even remotely suspicious besides the eggs. Surely they contained some sort of evil, since Durian himself—herself—clearly didn't. Maybe the yolk was an acid that would burn the flesh from my bones, a bomb that would explode in my face? I had been careless back in the palace, and it had cost the other alchemists their lives.

"It's worth a shot," Zheng Sili said, trying to move closer. "What are you saving it for?"

Wenshu shouldered Zheng Sili back, making him lose his balance and fall awkwardly to his knees. "Don't touch her," he said.

"We don't know what's in the egg. It could be dangerous."

Zheng Sili scoffed, turning around to show us his broken fingers. "More dangerous than these guards? Crack it open!"

"Back off!" I said. "It's not your decision."

"Actually, it's mine ," said a low voice behind us.

I turned around. At the front of the cell, a guard held one of the prisoners against the bars with his sword pulled tight

to her throat. It was the young girl I'd spoken to before, standing on tiptoes so the blade wouldn't tear into her neck. The

guard reached his left hand through the bars, palm open. "Hand it over," he said.

I clenched my jaw, careful not to tighten my grip around the egg in anger. Against the cell bars, with the pale light gleaming

wetly in her eyes, the girl looked so much like the prince's little sisters, who the Empress had thrown in the dungeon. They'd

both looked at me with so much hope when I'd set them free, and then a few weeks later, one of them was nothing but an empty

husk in my arms. That was the price they'd paid for trusting me to keep them safe.

Zheng Sili scoffed. "They don't even know each other," he said. He turned back to me and gestured expectantly. "Go on, crack it open."

" Now ," the guard said, tugging the blade tighter, a thin line of red spreading across the girl's throat and pulling a helpless

sound from her lips. I thought of the corpses of children I'd resurrected back in Guangzhou, whose souls I found hiding in

tall grass or curled up against trees, crying for their mothers in the dark. Children cried loudly because they thought someone

would answer. I was supposed to be that person.

"Here," I said, rising to my feet, turning so the guard could see the egg in my bound hands. "It's just an egg."

" Are you serious? " Zheng Sili said. "Our only way out, and you're giving it up for a stranger?"

"She's just a kid," I said, my heart sinking as the guard reached through the bars and snatched the egg from my hands. He

pulled his sword away, and the girl fell forward against me, scrambling away from the bars.

" I'm only eighteen!" Zheng Sili said. "You had no problem walking away and letting the Empress kill me after she made you an alchemist!"

"Yes," I said, "because you're an asshole."

Zheng Sili let out an indignant sound and finally—mercifully—shut up, sitting down heavily in the corner facing away from

me like my very presence disgusted him. The girl had already left my side, retreating into the dark corners of the cell where

the guards couldn't reach her. You're not her savior , I reminded myself bitterly. You're the reason she was in danger in the first place.

"How the hell did you sneak this in?" the guard said, turning the egg over in his hands. He pinched it between his index finger and thumb, holding it up to his candle. The surface crinkled with hairline cracks, then shattered in his hand. I stepped closer to the bars for a better look, praying that Durian had laid some kind of alchemical weapon.

But nothing but orange yolk and slimy egg white oozed down the guard's wrist. It was a normal egg after all.

The guard made a disgusted sound, shaking the goo off his hand. "You were hiding a rotten egg?" he said. "You alchemists are

worse than..." He trailed off, staring at his hand, the glossy egg white like fish webbing between his fingers. He held

up his hand, watching the translucent goo expand and capture the candlelight. Then he took one faltering step forward and

collapsed face-first onto the ground.

Metal clanged as his helmet hit the dirt, his candle tipping over and extinguishing itself in a pool of hot wax, the hall

cast in darkness again. The other prisoners murmured in confusion, some pressing close to the bars.

"I told you that duck was evil," Wenshu said, stepping around me to get a better look. "Is the guard dead?"

I knelt down, my face against the bars as I squinted through the darkness. The guard's chest rose and fell shallowly, the

plates of his armor shifting from the movement.

"He's alive," I said. "Out cold, though."

I leaned closer, trying to make out the shape of keys in the darkness, but a sharp scent nearly cleaved my face in half, so

strong that it felt like someone had jabbed a spear straight up my nose. I lurched back, falling against Wenshu, my eyes watering

at the memory of the scent.

The egg smelled like durian.

Wenshu had always called durian "corpse fruit" because it smelled oddly similar to the scent of rotting corpses, which we knew all too well. But no durian—or corpse—had ever smelled quite this foul. No wonder the guard had been knocked out by the smell.

I tensed as the guard wheezed out a loud breath, but thankfully, he remained still.

"If you want to take advantage of this situation, now is the time," Wenshu said, squinting down the hallway. "I don't think

any other guards have noticed his absence yet."

"Right," I said, blinking away involuntary tears and doing my best to wipe my nose against my shoulder. Before anything, I

needed to untie my hands.

I sat down on the ground, this time holding my breath, and slid my leg between the bars. I prodded the metal plates of the

guard's armor with my toe, dragging him closer. Steel was a metalstone, a catalyst that I could use to start reactions, so

if I could only touch his armor with my hands, I would be free.

When he was finally close enough to the bars for me to reach, I turned around and angled my bound hands through the bars,

twisting my wrists until my fingers brushed his steel plates.

The cool steel hummed beneath my fingers, all the tension in my muscles soothed away. Alchemy sang through my body, and for

the first time since I'd left Guangzhou, I felt like I was home again.

I ran my fingers across the plates until I was sure I was touching exactly three metal scales, then let alchemy burn through

me.

A chunk of the armor snapped off, the metal sparking and warping in my palms, contorting into the shape of a blade. I gripped it tight until I'd slid it back through the bars, then turned and offered it to Wenshu, who managed to cut my ropes from behind. My wrists screamed as blood rushed back into them, but I shook away the numbness and cut Wenshu's ropes, passing him the knife again.

"Cut everyone else's ropes," I said, holding my breath and reaching back through the bars, quickly transforming some of the

metal plates into new alchemy rings. One by one, the untied alchemists joined me, ripping off gold plates and steel and iron

from the guard's armor, forging his helmet into blades and batons, stripping the metals from him like vultures to a carcass.

They nearly crushed me in their fervor, but I could hardly blame them after they'd been trapped down here for so long. I barely

managed to snatch the keys before an overly eager alchemist could transform them into something else.

I turned as Wenshu cut Zheng Sili's ropes, perhaps deliberately saving him for last. Zheng Sili winced as his purpled hands

hung limp at his sides, not even bothering to reach for metal with his broken fingers. He was such a far cry from the proud

and polished alchemist I'd first met.

At the end of the hall, footsteps echoed down the staircase. I swore and reached around the bars until I managed to jam the

key into the lock. The door swung open easily, and the alchemists flooded into the hall, shoving me against the bars on the

opposite side.

Hands grabbed my wet clothes, yanking at my sleeves and hair. The prisoners in the nearest cell had latched on to me as if

drowning.

"Please, let us out too!" the woman clutching my sleeve said. "Before the guards come back!"

"I need my arms for that," I said, slowly extricating myself and fumbling for the key as Wenshu appeared beside me.

"We have to go, Zilan," he said. I didn't have a chance to answer as the lock clicked and the door burst open, knocking me into Wenshu. The alchemists rushed toward the end of the hall, not even trying to be quiet. The guards certainly must have known what had happened by now.

The other prisoners had all pressed close to the bars now, calling out for me, pale arms reaching and grabbing at nothing.

"Just toss someone the keys, and let's get out of here," Wenshu said, tugging my arm.

But I stayed rooted in place, the keys cold and impossibly heavy in my hands. I thought of the palace after the fall, corpses

bobbing in the scarlet ponds, tile floors so blood-slicked they'd turned to crimson mirrors, gardens fertilized with entrails

and teeth. The legacy of the Scarlet Alchemist who let other people fight in her place.

"Gēgē," I said, "get my bag and Durian, then come back here."

"Can't you just grab them on the way out?" he said, chasing after me as I hurried to the next cell, jamming the key in the

lock. The stairwell at the end of the hallway lit up with bright sparks and a rush of fire, screams echoing across the stones.

"I'm a little busy here," I said, jamming the key in the lock of the next cell.

The door struck me across the face as the prisoners shoved it open, crushing me against the bars and nearly knocking Wenshu

to the ground as they ran. Upstairs, I could make out sounds of screaming, the crackle of fire.

"Are you kidding? There's too many of them!" Wenshu said, hurrying along next to me as I unlocked the next door. "Zilan, did

you see how many guards are outside? You want to be caught down here without any stones left when they come down?"

" Then get me my stones! " I said. "You're wasting time!"

Wenshu let out a frustrated sound and stormed off, disappearing into the dark.

I unlocked two more cells, not even halfway down the passageway. The desperate cries of the alchemists grew louder as they

saw that I was coming to set them free. The scent of smoke spiraled down the staircase, the air growing gray and hazy.

With the next door that I unlocked, the crowd forced me to the ground, tripping over me, stomping on my fingers as they rushed

out. I couldn't get up until they passed, the screams of the remaining alchemists somehow even louder now.

"Hey, hùnxiě!"

I turned around, facing the mouth of the hall.

Zheng Sili stood in the doorway beside Wenshu, who clutched my bag under his arm and Durian under the other. Zheng Sili held

up a fistful of stones in a hand that looked slightly less mangled than a few minutes ago, which meant he'd found some waterstones

to heal himself.

"Get away from the bars," Zheng Sili said.

"Or what?" I said, already moving to the next cell and struggling to find the key with my sore, trampled fingers. He had already

ruined my plans once. Did he really have to do it again? "I don't take orders from you."

He shrugged, shuffling the stones in his hand, then pressed his palm to the nearest cell. "Suit yourself," he said.

Then all of the bars exploded.

I ducked, shielding my face as bamboo rained down with the hot scent of firestone and hiss of smoke. Hands closed around me, pulling me to the side as the rest of the alchemists ran for the door. The cell walls gaped open, bamboo turned to pale splinters. Through the smoke, I managed to make out Wenshu's face as he passed me my satchel, tucking Durian into his robes. Zheng Sili stood beside him, shoving a few prisoners away when they crashed into him in their haste to flee. Maybe the other alchemists had trampled me into unconsciousness and this was a bizarre dream, because the Zheng Sili I knew would never have done anything to help me.

We'd just barely stepped onto the main floor when the ceiling cracked as if struck by lightning. The sizzling corpses of prison

guards lay all around the tiles, charred black and dissolving into ashes inside their silver armor. Something in the elaborately

painted wallpaper must have been highly flammable, because flames had scorched a path across the painted golden vines, the

whole hall now a blazing lattice of flame. A beam had caved in across the front door, a wall of flame sprouting up in front

of it, blocking our only exit. For once, I wished that destruction alchemy wasn't the easiest kind—maybe the other alchemists

could have fought their way out without burning the building down on top of us.

I jammed my hand back in my satchel, but I already knew I was out of waterstones—I was supposed to restock when we reached

Baiyin.

"What stones do you have?" Zheng Sili said.

I emptied the pitiful remains of my satchel into my palm.

"Three earthstones, six firestones, five woodstones, one button, and one soap bean."

Zheng Sili groaned, closing his eyes. "Okay, everyone shut up while I think of what to do."

He could think all he wanted, but there was no way around it—we needed waterstones. Either to put out the flames, or to strengthen

the building supports before the roof fully caved in and crushed us.

I squinted against the sting of smoke and glared at the stones in my palms as if they would tell me the answer. What would the Moon Alchemist do? I thought. She could probably combine all the stones together into a waterstone, or some other high-level alchemy that would

kill me if I even attempted it. I couldn't make stones change their element type.

Unless...

I picked up three of my earthstones—brown tanzanite—holding them up to the light. I'd bought the raw stone because it was

cheaper, the brownish color rendering it an earthstone.

But if the color changed, the stone type could change as well.

The classification of alchemy stones was a complex science, but it was largely based on color. Green gemstones were usually

woodstones, red were firestones, blue were waterstones.

But gem colors could change. It usually happened when jewelers treated them with heat. And trapped inside this golden oven,

we had plenty of heat to spare.

I hurled my tanzanite into the flames.

"Do you have a death wish?" Zheng Sili said, gripping my shoulders. "We could have thought of something to use those for!"

"I did," I said, shoving him back and handing him three of my six firestones. "We're making some waterstones."

Zheng Sili took the stones, staring at them like he'd never seen a rock in his life. "You want to forge a waterstone from

tanzanite?" he said slowly. "Do you have any idea how much heat that requires?"

"Luckily, we have the top two alchemists in Lingnan and six firestones between us," I said.

"Wait," Wenshu said, rubbing the sting of smoke from his eyes. "You're going to make more fire?"

"You should probably stand back," I said. "Keep Durian covered."

"Jewelers do this in ovens, not with open flames in their faces!" Zheng Sili said, cuffing sweat from his forehead as Wenshu hurried farther away.

The ceiling crunched ominously above us, and all three of us raised our arms for cover, but nothing fell except stray sparks.

"You have any better ideas?" I said.

Zheng Sili's face crumpled, and I already knew the answer. He was used to fairness, doing alchemy under perfect, scholarly

conditions.

I turned and marched toward the door, standing as close as I could without actually burning myself. I crushed the firestones

between my palms and closed my eyes.

Firestones had always spoken to me. It was a stone of destruction, calling on all the rage deep within my soul to raze the

world to ashes. The stones began to heat up, so I held my open palms toward the flames, glaring at the tanzanite simmering

on the ground. Fire bloomed from my palms, amplifying the heat and smoke of the room. It wouldn't burn me for now, as long

as I stayed in control. I had no idea how long this would take, but I would have to bear it until it worked.

After a moment, Zheng Sili stood beside me. "If we get out of this alive, I'll buy you a drink," he said. "But if I melt myself

to death because of you, I'm haunting you forever."

"If we die, I'll buy you a drink in hell," I said.

He laughed, the sound loud over the roar of flames. "At least you're honest about where we both stand," he said. Then he clapped

the firestones between his palms, and released a blast of blue fire at the doorway.

I had almost forgotten how powerful his alchemy was. The first time we'd sparred, I'd been amazed at the way he wielded alchemy with the finesse of a zither player, while I used it more like a heavy mallet. I supposed that a lifetime of private alchemy tutors was worth something. But for all his skill, he had always lacked innovation, and in the end, that was why I'd been chosen by the Empress over him. But that certainly didn't make him useless.

The flames before us doubled, pulling sweat from my face, casting dizzy heat waves into the air around me. The fire stole

all the words from my lips, all the air from my lungs. My palms began to ache, the fire brightening from a deep red to a clear

orange.

But it wasn't enough. I could tell from the earthstones still lying dormant on the tiles, slowly paling but nowhere near the

blue shade we needed.

I closed my eyes, trying to forget the searing heat on my palms. Firestone was fed by rage, so that was what I needed to focus

on.

When I reached deep inside myself for a thread of anger, I saw the Empress.

Her eyes like sharp stars in the dead of night. Her delicate fingers coated in liquid gold, tongue lashing out to lick the

substance from under her nails. Her throat pulsing as she drank red wine, a wall of fire in front of her, the tangy smell

of burning flesh coating my throat as I entered the throne room where both of us would die.

The fire brightened again, the color lightening to an amber gold, the tanzanite beginning to glimmer with ghostly whispers

of white and blue. Zheng Sili sank down to his knees, his hands trembling, but still he directed his flames at the door. We

were so close now, but I was growing dizzy, could hardly breathe, and didn't know how much longer either of us could maintain

the heat. Once these firestones burned out, we were doomed.

I closed my eyes and thought of nothing but the Empress, stoking the flames inside myself even hotter and brighter than the ones before me.

Her knife pulling across the prince's throat, the skin yawning open like a bloody scream.

Her honed fingernails tracing over my cousins' soul tags.

The taste of her blood on my tongue, the sharpness of her spine against my teeth.

At once, the fire blazed pure white, blasting back my hair in a surge of light. I leaned into the feeling, let it swallow

me whole.

The taste of iron and gold, salt and death, pain and endings. Skin that splits like wet paper between my teeth, kindling bones,

wire-sharp tendons, a hot rush of liquid power spilling down my throat. The Empress held tight and still in my claws, helpless

as a mouse in the talons of a hawk. I wore a cage of pearl around me, an undead monster, an abomination that even the Moon

Alchemist couldn't look in the eye, but I would do it all again just to watch her come undone. Her stuttered last breaths,

the taste of her broken dreams, the salt of her skin.

When Zheng Sili released his fire, it was like snapping back into my body, doused with cold water. At first I thought he'd

given up, but he dove straight into the fire, snatched the tanzanite, and pressed it between his palms.

The sudden spray of water knocked me off my feet. I crashed into the tiles, an icy rain pummeling me, glass-sharp in its sudden

coldness. At the doorway, a geyser burst forth from where Zheng Sili had pressed the waterstones just beyond the threshold,

drawing up a torrent from the ground. He'd extinguished the whole room at once, leaving us in sudden darkness and wet ashes,

like we were inside a decaying corpse.

Wenshu lay on his back in a steaming puddle, looking stunned. Durian sat a few feet away, letting out unhappy chirps.

I tried to move to him, but the world slanted, and my cheek slammed into the ground. Wenshu appeared before I could try to

get up again, hauling me up by my arm and pulling me toward the door. Overhead, the soggy rafters creaked, slowly folding

inward. But it didn't matter anymore. Now we were free.

We emerged into the sunlight, where Zheng Sili was sitting heavily in a muddy puddle. It seemed the other alchemists had long

abandoned the burning building and headed back home. All the guards' horses were gone.

We sat down a few feet away, too tired to move any farther. The sun was setting, and soon the freezing night would descend.

"You're alive?" Zheng Sili said tiredly.

"Seems like it," I said, reaching a hand out for Durian, who was waddling down the front steps.

"That's too bad," Zheng Sili said, wiping wet hair from his face. "I was hoping I could get out of buying you a drink."