Even as the council members scrutinized him, most not bothering to hide their unconvinced expressions, Jinn straightened, his jaw set in the same prideful hold his daughter so often wore. He met the waiting faces. “I trust Merrin,” he declared. “And I want to save my daughter.”
Wren’s heart soared. Finally, the moment she’d been waiting for ever since returning to the fort. What Wren argued so fiercely for in these meetings, what she’d asked her father for every day. If there was a way to save Lei, they should take it, at any cost.
She was worth it. She was worth anything.
Everything.
Jinn swallowed. “But I know it’s not what Lei would want.”
A few of the councilors clapped, speaking out in assent and relief. Nitta’s face swung toward Wren in horror.
“She risked her life to start this war.” Wren heard Lei’s father speaking as if from far away. “She’d want us to do everything to win it. Even if she were here with us, she’d be in danger. Nowhere will be safe for Papers until the King is off the throne. That is exactly why she fought”—he caught himself—“ is fighting. And she would want us to respect that.”
No! Wren wanted to scream. She wanted to leap from her seat, grab Jinn by the collar, and shake him. Lei is with the King. Don’t you understand what that means? If you love her, how could you leave her with him again?
“All right,” Ketai agreed, over the murmuring council members. “We will have to trust in Lei’s strength for now—and what strength it is. Taking away her rescue, I propose we instead use Merrin to free the imprisoned White Wing loyalists. We have desperate need of bird demons in our upcoming battles. Wren and I will work with Merrin to refine the details. Thank you, everyone. I know these deliberations were anything but easy. I appreciate your patience.”
As the scrape of chairs and rustling of papers and robes filled the room, Jinn caught Wren’s gaze. There was an apology in his eyes. More than an apology: a request for forgiveness.
Wren turned abruptly away. Because what she saw in his expression was too familiar. It was a mirror to her own desperate plea for Lei’s forgiveness after everything she’d done those months traveling Ikhara: killing Lady Dunya’s daughter Eolah at the White Wing’s palace; being complicit in the deaths of Aoki’s family; using Hiro’s life to save them on the Czos’ island; not healing Bo when there might still have been time. And if this is how Wren was feeling toward Lei’s father for one painful decision, how could Lei ever forgive Wren for the hundreds of terrible ones she had made?
She risked her life to start this war. She’d want us to do everything to win it.
Even though he wasn’t a warrior, Jinn seemed to understand that sacrifice was necessary in war. Even when it was personal. Even when it was the last thing you wanted to do.
Even when it carved your heart in two.
ELEVEN
LEI
GIVE HER TIME. SHE’LL COME AROUND.”
“She hates me, Chenna. I know it.”
“She doesn’t hate you, Lei.”
“The way she looks at me…”
“She’s conflicted.”
“Because of me. Because of him.”
“Because of the whole situation. It’s complicated. Things changed after the Moon Ball.”
With a guilty sigh, my eyes drift past Chenna’s shoulder across the room, where Aoki is curled on her sleeping mat, picking absently at her toes. Two weeks since the girls arrived, and Aoki still won’t meet my eyes. She’s been like the demon maids that tended me before—working over me, polishing me, painting me, without ever truly looking at me until the last instant. When, just as I’m being led from the room by Madam Himura, she finally regards me, unable to keep the hurt from her face that I am the one going to sit by his side and not her.
“Yes,” I mutter. “The night I tried to kill the demon she loves.”
“Not the best of things for a friendship,” Chenna quips, and we swap a look, part amusement, mostly sad understanding.
As if sensing our attention, Aoki glances our way. Her eyes skitter from mine before she quickly snuffs the lantern hanging by her head and twists to face the wall. To her other side, the twins are already asleep, each with an arm around the other.
I’ve learned that Zhen talks in her sleep. She seems to be speaking to her brother and her parents. She often laughs with them; once, she cried. The twins’ family live in Han’s capital, Marazi. When we were Paper Girls, they came almost every month to visit. Due to their family’s status, Madam Himura would allow Zhen and Zhin the afternoon off to spend with them. Each time they came back bearing armfuls of stories and presents and were rosy with love, I’d feel so sorry for Blue, whose own parents live here in the palace and yet didn’t visit her once.
Like usual, Blue is lying on the opposite side of the room from the other girls. Chenna elaborated on what Mistress Azami had told me, that one of her legs was injured during the battle at the Moon Ball when she came between fighting warriors, and it never healed properly. Though she does her best to hide it, she walks now with a limp. I want to tell her not to spend the energy on masking it—no one would, or should, fault her for it. But like Aoki, Blue isn’t exactly my biggest fan.
At least that’s nothing new.
“Aoki’ll come around, Lei,” Chenna reassures me. The two of us sit close on my bed, speaking in whispers. “She’s still in shock. We all are. I mean, you’re here. Alive.”
I smile. “So are all of you.”
The line of her mouth is tight. “Just about.”
“I’m so sorry, Chenna. I never meant—I never wanted any of this—”
“I’m not blaming you, Lei. Nor Wren. It’s just the reality of the situation. We barely hung on. Some of us are still grasping.” Her dark-brown eyes search my face. “From everything you’ve told us, it sounds as though you and Wren barely made it through, too. All that traveling and fighting… and Wren still out there, in the midst of the war.”
Wren. Every time, her name hits me like a thunderclap.
Chenna presses her shoulder to mine. “She’s a fighter, Lei, and a good person. The gods will look after her.” With a stretch, Chenna slides off my bed. She gives me an encouraging smile before sloping off to join Aoki, Zhen, and Zhin.
I want to ask her to stay. To lie beside me in my too-empty bed, in the haunted space where another girl’s body should be. Instead, I watch Chenna kneel on her sleeping mat. She prays before settling in beside the twins. I’m still amazed we are all together again. It’s selfish of me, I know, but I’m glad for their presence, even if something indelible has changed between us, a line drawn between me and the five of them I’m worried neither effort nor time will dissolve.
Perhaps, if I can find a way to free us, I might be able to give us the time and space from the palace we need to heal. It’s my goal now, part of my plan: make allies, find a way to get these bands off Aoki and me, get the girls safely out of here—and kill the King. I still have no idea how to do most of those, let alone all of them together. But I’ll try. I have to.
Because if I don’t, the chances for my second, even more impossible plan will be zero. And while that one only has one step, it’s almost too huge to hold in my heart.