THE EVE BEFORE THE WEDDING, the girls are getting me ready for a private ceremony with the King to exchange gifts, a tradition common among demons. The only gift I want to give the King is a knife to the heart, but a range of less dangerous items have been selected for me by Madam Himura.
By now, the girls and I are used to the routine, and we play our parts with faded resignation. Still, the mood is particularly sullen, despite Zhen and Zhin’s efforts to lighten it. Even their story about how they and their brother once let a monkey loose into their mansion and it ended up going to the toilet in their mother’s dressing room doesn’t raise a laugh. All week, the air has been heavy. Tonight it’s leaden, as thick and sour as lassi left out too long in the heat.
Zhen perfects the cherry-dark paint on my lips. Her sister smudges a stain from my cheek. Blue and Aoki bicker while fixing an unspooled thread of embroidery in my hanfu. Chenna threads the last of the flowers into my hair: orchids for abundance, peonies for peace. A single anemone for anticipation. Her fingers are cool and gentle. She rests them against my neck in silent encouragement.
Once, I dressed for an evening with the King and imagined each layer of my clothing and paints as armor, transforming me into what the King called hours later a “beautiful lie.” Right now, I hardly feel strong, and couldn’t care less if I look beautiful. But I do feel like a lie. The flowers in my hair were chosen for a blushing bride. I am not her. Instead of an abundance of joy, what I wish the orchids to bring to my marriage is an abundance of blood—the King’s, at my hand. Instead of peace between us, I hunger for war. And the only thing I’m eagerly anticipating is my soon-to-be husband’s death.
Chenna sweeps a critical eye over me; even a stray wisp of hair can earn the girls a backhand from Madam Himura.
I give her a sardonic curtsey. “How am I? The perfect Moonchosen?”
My voice drips in sarcasm, but her reply is serious. “Yes. The perfect Moonchosen.”
She doesn’t say it the way the King and the court do. She doesn’t mean chosen for him—she means it like the rebels do. Chosen to fight. Chosen to change the course of Ikhara’s future. Her words bring me a glow of pride. Chenna’s faith is important. She doesn’t invoke the gods without truly meaning it.
“Perfect is hardly a word I’d use to describe Nine,” Blue says, but her jibe has little bite to it.
As the twins jump in to reassure me how stunning I look, a smile touches my face—dissolving the instant I catch the look on Aoki’s face.
“Aoki,” I croak, wanting to explain I’d only been smiling at the girls’ friendship, not their words. But before I can say anything more, the clack of talons comes from the hallway.
Madam Himura sweeps into the room with her usual impatience. She stomps over to inspect me. “Sufficient,” she says. “The rest of you, however…” She clicks her tongue. “Girls!” She jabs the floor with her cane, ushering in a flock of Steel caste maids. “Get to work!”
Instinctively, I move to shield the girls from the approaching demons. Madam Himura shoos me aside. “Not everything is a battle, Lei-zhi,” she snaps.
I scowl at her. “Isn’t it, here?”
As maids begin picking at Aoki’s dirty hair, and Blue shoves away those trying to touch her, Chenna’s voice rings out.
“Madam Himura? What’s this about?”
The eagle-woman casts her yellow eyes over us, looking half bitter, half exhausted. Something in her manner strikes me as off; she’s a little too stiff, even for her. “The King has requested all of you be present tonight,” she announces.
The twins’ eyes widen. Aoki gasps. Chenna goes to speak, but Madam Himura gestures for silence. Without any more explanation, she goes over to the nearest pair of maids, who are trying to peel Blue’s filthy robes off her without success.
“The—the King has called for us again?” Aoki asks eagerly.
How well did the last time turn out for you? I want to say.
Madam Himura ignores her. She directs the maids with a touch more ferocity than usual, and they swarm over the girls, working fast. I watch helplessly, foreboding coursing through my veins. What could the King possibly want with the girls? He kept them around after the Moon Ball to punish me. To make them serve me, all the while heaping every luxury upon me, pushing their faces in the unfairness of it all, turning me from peer to usurper, tying my rise to their suffering. He tried to take the one thing from me he knew I valued in this place: their companionship.
Are we in for more of his mind games tonight?
When Madam Himura goes to discuss something with Commander Razib in the hallway, Zhin checks she’s out of earshot before addressing us in a hopeful whisper. “Maybe now Lei is to become the Queen, we’re to be upgraded, too!”
Blue snorts. “You think the court would let Papers look after the Queen?”
“She’s a Paper Queen…”
Chenna shakes her head. “It’s not how the palace does things, Zhin.”
I meet Chenna’s eyes past the crowd of maids. She’s already half made-up, looking striking with her long hair plaited into the braids of her province, shimmer dusting her brown cheeks. From the look she gives me, I know we’re thinking the same thing. Could this have anything to do with the rebellion?
“Maybe—maybe it’s to thank us,” Aoki suggests. “It is a gift-giving ceremony, after all.”
Blue laughs harshly. “Oh yes, because that’s just like the King. Such a generous demon, that one.”
Some of the maids stop in their work, looking scandalized. Others look afraid, as if worried to even be associated with such sentiments.
Blue rolls her eyes. “What? We’re already prisoners. It’s not as if they can do much more to punish us—unless they mean to kill us.” She regards us wryly. “Honestly, it would be a relief to be spared from spending more time in such close quarters with you lot.”
Though she’s teasing—it hits me dully: Blue, teasing—none of us laugh. When I glance back at Chenna, her wary expression has deepened. I want to talk to her, discuss how we might prepare for whatever’s about to come, but with the maids and the other girls around, it’s impossible. Then Madam Himura is back, deeming the girls presentable, and before I know it we are shepherded from the room, my guards marching us single-file down lantern-lit corridors.
We’re still in the Moon Annexe, our shadows silky on the polished white marble, when Commander Razib halts outside an archway. A silver veil hangs over it, unnaturally still.
“The Moonchosen and the Paper Girls,” he announces.
The veil furls aside, bidding us in.