My Paper Girls. My friends.
My family.
Wondering why I sent them back to you, perhaps? Don’t worry. You will find out soon enough.
It wasn’t about them seeing me become the King’s Queen—it was about this.
Five gifts.
Five sacrifices.
The girls are panicking now, Zhen demanding answers, her sister clinging to her, eyes wide and wet with disbelief. Chenna is still comforting a sobbing Aoki even as her own face betrays her fear.
Blue scrabbles forward. The guard standing over her grabs her by the collar and jerks her back, bringing his blade to her throat.
She lets out a shriek that penetrates right to my bones. “Father! Tell them to stop! Make them stop! Baba! Baba!”
I hear a faint tssk from where he’s watching. Irritation.
“Please!” she cries. “Baba, please! Please—”
“I’m not here to help you, stupid girl! I am here to watch as you finally make yourself of some use!”
His words shock us all into stillness.
Blue makes a tiny, stunted sound.
Chenna’s face is murderous.
The King laughs. “Well said, Adviser Lao—”
There’s a whirr of silver; two strangled shouts of surprise.
The shamans who trapped me reel back, throwing knives buried in the center of their foreheads. I sense their magic wink out.
I whirl around, seeing Mistress Azami on her feet, face blazing as she draws a fresh pair of knives from her robes, and the whole room breaks into chaos.
TWENTY-FOUR
LEI
GET THE GIRLS AND GO!” Mistress Azami bellows at me.
She has just enough time to hurl her knives at the guards lurching in her direction before Naja is upon her, a spitting blur of white fury.
I stumble into movement, ducking the arms of a guard to leap from the platform. Everyone is shouting and yelling, running either for cover or to join the fray. Somewhere behind me, a man is screeching incessantly; I’d bet anything it’s Blue’s father. Shamans who’d been waiting behind the colonnades fly forward, hands thrown out. Enchantments soar over my head. The air froths with their electric power, and something else—a swarm of tiny flashing bodies. Fireflies. The shamans must have freed them from their decorative stations, and now they’re loose, whipping everything into even more of a frenzied mess.
So some of the shamans are on our side. Mistress Azami must have organized it.
I hardly have time for relief.
“KILL THEM!” the King roars.
I see them through the roiling firefly clouds. Chenna, Aoki, Blue, Zhen, and Zhin. They’re grappling with demon guards who only moments ago had been about to open their throats. Some of the shamans lob daos at the guards, blasts of wind that toss them back or send squalls of fireflies and razor-edged leaves torn from the garlands at their heads. But other shamans—the ones not allied with us—weaponize their magic, too. I’m helping Zhen to her feet when a pained squeal rents the air.
Blue rises high, eyes rolling back. Her body contorts in agony.
Chenna grabs her leg and tries to drag her down, but the shaman’s magic is strong. In seconds, Chenna’s feet leave the floor, too. She kicks desperately—
There’s a whirr of movement.
Chenna and Blue collapse to the ground. Zhen and I run to them, hauling them up. Nearby, a shaman is spluttering. A sword—stolen from one of the guards—protrudes from his chest. He drops to his knees, face going slack.
Behind him stands Zhin.
She’s trembling, her eyes wide. Her hands are slick with blood. She drops the sword and steps back, slipping in the pool of red at her feet.
Zhen goes to her. Comforting words tumble from her lips, but there’s nothing comforting to be found in any of this, the before-peaceful room now a pandemonium of clashing magic and battling figures.
“We need to go,” I tell Chenna. “Now.”
“Can you walk?” she asks Blue. She fell on her injured leg; it must be hurting even more than usual.
If it is, she gives barely any sign of it. Instead, her eyes are locked ahead through the flashing clouds of magic to the back of the room. “He came to watch me die,” she whispers.
“Blue, can you walk?” Chenna repeats, louder.
Blue’s attention snaps to her. “Can I walk?” Some of her usual spite has fought its way back. All of a sudden, she’s pitching forward, crawling to the shaman Zhin killed, reaching for the hilt of the sword sticking from his back. “I can do more than walk!” she hisses, hysterical. “What father…? What—what monster…? I’ll kill him! I’ll kill the bastard—”
As Chenna hurries to control her, I leave them, looking for Aoki.
Out of all the girls, she’s the only one who has remained still. Kneeling in the same position she was in earlier, she gazes blankly, tear-streaked and shaking. Her mouth moves, and while I can’t hear anything above the din I make out the words on her lips.
My King. My King.
“Aoki!” I seize her by the shoulders. I drag her up, but she resists, wriggling from me like a fussing child. “Aoki!” I snap. I clasp her wrists. She tries to pull away, rocking to where the King is hidden behind the swirling vortex of leaves and fireflies and blood. “Leave him! We have to go—”
And then Aoki jerks—not out of my grip, but pulled in the opposite direction by another’s.
Commander Razib.
The towering gazelle demon looms from the shadows. He is splattered in blood, his vicious-looking parang sheathed in red. He clutches Aoki with one hand. With the other, he lifts his scythe high—
A girl barrels into him, trailing a streak of braided brown hair.
Chenna.
She’s only half his size, but she’s strong, and he’s not expecting her. Knocked off balance, his weapon sweeps through empty air instead of Aoki’s neck.
I dive forward, grasping its wooden handle. The Commander roars, batting Chenna off—I hear her slam into the marble with a cry—but I’m weighing down his arm, and before he can reassert himself I fling my knee up, catching him in the groin.
He drops the parang with a strangled grunt. I snatch it up and slash out.
The hook tears through the front of his robes, releasing a hot spray of blood as it lodges in his gut. Red oozes in great pulses around the blade.
Commander Razib pitches, staggering to remain standing. I let go of the parang’s handle and grab Aoki. In her daze, she doesn’t try to fight me anymore, and I drag her with me to check on Chenna, who’s already getting to her feet.
Though she looks slightly stunned, she gives me her trademark smile: small, grim, determined. “I’m fine,” she says.
Just as, from behind her, a pair of talons grasp her head—
And twist.
The crack shoots through the room.
There is no blood. No gore. Only an abrupt dimming of light in those astute, tawny eyes, and the off-kilter tilt of Chenna’s lovely head on her broken neck.