It takes us fifteen terrifying minutes to make it to the servants’ entrance, hiding in rooms and side corridors each time we hear approaching demons. I keep tight hold of Aoki; I don’t trust the way she’s still mouthing those two words, My King. It feels as if any moment her whispering could turn to a scream that will give us all away. When we finally reach the narrow door, I inch it open.
Cool air hits my face. Outside, it is dark, the sky a lid of clouds. This part of Royal Court is deserted, but the night air is full of clanging bells and running demons. I’m about to usher the girls out when a scaled hand grasps the doorframe.
“Lei. You took your time.”
Kiroku, Naja’s maid—and our ally.
The other girls tense, not knowing who the reptile demon is. Blue even thrusts up her knife, barging toward the doorway, Zhen right behind her. I hold them back, explaining quickly, “She’s a friend. How did you know we’d be here?” I ask Kiroku.
“Mistress Azami had a feeling you’d come this way given your knowledge of the building. But we posted spies at every possible exit in case.” Her reptilian eyes narrow. “There are only five of you. Where’s the other girl?”
Chenna’s name sticks in my throat. “We’re it.”
Kiroku doesn’t press me. She holds out a bundle of black cloaks. “You’re going to pretend to be shamans. I’m accompanying you to the main gate on Naja’s orders.”
We drag the robes over our heads. I have to put Aoki’s on for her. “I know this is hard,” I whisper, tucking her auburn hair behind her ear, “but I need you to stay close. Can you do that?”
When she doesn’t answer, Blue steps in and takes her arm. “I’ve got her.”
I nod gratefully.
“Make sure the hoods don’t slip,” Kiroku reminds us, before leading us out, as if we need reminding of the deadly cost if our disguises should fail.
TWENTY-FIVE
LEI
PANIC THRUMS UNDER MY SKIN AS we make our way south through the palace using the servant passageways between the walls of the courts. When we cross guards or maids, I tense, bracing to be called out or at the very least challenged. But Kiroku plays her role with ease, sniping when one of us starts lagging, all the while prowling down the center of the walled path with little regard for anyone else, forcing them to scatter as if we are the ones in power here.
As royal shamans, that’s exactly what we are. It’s the perfect disguise.
My heart squeezes at the thought of Mistress Azami planning this. She clearly knew what the King had in store for us tonight—and that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I lost the girls. She died for them. For me. Because if I’d escaped the palace as she’d arranged weeks ago, I wouldn’t be here now, and the girls might not have been ordered to be executed, and Mistress Azami might not have had to reveal herself as a traitor to the court. Like so many others, her death is on my hands.
Wren told me once how no one prepares you for what taking a life costs. She was talking about murder, but there are more ways to be responsible for someone’s death than plunging the blade with your own hand. I wonder if there’s a way to ever get those pieces back, or if you keep existing without them, a house with so many cracks the wind whistles through you at night, lets in the cold so your bones are always chilled, your heart never quite as warm as it once was.
After forty minutes, Kiroku leads us out through an archway into the southernmost part of Women’s Court. “It’ll be quieter here,” she says. “We can move quicker.”
“Mistress Azami told us in front of Commander Razib to go to Kenzo,” I say. “Are you sure they don’t know…”
“I doubt it. Our spies have been feeding rumors of him hiding somewhere in the Demon Ridge Mountains. They won’t think to look for you here—at least, not just yet. The whole palace will be searched eventually.”
We dash along the midnight grounds, sticking to the pathways between the raised platforms with their covered walkways and interlocking houses. At the sight of the gates of the Night Houses, the lizard-girl holds up a hand.
A shaman peels out from under the boughs of a nearby saga tree; a real shaman, unlike us, tattoos knitting his dark skin.
“Ruza!” I exclaim. It’s the young boy who helped me in Temple Court.
“The small bird flies,” he recites, ignoring my greeting.
“On the wings of the golden-eyed girl,” Kiroku finishes.
Ruza nods. His pale eyes sweep over us. He looks even more tired than when I last saw him, and though he’s free of the collar at his throat, the skin there is blood-crusted and bruised. Still, the first thing he asks is, “Any wounds need looking at?”
I reach for Blue. “My friend fell on her leg—”
She swats me away. “My leg is perfectly fine. Why don’t you ask him to fix that horrible face of yours, Nine? It’d do us all a favor.”
Zhen lets out a wry bark. It dissipates some of the tension.
“We shouldn’t be long,” Ruza says, eyeing the guards lining the Night House grounds. “Word is traveling fast of Lei and the girls’ flight. We can’t risk losing their escape route.”
He gathers us close, then shuts his eyes and holds out his hands. Golden characters spin from them, swirling around us with a warm hum.
The young shaman sags when he finishes, looking winded. “A protective charm,” he says. “It’ll keep us hidden. Come on. Stay close.”
None of the guards turn our way as we pass through the gates. Immediately, the musk-sweet fragrance of jasmine and frangipani hits my nose. I’ve only been to the Night Houses in daytime, and the grounds are even more beautiful at night, lanterns illuminating the winding pathway through the gardens. Fireflies—unentrapped by magic—flit through the balmy air. There are couples in the pavilions half hidden within the trees, and sounds of pleasure drift out, while music and laughter float on the breeze from the cluster of buildings in the distance.
Once, these sensual sounds both embarrassed and stirred me. Tonight, all I think is how wrong it is, people having fun when hardly any time at all ago I was in a nightmare room watching two of my friends die.
The bodies of my two friends are still in that room, along with how many others of our allies.
Chenna. Mistress Azami.
Chenna.
When we reach the main clearing, we skirt the buildings and their bubbling chatter and noise. Though it pains me that Lill is so close by, I know it’d be too dangerous for me to try and see her. Ruza brings us to a small pavilion set back from the rest. Peacock-green sashes cover the entranceway. Instead of the banners adorning the other buildings, which are marked with the character ye, denoting them as the home of the palace courtesans, this structure’s calligraphy marks it as a tea house.
“We’ll keep watch,” Ruza says, lifting his protective magic with a relieved exhale before he and Kiroku usher us inside.
I barely make it through the entrance before I stop, reeling.