“Hello, Lei,” says Kenzo gruffly, one corner of his muzzled mouth lifting.
I throw myself at him, the wolf demon’s strong furred arms closing around me as I bury my face in his neck. The reassuring scent of him envelops me—woodsmoke and jade-green fields—and for a moment I’m so buoyed by relief I could laugh. Then I notice how different his body feels. The poke of jutting bones against my flesh; a mangy patch of fur above the collar of his robes where my cheek is pressed. Even the way Kenzo is holding himself is stiff and careful.
I draw back, taking him in with glassy eyes. “Oh, Kenzo…”
He shakes his head. Despite his diminished form, his burnished bronze eyes haven’t changed, and he gives me a fierce look. “No sympathy. Please. I am alive, and we are almost free. That’s what’s important.”
“Excuse me.” Zhen’s voice breaks our focus. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m aware we’re a little pressed for time…”
Blue snorts at the understatement.
Kenzo sweeps a look over the girls. I can tell he notes Chenna’s absence—while he didn’t know her personally, he spent enough time as the King’s personal guard to know who she was. Though his brow furrows, he doesn’t remark upon it, for which I’m grateful.
I can’t bear to say the words out loud yet.
“So?” I ask. “What’s the plan? I’m guessing we’ll be getting out the way I was meant to leave by last time?”
That earns me curious glances from the girls.
Kenzo nods. “Our allied shamans have been keeping hold of a part of the perimeter wall nearby,” he explains for their benefit. “Ruza broke free to help bring us safely there.”
Zhin looks panicked. “Then what? We can’t just walk out, they’ll find us, we won’t get away, we can’t. Oh, gods, we’re going to die like Chenna—”
Zhen shushes her sister.
“We’ve planned a diversion,” Kenzo says. “It should keep the King’s soldiers distracted while we hide in the forest to let them pass. Kiroku is going to head back to the King now to tip the court off. They should take the bait.”
Blue scoffs. “They should? What if they don’t?”
“Do you have a better idea?” I snap.
“Give us more magic.”
“You don’t understand the cost of it, Blue,” I say.
She glares at me. “Perhaps I would,” she replies coolly, “if you’d bothered to let us in on any of this before we were being dragged to our deaths—”
A loud bang from outside makes all of us freeze.
There’s the pad of running footsteps. Laughter. Another door slamming.
Kiroku thrusts her head through the curtains. “We should get going,” she says. “News is guards have begun to search all the courts.”
Kenzo hands me a pack of supplies, shouldering one himself. As we file out of the tea house, Kiroku stops me in the doorway. “I almost forgot.” She presses something into my hands. “I believe this is yours.”
The weight is instantly familiar—my dagger.
“I stole it from Naja’s chambers,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say, and as we step back out into the dark night, I stow it within my robes, already feeling bolder. My knife has gotten me out of difficult situations before. Let’s hope it can help me with one more.
“Oh, my gods,” Zhen says when we enter Temple Court.
Knowing what to expect, I’d fortified myself for the sight of the imprisoned shamans. Now I wish I’d thought to warn the others. But how to prepare anyone for something like this? How to explain the sight of hundreds of shackled persons packed so tightly they have no room to move? The chains and collars at their necks, worse than anything a farmer would subject his cattle to? The reek of bodily fluids and dirt? The cowed posture of the shamans, their starved, hollow cheeks?
Blue’s face twists with revulsion as we cross the crowded floor. “What is this?” she hisses. “This is the home of the royal shamans?”
“This is the cost of magic,” I say, gaining no satisfaction from it.
The rhythmic chanting and the crackle of the shamans’ daos thrums in our ears. It’s like moving through a monsoon storm, the air a physical thing with body and bite. Its golden sheen would be beautiful were the source of its creation not so terrible.
“Where’s the passage?” Zhin asks, panicked, when we stop by the far wall, its enchanted stone no different looking than the rest of Temple Court. “There isn’t one! We’re going to be trapped here, aren’t we!”
Zhen rubs her shoulders, trying to calm her. Ruza, who’s closest to the wall, reaches to touch it.
His hand passes straight through.
The twins gasp. Blue swears. My own stomach lurches. Even after all the incredible feats of magic I’ve seen, this is something else. These are the palace walls. The great protectors of the Hidden Palace that have stood for almost two hundred years—breached now by a young shaman’s hand.
Ruza withdraws his arm, and the twins gasp again, as if not quite believing it would reappear. “It doesn’t hurt.”
Kenzo lines us up in front of the concealed opening. “We’ll leave one by one,” he says. “As soon as you’re out, take cover in the trees. Don’t go any farther. Wait for me.”
“Are you coming with us?” I ask Ruza.
He shakes my head. “I need to retake my place. Otherwise they’ll know something’s off.”
“You can’t be serious,” Blue says, disgusted. She scans the rows of enslaved shamans. “You—you can’t—”
“I have to, and I will.” Ruza looks each of us in the eye, that determined smile on his lips. “Take care, Paper Girls. I hope to see you all again soon.”
He holds my gaze a little longer. Then he steps back, and Kenzo ushers me toward the wall that has held me prisoner for so long.
I hold my breath as I step through.
There is no pain—but there is a riot of sensation. Tingling and strumming and pulsing in my ears and an electric crawl that makes my tongue curl in my mouth. I stumble on, blinded by the enchantments, like a million light spots from staring at the sun.
Then, as abruptly as it started, it’s all gone.
I’m out.
Outside the palace.
I have no time to revel in it. Disorientated by the sudden darkness, I lurch to a nearby bamboo tree and press against it. The strange hum of Temple Court has been replaced by thin night sounds: animals scurrying in the forest; the distant pound and shout of guards; wind rustling leaves. Then there’s a sharp inhale as Blue appears, materializing like a ghost from the solid-looking wall.
She darts to join me. She looks around, chest heaving, scattered firelight from the braziers atop the high balustrade reflecting in her ink-dark eyes and flashing off her azure hair.
“Gods,” she says.
“I know,” I whisper.
Zhin is next, quickly followed by Zhen, who has to drag her sister with her to the cover of the trees, a hand over her mouth. Then Aoki, and finally Kenzo.
I watch the wall, as if Chenna might slip from it, too, her serious eyes blazing and her mouth a tight, resolute line.