She sets the kettle down. “Not anymore.”
My eyes flit over her. Under her drab hanfu, Madam Himura looks shrunken, her dark feathers flat and dull against her body instead of glossy with their usual oil and perfumes, and her movements are rigid, not quite as quick as before.
I’ve seen too many women who’ve had their spirit broken not to recognize it now. Still, whatever the King had done to Madam Himura, he was careful not to leave to any visible signs of abuse. Did shamans work on her body the way they did mine after my nights with him? Did they lay their magic on her skin to lift her bruises without allowing their enchantments to penetrate further, so the pain would live on, an invisible reminder to never again cross him?
My pity is short-lived. Madam Himura never showed any of us kindness when we were hurting. She tossed Mariko out as if she were garbage. She was the one who asked the shamans to leave me in my suffering when I’d been battered by the King.
Questions pour out of me in a rush. “Where’s Mistress Eira? Are the other girls safe? Where’s Kenzo? Lill? Why am I here?”
I don’t say what I actually mean: why am I alive?
Madam Himura glares. “I am not here to answer your questions, Lei-zhi—even if you had the patience to ask them in the manner in which I trained you.”
“Why are you here, then?” I say with a scowl.
She answers as though it’s obvious. “What I have always been here for. To prepare you. You have an important dinner to attend tonight, and you must look your best for the King.”
I laugh, the sound harsh. “You’re joking.” When Madam Himura doesn’t say anything, I push to my knees, shaking the table so forcefully in the process that my cup tips, tea spilling across the lacquered wood. Madam Himura looks at the mess disapprovingly, but I don’t tear my eyes from her. “You’re disgusting,” I spit. “All of you.”
She clucks her tongue. “Calm yourself, Lei-zhi.”
“Oh, my apologies for not being dead inside.” My hands are trembling, a high-pitched ringing in my ears. “That’s what you were always trying to beat out of us, wasn’t it?” I press on bitterly. “Life. Passion. Any semblance of humanity. Paper—that’s what you wanted us to be. Good little cut-out girls with nothing but reams of blank pages in place of hearts.”
For the briefest moment, an almost hurt expression crosses the eagle-woman’s features. Then she gets to her feet, her face once more a cold shell. “The King has called for you, Lei-zhi. You know what that means. Either you can let me prepare you, or we can drug you again and do it while you are unconscious. I shall let you decide.”
“Fine,” I reply icily. “I’ll play along for now. But don’t expect it to last.”
I know what the King has in store for me. A demon like him would never let someone humiliate him and go unpunished. It’s only a matter of time before an animal bores of playing with its food before devouring it.
Unfortunately for the King, the same goes for human girls.
The two of us have been toying with each other long enough. The last time I saw the King, I drove a knife into his throat. This time I know better.
This time, I’ll aim for his heart.
FOUR
LEI
FOUR HOURS, TWO SHAMANS, SIX MAIDS, and three ruined sets of robes later—I wasn’t going to make it easy for them, was I?—and I am new again. All signs of my interrogations have been enchanted away or are hidden beneath the gossamer-thin layers of my black and gold hanfu.
The King’s colors. No doubt this is his way of reclaiming me, of reminding both me and any who doubt it that I have, and always will, belong to him.
Or so he likes to believe.
At least the court are smart enough to know better than to expect my insides to have been so easily cleansed as my skin. They prepare an escort of no fewer than eighteen guards to accompany me to the banquet hall. Metal clinks as they march me down the hallways of the King’s fortress, weapons clasped in claws and talons and furred hands. I play the obedient prisoner, though when we pass other demons—shocked maids who grab their robes and press their backs to the walls, or court advisers who regard me openly with fear or disgust, or both—I can’t resist flashing them a grin. I even wave at a particularly nervous-looking councilor, who leaps back with a cry as though I sent a cursed dao his way.
I take stock of my whereabouts, committing every stairway and courtyard to memory. The more we walk, the more I remember. There: a curtained portico hiding a peaceful garden room filled with plants and bubbling fountains that I once took tea in with the other Paper Girls. Here: a long hallway we were led down on the evening of the Unveiling Ceremony.
We stop at a grand archway. Beyond is a high-ceilinged room, already filled with people, chatter spilling out. A red velvet carpet stretches beneath our feet, like the tongue of a beast laid open for its prey. As one of my guards talks to the servants welcoming guests, I suddenly recognize where we are; I’ve been here once before as a Paper Girl. Most of what I remember about that night involves Wren looking particularly striking in a deep plum-colored hanfu embroidered with winding bronze threads, the robes drawn apart at the chest to show off her glitter-dusted cleavage. I spent the whole night trying to sneak glances at her without being obvious.
I was probably very obvious.
Tears sting my eyes. Because tonight, there will be no Wren. There will be no raven-haired, hip-swaying, cat-eyed girl in gorgeous robes waiting beyond the archway for me to try, and fail spectacularly, to ignore.
Over the past few weeks, locked up with nothing but my dark imaginings for company, I dreamed a million scenarios as to where my cat-eyed girl might be. The last time I saw her, she’d been a tiny figure on blood-soaked sands, blades whirling as hordes of demon soldiers closed in. On good days, I’d envision those blades striking them down until not a single soldier is left. On bad days, I’d conjure up too many demons, a never-ending sea of fangs and spiked horns, until Wren would be swallowed by them, cut down or beaten, or simply drowned in their ceaseless wave.
On the worst days, she’d survive the onslaught but be too injured to make her way from the sands. She’d lie there—would still be lying there right now—the only living person in a sea of bodies, staring at the sky and wondering why I left her when I promised she’d never have to face the world alone again.
Outside the banquet hall, I steel myself. “She’s alive,” I whisper. “You have to be alive, Wren.”
The guard at the head of my group comes over. He’s a gazelle demon so tall he has to bend in half to grab my right hand. He shoves a bracelet onto my wrist, a heavy gold bangle. Though it’s unadorned, a faint shiver of magic lets me know it’s been enchanted.