Breaking through the fugue of her shock, she snatched the butterknife, which lay at her feet, where Donnaron J. Tarley had knocked it from her hands seconds before he’d died. The footsteps were approaching. It was too late to hide the body—she had to—she had to—
Her eyes landed on the scarlet loveseat several paces away. Lan dove for the corpse, dragging it like a sack of rice and stuffing limbs, head, and floppy appendages beneath with zero decorum. She gave an outstretched arm a good kick and straightened.
By the time the wooden doors slid open, she was ready.
“Unless you intend to surprise me with pastries, you can put down that butterknife.”
She froze. She recognized that voice—rich and dark, with all the makings of a smoky night sky.
The Hin official from earlier in the night stepped inside with two neat clacks of his patent leather boots, and slid the doors shut again. She immediately noticed that one of his black gloves was off. She’d expected the skin on his hands to be smooth as polished wood, a sure sign of aristocratic upbringing—only it was marked by dozens of pale, crisscrossing lines that puckered on the flesh.
“Well? Don’t just stand there. Where is he?” In the silence of the room, his voice held absolute command. It was beautiful—imperial, almost.
It took her another moment to realize: he was now speaking to her inHin:perfect, Imperial Court standard Hin, spoken by her mother and her tutors, without any influence of the myriad dialects found across the vast kingdom.
It was the norm now for Hin to converse with each otherin Elantian in public; those who dared, and still cared, could try to speak Hin in the privacy of nooks and crannies and behind closed doors. The Elantians had enforced this as law “to promote greater unity in the Great Elantian Empire,” but Lan knew better. They were trying to eliminate the Hin tongue completely, to prevent uprisings and secret political movements—because, well, how did you destroy a people? You began by cutting off their roots.
But…what was an official of the Elantian government doing speaking to her inHin?
Lan licked her lips. That didn’t matter—neither the man’s language nor his voice. Theonlything she should be thinking about pertaining to either was how to stick this butterknife through those husky vocal cords.
The young man strode across the room. Lan watched with increasing despondency as he rounded the back of the loveseat and crouched to examine the corpse, stuffed hastily like a doll, arms and legs all twisted, head crooked against the floor and eyes still open.
The boy turned to her, and his brows were stitched together in a way that did not mean good news. “What have you done?” His voice was low. “Who are you?”
They stared at each other, the words stretching out between them.
Whathadshe done?
Lan opened her mouth.
It was at this unfortunate moment that her stomach decided to give way.
Lan turned and vomited right onto the carefully polished lacquerwood screens.Madam Meng’s going to kill mewas her first thought when she straightened, followed by:Four Gods. I’m losing it.
“Have some water,” she heard the Hin courtdog say. Therewas the sound of porcelain clinking, of liquid being poured. “You’re in shock. It’s all right.”
A cup was offered to her; without thinking, she took it and drained it to wash out the putrid taste in her mouth. When she lowered it, the edge of the cup where her lips had been were stained copper.
Blood.
The Hin official had taken a step back and now surveyed her with a look of such intensity, it burned. “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.
Looking down at the porcelain teacup between her fingers and the butterknife in her other hand, Lan finally gathered the dregs of her thoughts.
One: she had just—somehow—killed a high-ranking Elantian White Angel.
Two: she was being interrogated by a Hin courtdog.
You need to run,she told herself.Now.
Lan studied the teacup in her hands, the white glaze and blue patterns of prancing rabbits amidst willow trees. Her gaze trailed up, all the way to the tray on the table, where the teapot sat, filled with tea gone cold. She remembered how heavy she’d found it when she’d first arrived at the Teahouse, a slip of a girl barely past her eighth cycle. Madam Meng had beaten them whenever their hands shook as they poured tea. It was because of this teapot that Lan had made herself strong so that she would never be hit again.
She knew what she had to do.
Lan looked up. The Hin boy had moved closer to the windows, peering through the glass. In the lowlight of the alchemical lantern, the streets were in full view. He glanced down, and then back up at her. Face open, waiting.
Lan slipped the butterknife into a seam at her waist—one she’d used to pocket nuts and dried jujubes, the occasionalsesame candy. She pitched her voice high, breathless as she began to move toward the tea table. “I…I’m trying to recall.” She needed to paint a pretty picture of compliance, of submission, that might be expected of a Hin girl. “He was…well, we were…near the wall, I suppose…” Lan held the cup he’d offered her with one hand. With the other, reached for the teapot as though to pour herself a cup of tea. “And he—he…”
