“Too much to drink,” I lied, forcing a hearty laugh. “I need to get him home. Master Longhai will be so worried. Could you stop by his shop?”
The boy frowned. “I’m not going into the city….” Then his eyebrows rose at the thought of a reward from the wealthy tailor. “But I suppose I could make a detour.”
I was already loading Ammi onto the wagon.
I pretended to sleep so the driver wouldn’t ask me any more questions, but I stole glances at the city when he wasn’t looking. Cobblestone streets, washed clean by the rain, with curly green moss growing between the stones, brick houses with wooden balconies decked with strings of lanterns, a serpentine canal whose stench offended my nostrils.
Imperial scrolls hung on every street, but we moved too fast for me to read them. I tensed, hoping they weren’t posters seeking my whereabouts. Or Edan’s.
Finally, we arrived in front of Longhai’s shop. A board hanging on the door announced that he was not open for business this week.
Please,I pleaded, pounding on his door.Please, Longhai, please be here.
Someone answered. A woman with a long face, wearing a tightly pulled bun and a measuring string coiled around her neck.
She gave me a hard look. What a sight I must have been—rain-washed, sleep-deprived, and dressed in tattered clothing.
“We don’t answer to beggars.”
“I’m not a— Wait!” I grabbed the side of the door before it closed in my face.
The seamstress glowered at me. I couldn’t risk saying I was one of the tailors from the trial.
“It’s urgent.” I gestured at Ammi, still in the wagon. “My friend needs medical attention.”
The door began to close on me. “The hospital is on Paiting Road.”
“Please!” I burst out desperately. “It’s—”
“Madam Su, what is this din?” a familiar voice interrupted. “I am trying to work.”
“Master Longhai!” I shouted. “It’s me!”
Longhai’s portly form appeared in the hallway. “Master Tamarin,” he said, stunned, pulling me inside. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m with a friend. She…she’s ill, and I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Say no more.” He ushered me into the hall, waving a thick hand at the seamstress. “Madam Su, pay the driver and bring the girl inside.”
Outside, the rain was starting up again.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again for a long time, Tamarin. You are welcome here. I’ll see to it that your friend has proper care.”
I nodded my thanks.
“Now we’ll get you some clean clothes—and lunch! I remember you always forgot to eat. We’ll have to fatten you up while you’re here.”
Madam Su and her assistants returned into the shophouse with Ammi, and motioned for me to follow them.
“She has a fever,” I said, intercepting Madam Su. “Please take good care of her.”
The old woman’s stern face finally softened. “I’ve had four daughters who’ve been through worse. As long as we get her dried and warm, she will recover.”
After I washed and changed, Master Longhai gave me a tour of his shop. There were workrooms for cutting, embroidering, and tailoring, and a room for storing fabrics and threads, as well as the garments Longhai’s staff had prepared for his clients: brocade skirts, sashes embroidered with golden carp, and robe after robe of richly dyed silk, tunics trimmed with gold-inlaid designs so fine they shimmered.
Longhai was a master at painting silk, so he had a studio for himself with a dazzling array of paint pots and inkstones. Hand-painted fans rested on a pine table opposite his workspace. A scroll with the seal from the previous emperor, Khanujin’s father, hung on the wall, commending Longhai for the mastery of his craft.
Seeing all this, I felt a heaviness in my heart. Only a few months ago, all I’d ever dreamed of was becoming an imperial tailor, of one day having my own shop and my own family.
