The figure I had mistaken for Bandur slumped, whimpering on the ground, blood trickling down her arm. The shadow of a wolf danced along the wall beside her, baring its crooked fangs, a deep chuckle rumbling out of its belly.
My knees buckled. Everything snapped back into focus.
Ammi. I’d just attacked Ammi.
“Gods,” I whispered, crawling toward my friend.
She shrank from me and wouldn’t look me in the eyes.
Now she knew why they burned red.
I lifted Ammi gently and brought her back to her bed. I knelt beside her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
“It…it was an accident. I’m not hurt.”
An accident. A lump rose in my throat, for it had been no such thing, and we both knew it. I was getting worse; Bandur was playing tricks on my mind, and I couldn’t tell what was real and what was not.
Shakily, I rose to my feet. I didn’t trust myself to help her. Didn’t trust myself to sleep in the same chamber as her.
“I’ll ask one of Master Longhai’s servants to help you.”
Before Ammi could protest, I rushed out of the room and closed the door behind me. I pressed my back against the wall, catching my breath.
Rage coiled up inside me, twisting so tightly my lungs squeezed.
When I finally worked up the courage to return to our room, I saw that Ammi had lit a candle while I was gone, as if she were afraid of the dark.
“I’m sorry,” I said to her quietly. “That’s never happened before. It won’t again. I promise.”
My promise sounded hollow, even to me. But thankfully, Ammi didn’t hear me. She’d fallen back asleep.
I crumpled to the ground and reached for the pouch that held my dagger. Ever since I’d given up the dress of the sun, my body had been numb. I hadn’t felt the cold or the heat, pain or hunger. I’d barely slept.
“Jinn,” I whispered.
The meteorite came to life, veins of liquid silver gleaming and glimmering. I didn’t remember such heat emanating from the dagger. My pulse raced as my fingers slid over the blade—
“Agh!” I cried. A jolt of searing pain shot up my hand, and my fingertips leapt off the meteorite as if they’d tried to grab burning coals.
Cradling my wounded fingers, I returned the dagger to my pouch. I pushed the window slightly open, taking in the cool air. Watery moonlight trickled in, dancing across my bare knees. I rocked myself back and forth, squeezing my hand to numb the pain.
It took a long time before the hurt subsided and I could feel my fingers again.
One thing was certain: my time was running short.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sunlight dappled the bamboo window frames, patches of cerulean blue seeping through between the clouds. The storm had finally lifted.
For the first time since I’d attacked her, Ammi arose from her bed. The floorboards creaked under her steps as she tiptoed toward the door. I started to sit up in my bed to call out to her, but she stilled at the sound of my rustling.
I stilled, too. After what felt like a long time, she let out a quiet breath and closed the door behind her. I heard her footsteps rush down the stairs.
Nothing had ever made me feel so wretched. Was she avoiding me?
I dressed to meet her for breakfast. In my mind I rehearsed the three things I needed to tell her. That she’d be safe from me, that I was leaving to find Edan. That I was sorry I’d hurt her.
But when I saw Ammi helping Longhai’s cook knead dough for making steamed buns, I fled before she noticed me.
“Are you not taking breakfast?” Madam Su asked, passing me in the hall.
“I already ate,” I lied. I glanced at the bandages on her tray. “Is someone hurt?”
“Ammi is, didn’t you know?” Worry gathered in the head seamstress’s temples. “She had a bad fall last night. Luckily, it’s just a few scratches.”
Something rose in my chest, strangling my words. “Did she say how she fell?”
“Yes, but I practically had to pry it out of her,” Madam Su said with a laugh. “She said she tripped over a kettle. But, funny, I didn’t leave a kettle in your room.”
My insides churned with guilt. Maybe Ammi would never speak of what happened last night, maybe she would pretend nothing had happened. But in the same way that the old me hadn’t been a good liar, Ammi was not, either.
No wonder she hadn’t been able to look at me last night or talk to me this morning about what had happened.
She was frightened of me. It stung, but I couldn’t blame her.
I was afraid of me, too.
* * *
• • •
“Is everything all right?” Longhai asked me, later that day. “Madam Su mentioned that you looked troubled, though truth be told, you haven’t been yourself since you arrived.”
I concentrated on my embroidery. Today’s project was stitching a mountain landscape for a nobleman’s scarf.
“Look at me, my friend.”
I clung stubbornly to my work. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I got off to a late start this morning. If I don’t continue, I won’t finish this scarf in time—”
“Oh, damn the scarf. It can wait. What’s wrong, Maia?”
Finally, I regarded him. It was the first time he’d used my real name. Did it sound foreign because I’d never heard it coming from his tongue, or because the name was starting to feel less like my own?
Longhai sighed. “Come with me.”
I put down the scarf and followed him back to his personal studio. This time, instead of drinking in the sight of his paintings and his tools, I took in the rosewood desks and chairs cushioned with expensive brocade, the priceless embroidered scrolls hanging on the walls, the hand-painted vases sitting on scarlet-lacquered shelves. In spite of all the finery around me, what caught my eye was the jacket hanging behind Longhai’s desk.
It was a ceremonial military uniform. Bronze tassels dangled from the seams, the intricate swirls and patterns of the brocade inlaid with coral and studded with jade buttons. Embroidered on the left sleeve—was a tiger.
“Did this belong to the shansen?”
“Yes,” he informed me. “To the twenty-third shansen.”
The current shansen, Lord Makangis, was the twenty-seventh. That would mean this jacket was from the Qingmin dynasty. Little craftsmanship had survived the wars during which the last Qingmin emperor was overthrown. “It must be—”
“Priceless?” Longhai said. “Yes, I spent a foolish fortune on it. But it serves as a good reminder to me of what is lost war after war. Art is lost. Art, and our children.”
He lowered his voice. “These are dangerous times, Master Tamarin. There is good reason to believe that Emperor Khanujin’s dynasty is coming to an end and that the shansen will take his throne, but only the gods know what will come to pass.” He leveled his gaze at me. “You are in a precarious position, wanted by both sides. Not many have the ability to help you, and you would not ask for help even if you needed it.”
Edan had observed that about me during the trial.
Well, I did need help. Desperately.
“The storm has passed” was all I could say. “I meant to leave this morning, but…”
“Ah, I heard your friend had a fall.”
My voice came out hoarse. “Yes.”
“You haven’t told her you’re leaving,” Longhai deduced, reading the guilt on my face. “Will you consider staying on?”
After what had happened with Ammi, nothing would change my mind. She couldn’t come with me to Lapzur, or even to the Tura Mountains to find Edan. I couldn’t risk it. “No, I can’t. I must go alone. The soldiers…no one is looking for her.”
Longhai nodded gravely. “She will be safe here. But you…Maia, you can’t expect to g
et very far on foot.”
I pursed my lips. “I could use a horse. I…I can’t promise I’ll return it. And any maps you can spare.”
“I’ll have my swiftest steed ready for you by this evening. You will stay for dinner, won’t you?”
“I must leave as soon as my work for you is done,” I said, shaking my head. “Before dusk. I fear I’ve already stayed too long.”
Longhai’s face darkened at my words, but bless him, he didn’t ask any more questions. “May the Sages protect you, young Tamarin. And may the gods protect us all.”
I echoed his words, but I didn’t have the heart to believe them.
* * *
• • •
Now that the storm was over, the streets outside Longhai’s shop came alive. Carriages scraped along the roads, and I heard Madam Su greeting customers in the front of the store. Not wanting to be seen, I ducked out of the workroom to find Ammi. I’d been trying to muster the courage to speak with her before I left.
I found her in the kitchen, stirring a pot of soup.
“Some soup, Maia? Come, have a bowl before the other seamstresses drink everything up. Longhai’s regular cook has the day off, so it’s just me in the kitchen.”
She was prattling on more than usual, and despite how calm she sounded, I knew she was nervous about being around me. “Ammi, I…I’m sor—”
“You don’t have to lie,” she blurted. “I know it wasn’t you. It was the shadow inside you.”
The shadow inside me. That was one way to put it.
Ammi bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “What’s happening to you, Maia? You didn’t even know me.”
I didn’t even know myself, I thought, but I didn’t say it aloud.
It was time I told her the truth.
I asked, “What do you know of demons?”
She hesitated, setting her spoon back in the pot. “I grew up with stories about demons. Our shaman said they used to roam free in the world, creating mischief and spreading misdeeds before the gods intervened. He said magic was wilder then.”
“I came across a powerful demon during my travels with the Lord Enchanter.” I inhaled. “When I sought the blood of stars, the demon who guarded the Isles of Lapzur marked me and claimed my soul as his own. Edan bargained with him to take my place, but because I made the dresses, the demon no longer wants Edan. Now it is I who must assume guardianship of the isles.”
Ammi drew back. “You’re becoming a demon?”
I wouldn’t lie to her. “Yes. Edan is waiting to go to Lapzur with me.”
I stopped there, waiting for Ammi’s reaction.
“Then we must leave as soon as possible. Tomorrow morning at first light.” She touched my shoulder, still hesitant, but when she faced me, some of the fear in her eyes had gone. “Thank you for telling me, Maia.”
I didn’t have until tomorrow morning. I’d leave tonight, as soon as the sun began to set.
“I’ll help you,” she was saying. “The Lord Enchanter will, too. If magic is what got you into this mess in the first place, then magic can save you.”
She truly believed it.
Edan can’t save you, disagreed the shadow inside me. No one can.
I ignored the voices and nodded to my friend. “I hope so. I hope so.”
I wouldn’t lie to Ammi, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to lie to myself.
* * *
• • •
I was upstairs in our room packing when something knocked at the window. I ignored it.
Another knock. “Strange,” I murmured, going to the window and opening it.
There! I spotted my cloth bird stuck in the latticework. Gently, I eased it through the wooden slats, and it burst inside, circling around me before it landed on the back of my hand, wings still flapping wildly.
“Did you find him?” I asked.
The cloth bird leapt off my hand and fluttered to the window.
“I’m coming. I’m ready.”
My belongings were few. Edan’s flute, my sketchbook, my scissors. My dagger.
There was no time to say goodbye to Ammi, and even if I left her a note, she wouldn’t have been able to read it. So I ripped a page from my sketchbook and folded it into a paper bird like the one I’d sewn to find Edan. At the last minute, I yanked a fiber from my carpet and sewed it into the bird’s wings, then I left the paper bird on my desk.
As I turned to leave, voices outside my window sharpened my ears.
“This is the tailor’s street?”
I glimpsed out the window. A band of men were rounding the corner. At first glance, they did not look so different from any other residents of Nissei, but my tailor’s eyes picked apart their clothes.
The styles were not of this province, and the clothes weren’t those of traders. Traders didn’t cover their belts with coats to hide their weapons, nor did they wear dirt-crusted boots that peeked out from the hems of their robes. Nissei was a clean city, and the streets were paved with stones, not dirt. These men had come from the woods.
The shansen’s spies.
Apprehension bristled in me. These men were clearly looking for Longhai’s shop.
Hurriedly, I threw my carpet into my pouch and went down the back stairs.
As Longhai had promised, a horse waited for me at the back of the shop, saddled and packed with a bag full of food.
The mare reared, frightened by the sight of me. She snorted and kicked when I approached.
“Shhh…,” I said, stroking her mane gently. “Please. It’s Maia. Just Maia.”
I started to hum to her, scratching behind her ears so she’d know I wasn’t dangerous.
That I wasn’t a demon.
Still humming, I pressed my forehead against her neck and waited for her pulse to slow. Once she was calm, I kissed her neck and mounted.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
As we edged onto the street, taking cover under the long shadows from the wall around Longhai’s shop, I heard the shansen’s men at the front door.
“There’s no one by that name here,” Madam Su was informing them. She lifted her head slightly, noticing me creep my way to the front of the shop.
“We know the imperial tailor is here,” one of the soldiers said gruffly, trying to push past the seamstress into the shop. “I warn you to stand aside, woman. I’ve killed for less.”
Madam Su held firm, even when the soldier unsheathed his dagger and held it threateningly at her. But I froze, pulling back on my horse’s reins.
“Looking for me?” I shouted. With a hard kick to my horse’s side, I charged toward the street.
“That’s the tailor!” they yelled, running after me. “Stop!”
Before they could reach their horses, Ammi ran out of the shop brandishing a large iron pan and whacked the back of one soldier’s head, and Madam Su knocked the other to his knees.
I caught my friend’s eyes for an instant. Understanding flooded hers, and she nodded.
I didn’t look back again.
After that, no more of the shansen’s men followed. My cloth bird perched on my shoulder, I raced onward—making for the Tura Mountains on the distant horizon.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
My bird flew quickly, bouncing from gale to gale. With the wind pushing me, I barely noticed Nissei disappear behind me, the mountainous pillars of the Sand Needle Forests and the Changi River blurring until the landscape looked like faded watercolors.
I concentrated on the spread of trees coming into view before me, the forest Edan and I had spent our last days traveling through before we had gone to that cursed place, the Forgotten Isles of Lapzur. How different it looked in the teeth of winter. Just months ago, the trees bore leaves as vibrant as the greenest jade. Now the forest blazed yellow, so bright it hurt my eyes.
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I couldn’t stop to rest yet, and though my legs burned from riding and my throat was dry from lack of water, all I could think of was that Edan was somewhere near, closer to me than he’d been in weeks.
Winding deeper into the forest, I followed my bird into a valley of trees with crisp golden leaves and ashen spines. To the west, the sun began to sink, leeching color from the world around me.
The air grew chillier. I was getting closer to Lapzur. My cloth bird directed us south, but something kept urging me east instead—toward the Forgotten Isles.
Not something. Me.
The demon inside me displaced the voices of the ghosts in my head. Unlike theirs, her voice floated down into my thoughts, soft and alluring.
Why bother seeing the enchanter? she asked. Your reunion will only pain you when you have to leave again. Best to go to Lapzur now. You’re so close. Once you become the guardian of Lapzur, you can call for the enchanter—you can be together again.
When I ignored her, she took another approach. Bandur is weak, she said seductively. The words slipped into my mind, like silk too smooth not to touch. You have the dresses of Amana. You will be stronger than him.
Think on it, Maia.
I drew a shaky breath, hearing the demon use my real name, and I tried to forget what she had said. But her poison brushed against my ears, gentle as a kiss. The possibility her words promised haunted me, lingering in my thoughts long after she went silent, which made her far more dangerous than the ghosts or Bandur. It was becoming harder to distinguish her thoughts from mine, to navigate the difference between what I wanted and what she wanted.
While my thoughts drifted, my cloth bird disappeared into a canopy of leaves, and my horse let out a tired grunt. I dismounted to let her rest, then whistled for my bird.
Strange, where had it gone?
I started to whistle again, when an arrow ripped past my sleeve, and my horse panicked and bolted away.
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