‘What did she say to you?’ The princess took her hand and pulled her across the hall. ‘What happened?’

  ‘…Her Majesty offered to reassign me to the First Prince. She also offered… to have me marry into the harem as a noble consort.’

  A pause. She heard the other’s breath catch, deep in that shivering throat. ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I declined. On both offers.’ Walking out the hall, she quickly turned to survey the area — everything seemed clear.

  ‘That’s good,’ Xi Qian’e said. A grin spread across the other’s face, like the wings of a swallow to take flight. ‘That’s very, very good.’

  She smiled.

  The Sixth Prince was still waiting for them, two men in soldier’s armour standing beside him. They carried no weapons on them.

  Xi Qian’e caught her worried gnce. ‘Guards from my father. He was afraid that my brother would be assassinated… his guard is dead, after all.’

  ‘I see.’ They walked over to the waiting carriage and got in. The princess stopped her brother outside — Three quickly changed out of her red robes and into the waiting bck set, tying her hair into a tight bun. Then, she pried up part of the floor and flipped underneath, clinging to the carriage’s belly like a spider.

  Then, the princess and her brother got on.

  The coachman cracked the reins of the horse. With a gentle hum, the wheels began to roll, the tips of her sash trailing on the cobbled floor.

  She silently pulled herself up before she became a smashed peach on the road.

  The carriage went on for a bit. When they turned around the corner into an alley, she gave three quick raps on the wood and dropped down, quickly rolling out before the wheels could crush one of her very precious kidneys.

  Then, she scaled up a wall and slid into the shadows under a roof.

  She crawled across the roofs and trees, under bridges and along the dirt. The qi in her body burned as she hid away her breaths, pulling her tired body along. Sunlight, dappled like spotlights, trailed across her skin.

  Then, she came to the imperial noble consort’s pace.

  It was a massive thing.

  The buildings were all sprawled around a huge courtyard, with trees and flowers growing on boulders shaped like mountains and kes of combed pebbles. The pce was rge enough to house hundreds; honestly, how many servants did one need? For a family of two? After all, the emperor wasn’t much of a mother.

  Then, she found the Fifth Prince’s residence and quietly slipped in.

  She must’ve found a study or office. There was a small desk, with a half-burned candle sitting on top. A paper folding screen y between the desk and the door, an elegant wooden dispy shelf pushed up against the wall.

  Quiet.

  The imperial noble consort didn’t appear to be inside his son’s halls. Even the servants had vanished — the bustle that belonged to the homes of the wealthy and those favoured by the child of heaven was nowhere to be found.

  …Something was wrong.

  That thought spurred her into the shadows of the roof beams, hiding. Every crackle of a warming stove, every whisper of the wind, drove a tingling onto her skin.

  But then there was a faint darkness on the paper screen.

  A man walked out and into the study. The green robes and head of long, curly locks told her:

  The Fifth Prince.

  Her muscles tensed.

  Of the first seven shadow guards, four were trained to kill, with only three of them specialising in assassination.

  The primary difference?

  One and Six worked to the advantages of their strength, while Three worked with her agility and quick thinking.

  And she knew their methods of killing very, very well.

  In her hands y a rope, tied into a noose.

  Soon the Fifth Prince would swing —

  And he would join Four on the dusty, wooden beams.

  Her hands tensed. She leaned forward, ready to pounce, her eyes on the prince’s pale neck.

  But then footsteps echoed outside the door. Four pairs of feet.

  She froze.

  The prince pushed aside the folding screen and knelt down. ‘This humble son greets the Imperial Mother,’ he said. Then, he nodded to the empress and his father, ‘Imperial Father… Noble Uncle.’

  What impeccable timing.

  The irritation was first to hit her — but then it sank away as she realised this prince before would, since his birth and until his death, be forced to call his father an uncle for as long as he remained a concubine’s son.

  At least her princess, her Xi Qian’e, could call her mother, ‘Mother’, and father, ‘Father’.

  It was the thought of the cold woman that brought her mind back to the task, and its astonishingly unlucky — or perhaps very lucky — Fifth Prince.

  In addition to the three who’d just arrived, Eight had come as well, trailing behind the others. He lifted his head and sniffed at the air, nose twitching under his beige-brown bangs. Then, he turned to the emperor and said, ‘Your Majesty, another guard is here.’

  She cursed. What was he, a dog?!

  The emperor looked up and said, ‘Reveal yourself.’

  Her stomach dropped, panic setting in.

  The princess’s pn had become a beached whale; with no choice, she swallowed and jumped down from the beams, nding onto the hard floors.

  ‘You,’ the empress hissed. ‘What do you think you’re doing here?’

  She ignored the man and looked up at the emperor. ‘Greetings, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Well, you were in quite the hurry,’ said the woman. ‘About to kill my son, were you?’

  She tensed, eyeing the other two men — the empress’s face hardened into a veiled snarl, while the imperial noble consort had strange fshes flitting across his. Indeed, that pn was very, thoroughly dead. ‘Yes.’

  ‘On whose orders?’

  The chain of the imperial command tightened around her neck. Her mind ran, spinning in circles, her tongue frozen.

  She had to answer. But saying her master’s name would spell death for them both — the two men’s eyes, standing beside the emperor, said it all — but she couldn’t lie.

  Her jaw unlocked and opened. Took a breath. Sharp gazes burned on the skin of her neck. ‘The Second Prince,’ she said. ‘I’m here on the Second Prince’s orders.’

  Even if it was her princess who’d told her to act today, it was undeniable that they’d come to this point because of the prince. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that he commanded the princess, who in turn commanded Three.

  She wasn’t lying.

  She was still following orders.

  The muscles in her stomach gently unfurled. The tension in her neck lessened as she said, ‘He coerced my master into following his orders, who had me come today to assassinate the Fifth Prince.’

  A ctter — she didn’t dare turn around, but the stumble of boots and silk robes told her enough.

  ‘Very good,’ the Fifth Prince sneered. He got up and came to stand by the imperial noble consort’s side, a smiling grimace on his face as his father pced a hand on his shoulder. ‘Five! Five, come here!’

  At his call, the other female guard came into the room. Upon entering, the bony woman gave the emperor a kneeling greeting of ‘Your Majesty.’ Once let up with a nod, she moved to the prince’s side. ‘Yes, Your Highness?’

  And hurt sprinkled across Three’s chest.

  Just like One, just like Seven, it was now Five’s turn to be crippled by loss. Something in the woman had vanished, stolen away with Six’s death. It wasn’t her flesh or health, nor was it her smile or warmth, for the woman was seemingly born from the icy gciers of the north.

  Three desperately searched the other’s face. Searched in the fine lines of the other’s brows; in the pale curve of her lips; in the tendons of her neck; in the map of burn scars that yered across poisoned skin.

  It was as though the woman was gss, a statue that Three could see straight through. That heart, deep inside of the other, she knew with a horrible, terrible intimacy, had died, shrivelled into a husk and crumbled into dust.

  Fear grasped at Three’s chest. As though seeing the death of its sister, her own heart was whipped into a thudding gallop.

  Five, what have we done to each other?

  That fleeing heart strangled her air. Or was it the choking colr of a command? Her breaths came faster, but the air couldn’t seem to enter her lungs, the sounds of her suffocation billowing into the air under the emperor’s amused gaze, the empress’s vicious smile, the imperial consort’s curious eyes, the Fifth Prince’s impatience, Eight’s indifference and Five’s cold, painfully chilling apathy.

  If she died today, by Five’s hand, could this withered sister of hers grow a new heart?

  Could her life compensate for Six’s warmth?

  One day, could she and her siblings all walk down death’s road, holding hands as one?

  Her head tilted down, her hair coming from its bun.

  ‘You know what to do,’ the prince sneered. ‘Get on with it, Five.’