Now that a hawthorn was plugging the princess’s lips, a beautiful silence stole over them. Strolling down the honeyed streets with a gambolling, reckless gait, Three finished off the haws and lobbed the stick into a vat.

  ‘…Hey. Three.’

  She turned around.

  The princess had a most mystifying confusion on her lips. The expression, a twitchingly soft one, sat perched on her face, a swallow set to flee. Nor did she know what to do with her hands; the candied haws still stood upright in her hands, only a small, tentative bite at the top. ‘How… old are you?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Three whipped back around, turning to face the street. Oh, candied peaches. DRIED PERSIMMON! ‘But the head shadow said —’

  ‘Your Highness?!’

  They whipped around.

  From another stall was Eunuch Meng. He had the gait of the rootless: short steps with a forward lean, his toes always pointing outwards. His flesh had long been fccid, his face hairless, the faint sour reek of urine hanging around his body like flies.

  ‘Your Highness,’ the eunuch began, ‘surely you are aware that none may leave the Imperial City without documentation?’

  The princess didn’t say anything.

  ‘Why don’t you join me? Your Highness.’ The man gestured to the alleyway. ‘I don’t bite.’

  A growled huff. Then, a hand pushed on Three’s back. ‘Go with him,’ the princess said. ‘Don’t make a scene.’

  The eunuch let them go in first, then followed behind. Three’s ears strained to pick up the shuffling of his feet on the cobbled path, her eyes trailing on the drooping eaves and bricked walls.

  The alleyway was a quiet one. The stones underfoot cked the fine grooves their worn street cousins had; instead, brown water stains crawled up from the ground along mottled walls. The few doors there were den with rats picking at night-soil pots, flies buzzing in the stench of faeces. In the shadows of a rickety butcher’s shed was one such vat, the rim higher than a person was tall, its girth so great three men would be needed to wrap their arms around it.

  The eunuch shuffled to a stop.

  She turned around to face him.

  ‘Leaving the Imperial City without permission,’ the man began, ‘is a punishment meriting a hundred blows from a paddle; disgrace; and a home arrest period of up to a year.’

  Oof.

  ‘…Eunuch Meng. You, too, are here.’ The princess’s eyes narrowed at him.

  The man smiled. The curve on his lips was a gentle one. ‘But I have documentation. You don’t, Your Highness. I would know.’

  The princess’s voice grew deeper. The fury of it boiled; it brushed over Three’s ears, bring a tingling dread through the scars that crawled up her neck to her cheeks. ‘And what, Head Eunuch, do you mean by that?’

  The man gently spun in a circle. ‘Well, what do you want?’

  The cracking of gritted teeth scraped her chipped ears. ‘Head Eunuch Meng, I do implore you to keep quiet about this matter. In my eyes, your silence would be a duty well worth a reward.’

  ‘Oh, Your Highness.’ The eunuch’s gentle smile thinned into a straight, ft line. ‘Did you know? I met your mother a few times, before she died.’

  A hitched breath. It clogged in Three’s throat as she stared up at the death-still princess, fists clenching. A tongue ran over the scars in her mouth.

  ‘She was feisty. Angry all the time, that one. And when I ordered her to return the tiger tally, she smmed my head into the table.’

  She whipped to the princess, eyes wider than ptes.

  Seriously?! Was it her mother who taught her those bad habits?

  ‘Well, that seems like her.’ The princess’s face was impassive, but Three could still catch the small smile at the corner of the other woman’s lips.

  ‘Children should fulfil the parents’ debt. Your Highness, don’t you agree?’ The eunuch pulled out a folding fan from his sleeve, the fan sliding open to cover his lips. Perhaps he had rotting teeth. ‘Shouldn’t you repay your debts? For example, begging at my feet.’

  The princess’s face twitched.

  No way.

  Not this absolute ice block of a woman —

  The princess fell to her knees.

  …She’s pretending, right?

  She tapped her head, gently, on the dirt before the eunuch’s shoes.

  Right?

  ‘Please don’t tell.’ The princess murmured, ‘Please stay quiet.’

  Please stay quiet.

  Please stay quiet.

  Please —

  Three flew forward, her fingers reaching out.

  — stay quiet.

  The eunuch didn’t even have the time to scream.