‘One. It was you, wasn’t it?!’ The moment the emperor vanished Seven whirled onto One. His face with fury as he seized the other man’s pels. ‘You tortured him! One, you piece of shit, why?!’

  …Tortured?

  One didn’t fight back. He didn’t argue.

  Seven spped him across the face and roared, ‘You bastard of a pig! Can’t you just die? Why did you have to take Four down with you, why did you hurt him, how could you dare make him cry?’ He screeched, ‘Do you think you’re worthy? Piss a mirror and take a good look at yourself!’

  ‘Seven, wake up!’ Six grabbed Seven’s shoulders and forced him to the ground, kneeling. The muscles in his shoulders flexed with the effort. He rasped, ‘Orders are orders! What else could he do?!’ Then he turned to One and said, ‘And you! Snap out of it! It’s not your fault, got it?’

  ‘He was crying…’ One rested his hands on Seven’s choking grasp, his gravel voice a slushy mud from anguish. ‘Six, he was crying, he was crying so hard, but I didn’t stop, Six, I —’

  He cut himself off. His shoulders shook. He fell to the ground.

  He whispered, ‘Six, what have I done?’ Raising his hands, he stared down at himself as though discovering a new yer of hell. ‘…He was only twenty.’

  Seven ughed at him. ‘That’s what you’re sad about? One, he hated pain! It’s the only fucking thing he fears! And now he’s dead, dead at your hands —’

  A pair of callused hands locked around his head. ‘Calm down, Seven,’ Five said. Her quiet voice was hoarse, but not from emotion. It was guttural, breathy from scarring and acid burns. ‘If you say another word to him, I’ll silence your voice for a week.’

  The man’s jaw snapped shut.

  She then turned around. ‘One. Are you alright?’

  One flexed his fingers, balling them up into fists and rexing them again. ‘No, Five. I’m not.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘Five, I think I’m going crazy. His crying won’t stop.’

  She handed him two bottles. ‘The bck one,’ she said, ‘will numb your sleep for a shichen. The white one will give you agonising pain for two. A mouthful of each will suffice.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He reached out and took both bottles, immediately taking a swig from the white. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Seven began to sob.

  Three didn’t know what to feel. What to think. She just turned to Five and extended an arm.

  ‘No, Three. My spirits are for inducing alcohol poisoning.’

  She didn’t lower her hand.

  Five paused, then handed her a gourd bottle. The rough texture of it shook in her hands. ‘Only take two drops per cup of water. And don’t take more than ten drops, or you’ll die.’

  Three pulled off the cork and licked the wet from it. A burning bitterness washed over her. Her lips opened, then shut, but no sound could leave her lips.

  ‘Go find your master, youngest,’ Six said. His voice, hoarse from old damage, sounded as though it was forced through a smelting fire. ‘It wouldn’t do for you to see this sort of thing too young.’ He paused, then added, ‘Don’t copy One in the future. Your drinking habits are already bad enough.’

  Seven sneered, ‘It’s already too te, Brother. She’s a fucking shadow guard now.’ Then, he gave her a lopsided, twisted smile. ‘Hey, little bitch. When we’re all dead, let’s wait by the Yellow Springs, yeah?’ His head flung back, body shaking with ughter. ‘Four won’t be lonely for long, hahaha!’

  Three walked out the door.

  It was raining.

  The jasmine vines bowed under the weight of it. The noon sun, having hidden behind a curtain of clouds, had vanished from sight, casting a cold grey light.

  The chill bit at her bones.

  She took a few steps forward, out from under the hall’s curved eaves and into the pouring rain. The water trailed down her face like cold fingertips, the shivers lying asleep under her skin. The scent of mud, the crisp of an approaching winter, filled her nose.

  A few spshing footsteps. The echoing patter of rain on an umbrel.

  ‘I heard a man crying, and another ughing,’ the Third Princess said. The oil-paper umbrel cast a diluted white shadow over the woman’s sharp features. Then, those white fingers offered her the umbrel’s handle. ‘…I thought you would vent the same way.’

  She took it and inched closer. The umbrel was too small; covering her mistress left Three’s right shoulder to soak in the rain. The wet iciness of it froze her. It turned her arm into the joints of a rusted carriage wheel. ‘I used to be more vocal about it. I would scream, but I wouldn’t cry.’

  ‘Hm.’ The princess took a few steps away, but paused when she didn’t follow.

  The rain fell on her head. ‘Your Highness.’

  A pause. ‘Yes?’

  ‘He liked to drink. He taught me how to drink baijiu. He would drink with me until we were both bckout drunk.’ She lowered her head. ‘I can’t drink with him anymore.’

  ‘I see.’ Then, a dismissing wave. Took back the umbrel. ‘Well, don’t just stand there.’

  ‘…Yes, Your Highness.’

  The princess walked away over a few bridges. Each step shook drops into the swollen kes below.

  Then, they came to a bench by the keside, under a willow tree. The bench was already sopping wet, but the princess just swept the water off and sat down it anyway. Her white robes slowly turned grey, like clouds of ink spreading on soaked paper.

  Three didn’t sit and just watched the rain pool at their feet.

  ‘Well, spit it out. I can’t wait here forever.’

  She blinked at her. Let the rain hit her back. Her body, a shield for the princess. ‘I don’t think One will ever get over it. He was like a father.’

  ‘How unique.’

  ‘Seven won’t, either. He and Four would argue all the time, but they really did care about each other.’ The wet crept into her boots. ‘They won’t be the same after this.’

  ‘So?’ The princess stood up and said, ‘But I wonder. What about you? Are you in pain?’ A smile. ‘I hope you are.’

  The umbrel rose over her head. The princess towered over her, hair sliding down in a curtain; a willow tree, with Three standing under the other’s tresses.

  ‘Did you feel the same,’ she asked, ‘when I killed your mother?’

  A beat. The pointed tip on the umbrel’s edge tapped the top of her hair. ‘Yes.’ The princess’s knuckles whitened over the umbrel’s handle. ‘And one day I will kill you for it.’

  ‘You hate me,’ Three said. ‘You hate that I killed your mother. But do you see me strangling One?!’

  ‘Three —’

  ‘Yes, I killed her, but why would you sentence a knife in pce of the butcher?!’ She grabbed the other’s pels, shrieking, ‘If you have hatred, then hate the emperor! If you have anger, then bme your mother’s weakness! Why crush me, an ant? Can’t you leave me a path? A future?’

  The princess swatted her hands away. Fury lighting the other’s face, the woman yelled, ‘Do you even hear yourself? Even servants are punished for bullying others on their masters’ orders! How are you any different?!’

  ‘Why can’t you understand,’ Three roared, ‘I’m a SHADOW GUARD! I DON’T HAVE A CHOICE!’

  They froze.

  The cold spun their breaths into clouds of white. They mixed together, a blurry haze that floated past the princess’s face and froze Three’s eyes into a stinging ice.

  ‘I didn’t, I don’t, I truly have no choice,’ she said hoarsely. ‘It was an order.’

  ‘Is that what orders are to you?’ The princess hissed. ‘Something where you can shove all the responsibility onto your master?’

  ‘Yes.’ She swallowed. The lump in her throat was sharp like a needle. ‘I can, and I will.’

  ‘Good,’ the princess sneered. ‘Because you’ll soon kill your siblings with your own hands.’