How could she have missed him?

  Three followed after him, carefully pcing the princess behind her. She watched him, eyes hard — how Two had found them in the clothing store, she didn’t know, but the fact that she hadn’t noticed his presence spoke volumes of her carelessness.

  She couldn’t let that happen again.

  Her hands clenched into fists, swinging past the brick walls.

  She couldn’t be punished, she couldn’t disappoint. Not when she had finally gotten her master to forget, to ignore her past orders. Gotten a master who would reward her.

  Because —

  Her fingers opened, rubbing along the pleats of her skirt.

  She didn’t want to lose this sort of joy.

  They turned several more corners. The sun vanished behind the towering walls, the overhanging tiled eaves. When the shadows came, the princess’s skin gave faint shivers; she took off her coat and draped it around the other.

  The wind blew at her skirts.

  Two stopped outside a backdoor, framed by weed-covered bricks. The wood was so stained that it had turned a near bck. Only in the nicks did a lighter, reddish hue peek.

  He held the door knocker — and rusted copper guardian lion, the top of the ring cmped between its jaws — and rapped hard.

  The door opened immediately.

  A man.

  He sat in a carved bamboo wheelchair. There were no rests for his feet, for everything below his knees was gone. Though he was wrapped in purple silk, so tightly that he seemed to turn into a zongzi dumpling, Three still caught the vicious red scars that crawled up the right side of his body.

  But his face was perhaps the strangest thing of all.

  He had covered it in yers and yers of jewellery. Gold, garnets, jades; those precious stones and minerals had all been casually woven in a net and draped over his head.

  It covered his right eye, the bottom half of his lips, and wrapped down his neck in a strangling, glittering mess. A band of gold and shiny green slid across his nose to cling to his left ear. With each heaving, rattling breath he breathed, the heavy stones would shift, letting fsh mottled red and centipede scars. Only his left eye could open. His right had a shining jade hanging in front of it.

  ‘Your Highness,’ said Two, ‘I’ve brought Her Highness the Third Princess and her guard here.’

  ‘Be quicker,’ the prince rasped. He then wheeled his chair back and vanished behind the dark of the door. ‘Well then, my dear cousin, take a seat.’

  Three walked in first.

  The room was a small one. Though it appeared old and dirty outside, it was surprisingly clean and comfortable. A rattan chair accompanied the mismatched bamboo table, a calligraphy set and rice paper sitting on it.

  The chair was wet.

  She turned to the princess and shook her head.

  ‘You may speak,’ said her master.

  Bolstered by the permission, she turned to the Second Prince and said with a smile, ‘Apologies, but my mistress prefers to stand.’

  The prince’s upper lip curled into a smile. His voice came out breathy and hoarse, much like that of Six and Five. ‘You’re a sharp one.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Her fingers slid into the parting of her skirt — a set of knives were tied to her thighs on leather straps. ‘I’m good at my job.’

  ‘Two, fix the chair.’

  ‘Yes, Your Highness.’ The man then walked over, rolling up his sleeves.

  His tanned arms were covered in scars, both old and new. The youngest had only just scabbed over — those wounds wrapped around every bit of unimportant flesh, drawing yers of lines around his knuckles and veins. There were unnatural bumps in his skin — Two had carved out pieces of himself, in a form of torture he had once taught Three.

  Behind her, the princess took a sharp breath.

  And it was no wonder.

  Such wounds were terrible, horrible things. They were the bleeding rewards of their toils — One knew it was shameful, Two knew it was ugly, Four knew it was necessary, Five knew it was weakness, Six knew it was scary, and Seven knew it was useless.

  And Three —

  Three was a just a stupid little girl who, as Seven often put it, ‘picked up bad habits from everyone.’

  But then Two put on leather gloves, hiding his scars, and simply moved the chair to the side, mopping up the poison with a piece of old cloth. When finished, he pulled his gloves off and threw them onto the rag.

  He went outside, then came back carrying a bamboo stool and two cushions. The stool was pced at the table; a cushion was casually thrown on top. The other, far ftter and roughly made from folded linen, was gently put on the floor at Three’s feet.

  ‘Little Melon,’ said Two, ‘you can rex. None of us here can hurt you or Her Highness.’

  She shook her head. ‘I will stand.’ Then, she nudged the cushion over to his feet. ‘You sit instead.’ A pause. Then she added, ‘Brother.’

  He sighed; it was a heavy one, one that rattled its way out of his nose. ‘Alright,’ he said, and promptly sat down. He id back, his head coming to rest on her thighs.

  She tensed, hard.

  And when the princess’s cold, hard eyes came to rest on her legs, she nearly flinched.

  Cold sweat ran down her back.

  …Should she push Two off?

  ‘Third Sister,’ the Second Prince began, a scarred hand etching lines into the arm of his chair, ‘I want your support.’

  The princess narrowed her eyes, tinted with a faint, hazy dismissal.

  He let out a raspy breath, ‘I want you to help me kill my brother.’