My head splits open like a struck drum.
I force air in.
It rasp-changes into a cursed cough.
Light shots through the shutter.
My vision slides.
The room rocks slow.
Xiao Mei leans over me, face bright with too much relief.
"You're awake," she says, voice broken and sharp.
"Don't move," I whisper.
The words tear out.
She presses a damp cloth to my mouth.
I taste iron.
"Your wound," she hisses. "It bled."
I try to pull the sleeve down.
Fingers fail.
A thin sting blooms at the temple.
My nose ticks wet.
"Memory," I say.
Short as a blade.
"Memories?" Xiao Mei asks, breath held.
"Yes."
I force focus like a drill.
I reach for a single life—Life Three, the heretic.
Shape the pattern.
Pull the memory through the skin.
I feel a name.
A formula.
The bones of a recipe.
My head shrieks.
I clamp my jaw until my teeth click.
Blood beads inside my nose and runs slow.
Xiao Mei blinks like someone shattered.
"Stop," she whispers. "It hurts."
"It costs," I answer. "Every access costs."
I clench the pallet with both hands.
Muscles argue.
Pain blooms behind my eyes.
I shove a breath out.
"Can you make it?" Xiao Mei asks, voice urgent.
"I can try," I say, and the word tastes like metal.
"Not too much," she warns. "If you push—"
"Don't," I cut her off, sharp. "Bring me the bowl."
We work slow.
Fingers flinch.
I list simple things.
Carbon.
Root of ash.
A pinch of salt.
Water shaken like prayer.
Xiao Mei writes with a stick, hands shaking.
"Where now?" she asks, eyes frantic.
"Market," I say. "Harem trade market."
She looks at me like I'm made of thin skin.
"The east garden is sealed," she says. "Eunuchs guard it."
"Then bribe," I say. "Like a merchant."
Her laugh is bitter.
"You learned bargaining from your dreams?" she sneers.
"No," I reply. "From another life."
We move with small lies.
Every walk a negotiation.
I sit up, slow, hips protesting.
My robe grates at the bite on my wrist.
Xiao Mei tucks a coin in her palm like a loaded nail.
"Be careful," I say.
"Of course," she answers. "Don't blink."
She slips into the corridor like a shadow.
The courtyard is a maze of hands and cloth and small trades.
She ducks under a laundry line and trades a string of hairpins for a root.
Her face lights when she returns.
Two roots in a palm.
A scrap of coal.
"Got them," she breathes. "But the east garden—"
She falters.
"They watched," I say. "Change the list."
She narrows her eyes.
"Change it how?"
"Say you need common herbs. Say you need charcoal. Don't say the sacred root."
She nods, like a soldier.
She goes again.
I sit on the pallet.
I hold the list in my hands like a map.
My mouth tastes of lotus and grit.
The antidote waits in pieces.
I pull the memory-skeleton back up—measure, boil, cool, strain.
The head pounds like a drum roll.
I bite the inside of my cheek until it hurts.
"Count beats," I tell myself.
One, two, three.
Timing kills or saves.
Xiao Mei returns, breath quick, cheeks flushed.
"The eunuchs were near the east gate," she whispers. "But I swapped the root with dried radish. They smelled it, laughed, and let me pass. A hand touched my sleeve."
"A hand?" I press.
"A eunuch," she says. "Old scar along his thumb. He smelled of camphor."
"Good," I say. "We noticed him."
We set to work like cooks of treason.
Charcoal smokes.
The root grates, fibers flying.
I crush bone-thin pieces with the back of a spoon.
I stir the pot with one hand, checking the time with the other.
My head wants to fold.
My vision blurs at the edges.
I swallow bile and keep going.
"Too slow," Xiao Mei says. "Hurry."
One drop touches my lip.
Numb spreads like a slow tide.
I test a speck on a withered leaf by the window.
The leaf lifts, color biting back a little.
"Alive," I whisper.
It's a small, hot joy.
"Miracle," Xiao Mei gasps. "You did it."
I laugh, dry as straw.
"Small," I tell her. "Small victory."
We bottle the mixture in a chipped jar.
I stash it within my robe.
The antidote climbs like heat under my skin.
Strength returns in scraps.
"Try a sip," Xiao Mei urges, worried and fierce.
"No," I say. "Not yet."
I press my palm to the dried blood on my wrist.
It tugs at my breath.
A folded piece of cloth at my pillow moves when I shift.
I pull it open with slow fingers.
There—the leaf.
Its edges dark, veins black like a map.
A single leaf, small and sharp, tucked under my pillow fold.
My breath stops.
The room narrows to the leaf and my hands.
"Who—" I start.
Xiao Mei stares like someone seeing a ghost.
"Gift?" she whispers.
"Trap?" I counter.
"Or help," she says, hope thin and dangerous.
I hold the leaf up to the light.
It smells like river mud and iron.
Not a common root.
Not on my list.
My pulse hammers.
I fold it back into the cloth.
"We should burn it," Xiao Mei says, almost too quickly.
"No."
My voice is a blade.
"Keep it."
She looks at me like she caught a sin.
"Why?" she asks.
"Because someone risks to place it here," I answer. "That is a message."
We hide the jar.
We hide the leaf.
Night slinks in like a slow animal.
Footsteps go by the door.
A eunuch pauses at the corridor and sniffs the air.
"He smells like wine," Xiao Mei mutters. "Why would the eunuchs—"
"Consort Li," I say, flat as a ledger. "She knows."
The next day, rumors slide like oil.
Someone reports I ate lotus twice.
Someone jokes of miracles.
A servant who cleansed the chamber whispers of strange orders to check me every dawn.
The eunuch-chief comes once, twice, eyes empty as coin.
He leaves a post of two guards outside my door.
"Watch him," he commands in clipped tones. "Do not let the concubine wander."
Word travels faster than a knife.
A maid comes with a tray—the prince's courier.
She sets it down with hands that don't tremble.
"Instructions from the palace merchant," she says. "He watches."
"Who?" I ask. "The Prince Merchant?"
Xiao Mei stares at me like a blade held to the throat.
"Be careful," she repeats. "They watch you like a pawn."
I move like a chess piece.
I retreat to small steps.
I test the antidote secretly.
Two drops under my tongue.
The world steadies like a hand on a rail.
Strength crawls back.
I stand without keeling over.
"Better," I tell Xiao Mei. "Not cured. Better."
She studies me, eyes sharp.
"I'll fetch more," she says. "Tell me names. Tell me where to trade."
"Name the woman with pearl teeth," I say. "She likes gossip; she trades for tea."
Xiao Mei leaves on a whisper-run.
I fold a scrap of cloth over the leaf and hide it inside my robe.
My fingers brush the fabric and freeze.
The palace moves like a living thing.
I move like a worm inside it.
Night falls heavy and loud.
People laugh in rooms I can't see.
The Consort's balcony lights a soft fire across the yard.
A message arrives folded in crimson paper—three strokes, a seal I recognize.
A eunuch lays it on my pallet and bows.
"Consort Li's orders," he says. "You will appear at the east pavilion this evening to entertain."
"Entertain?" I echo.
My mouth tastes metal.
"Yes," he says, voice flat. "Wear the lotus robe."
I roll the paper in my fist until the edges cut skin.
Xiao Mei's hands hover over mine.
"They invited you," she whispers.
"They invited," I repeat, cold as a knife.
"Why the east pavilion?" she asks.
"Because that's where herbs grow," I say. "Because that's where the eunuchs watch."
"Then it's a trap," she says. "They will test the antidote."
"Or they'll test me," I say.
Short.
"What will you do?" she asks.
"I go," I answer. "But I will not go empty."
I tuck the jar and the leaf into the lining of my robe.
I slip into the lotus dress, fabric whispering over skin like a secret.
Xiao Mei ties my hair back with hands that don't stop shaking.
"Count the watch changes," I tell her. "Move after the third bell."
"Promise," she says. "Promise me."
I nod.
My palms are cold.
The antidote buzzes under my tongue.
The day drags into thin strings.
I walk through the pavilion like a slow hawk.
Guards pass.
Eunuchs glance.
A faint smile slides across a woman's face like a blade.
I hold my posture like a foundation.
At the pavilion's edge, the Consort watches the herbs with eyes that do not blink.
She fingers a feather fan and smiles without warmth.
A eunuch approaches her, whispers, and she snaps the fan shut.
"An incident will be prepared," she declares quietly. "The east pavilion will be cleaned tonight."
"A clean?" the eunuch says, puzzled.
"Not clean," she corrects, voice low and certain. "Rooted out. Every weed that resists the drain must be plucked. Prepare the Incident of the East Pavilion."
Xiao Mei's grip tightens on my sleeve.
"Tell me when," she breathes.
"When," I say, sharp.
A eunuch walks by, posture flat and practiced.
He pauses at the pavilion, scans the yard, and looks back our way.
"Too many guards," Xiao Mei whispers.
"Too many eyes," I answer, low.
Consort Li watches like a probe.
She lifts her feather fan, slow and exact.
A eunuch leans close and murmurs a name into her ear.
Her smile spreads with a cold, surgical patience.
"She recovers too fast," the eunuch notes.
"Fast is dangerous," Consort Li replies, voice precise.
She fingers a slender sealing pen between two pale fingers.
It looks delicate and finished, like a small bone.
She snaps it clean.
The sharp crack slips through the air.
The eunuch blinks, then bows.
"What do you order?" he asks, voice low.
"A weed that survives the poison must be pulled by the root," she says, eyes ice.
She sets the broken pen down.
Silence follows like a closed fist.
We taste the next move.
She speaks once more, slow and certain.
"Prepare the 'Incident of the East Pavilion'."