Chapter 10. Lin Imperial Island
The cobblestones of the street were slick with rain from the afternoon, lanterns reflecting from its surface. I knew this way now, the way I knew the other parts of this routine. Wait until Father had finished questioning me and sat down to tea, break into his room, take a key. He didn’t question me every night, so I’d only stolen two more keys so far.
But it mattered to me, because when I got the copy back, I’d have two more keys than Bayan did.
A few people still lingered on the streets, speaking to neighbors in the lilting accent of Imperial Island. They glanced at me as I passed – I never had time to change out of my embroidered silk tunics – but returned to their gossip. Father rarely let me out of the palace on my own, so no one really knew my face. I’d gone twice in a palanquin, with servants to reach past the curtains to take my coin to the vendors. I never set my slippers on the stones of the street, never felt the air of the city against my skin.
I peered into the closing shops as I passed them. Their occupants wiped down tables or folded things into drawers. A tailor’s shop held a wealth of fabric, bolts stacked one on top of the other, the ends spilling loose, like a multi-hued waterfall. Next to it, a bakery, the air around it still suffused with yeast and steam. And then after that a drinking hall, its shadowed corners still filled with people murmuring to one another. Mugs clinked and smoke wisped from the entryway. It smelled like the sort of place that was always damp, with more than one puddle soaking into the weathered floorboards. A part of me wanted to go inside, to ask for wine, to fit myself in between these people and listen. What would I read on their faces? But I had a key heavy in my sash pocket. If I did not hurry, Father would return to his room and discover what I’d done.
So I strode to the blacksmith’s shop and slipped inside. The bell on the doorknob clanged against the old wood and the blacksmith looked up from his work. He only let out a little grunt – not satisfied, not displeased, but… wary.
“I have another key,” I said, reaching into my sash pocket. I pulled out the key. He took a moment before extending his hand and letting me press the key into the valley of his palm. Without a word, he peered at it, taking in the dimensions. He pivoted on his stool and started opening drawers. “The same price for this one as the last,” he said. He knew who I was now. He could have asked for more. I had it.
But I only pulled out the two silver coins and set them on the counter, watching as he pressed the key into the wax mold.
His brow furrowed as he worked. He flicked his gaze to my face, and then back at the key. A moment more and then he asked, his attention still on his work, “Did you find my shard?”
The blacksmith affected nonchalance, but he licked his lips, his shoulders tense while he awaited my answer. He’d asked the last time as well, and I found myself dreading the question even more than I had before. Because I knew where his shard was; I just couldn’t get to it without getting caught. “No,” I said, the lie past my lips before I could stop it. Though I pushed past the unease, it settled like a sickness in my belly. “There are many more rooms to unlock, and I don’t know which rooms are which. I’ll find it soon, I hope.” I took his same nonchalant tone – as though this thing didn’t matter.
It mattered to him.
And it mattered to me. It shouldn’t have mattered. My father always said I needed to look out for myself, that I couldn’t rely on others. But I was relying on Numeen, and he was fulfilling his end of the bargain. Sweat gathered on his brow, shining orange by lamplight. Past him, on a shelf, were a few small trinkets – a wooden carving of a monkey, a bouquet of dried flowers, some incense and a chipped mug. I wondered what they meant to him.
“How many children do you have?” I shouldn’t have asked, but like the drinking hall a few doors down, I felt drawn into this world I didn’t know.
The furrows in his brow evened out. “Three. A son and two daughters.” I watched this broad-backed man, who had spoken so roughly to me when we’d first met, turn from rock into sand. “They’re all too young to be helping me here, but they want to. The eldest especially.” He laughed at some private memory.
“You must love them very much.” Did my father ever speak of me that way to others? Or did he just lament my lost memories and tell them how he might cast me out? I tried to imagine Father’s cold facade dissolving as he spoke of me and couldn’t.
The warmth in Numeen vanished as soon as the words left my mouth, and I realized too late how they might sound to him. Like a threat. He jerked open another drawer and dug around in the back. “Here’s the key you brought me last time. I’ll have this one ready in another day or two.” He set it and the key I’d brought on the counter, took my two silver coins and turned away from me.
I recognized this at least. It was a dismissal.
So I took both keys, tucked them into my sash pocket and left. The moisture on the cobblestones soaked through my slippers as I ran back to the palace gates. Plaster wedged beneath my fingernails as I climbed the wall and found my way back down.
I made it back to my father’s room, breathless, sweat tickling the small of my back. Bing Tai only grumbled a little this time as I tiptoed inside and placed the key back where I’d found it. I didn’t wait around to see when Father would be back. I went to my room.
It was a cupboard compared to my father’s chambers, but I preferred it that way. It felt like being embraced by walls. Every place in my room felt safe; there were no unknown corners. Just the bed, the desk, a thick rug, a wardrobe and a couch. As soon as I closed the door behind myself, I let out a sigh and shucked off my dirty slippers, shuffling around beneath my bed for another clean pair. Bayan and Father both stayed up late. I’d wait them both out.
I folded my legs beneath me and did what Bayan had recommended. I meditated.
Whatever magic this had worked on Bayan, it didn’t work on me. All I could think of was Numeen with his furrowed brow and his laugh as he talked about his children. Surprisingly relaxing fare, but not revelatory by any means. I focused on my breathing and waited until the night felt truly silent.
And then I went to the door and out into the sleeping palace. I didn’t light a lamp; the moon shone through the shutters and provided enough light so I didn’t run into walls. And I knew these hallways well enough.
I checked Bayan’s room, just in case. Father was a creature of habit, but Bayan was like a restless ghost. I was never sure when he’d appear, what his mood would be and whether or not he had arrived in order to do me some mischief. Outside his door, if I held my breath and listened very hard, I could hear his breathing from within – steady as the waves crashing at the shore.
I went back to the shard room first and tested the new key on the cloud juniper door. It jammed before I could get it even halfway inside. Not the right door. So I went from door to door in the palace, my breath echoing off the walls, my footfalls sweeping against the floors like broom bristles. I shivered as I passed the mural of the Alanga, their hands clasped and eyes closed. The hallways felt larger at night, like darkness had broadened them.
The key finally slid into place on the tenth try, in a door across from the questioning room – the one where my father took his tea. The darkness when I opened the door was impenetrable. No moonlight graced the walls or floors. I had to feel around for the lamp hanging by the door frame, and it took me more than one try to light it.
When the lantern flickered to life, I had to suppress a gasp. I’d been lucky. I’d found the library.
In many ways, it was similar to the bone shard room – but instead of tiny drawers lining the walls, there were shelves stacked with books. The room felt softer too, with rugs across the floorboards, couches between shelves, and windows high on the walls. During the day it must look beautiful, light streaming in from above and glimmering off the golden script on some of the covers. At night it felt like walking into a hidden glade.
I set the lantern on a side table and began to sift through the books. A good many of them were historical or philosophical, but I ran my hand over one with an unfamiliar script and pulled it from the shelf. It was nearly long enough to take up the entire depth of the shelf. I flipped the broad pages.
The symbols written on the inside were the same ones my father carved into his bone shards. There were small explanations written beneath the symbols in a neat, tidy script – not my father’s hand, but one of his ancestors.
Most were simple commands – to follow, to sound an alarm, to attack – but the further I read, the more complex they grew. Some commands could be combined with others on the same shard to form a different command. Attack could become attack but not kill. There were identifying markers too. I found the one for servants’ clothing, with a note that the shard had to be laid across the clothes it was meant to identify while the marker was carved.
I pulled down a few more books with the symbols on the binding. Some were aimed much more specifically – one entire book, for example, was dedicated to building the commands for spy constructs. Another for bureaucrats. Yet another spoke of the commands for attacks – a description of each attack and when it should be used laid out in symbols.
My mind whirled, an ache starting behind my eyes. It wasn’t the dim lighting. Learning these symbols and when they should be used would be like learning an entirely new language. It effectively was a new language – with its symbols and its system of organization.
Maybe Bayan wasn’t stupid. Maybe he just had too much to learn.
I sifted through the shelves, trying to decide if I could get away with taking any of the books, even just for a day. Nothing too large, of course. And Bayan had moved past beginner skills. He would likely not notice, and neither would my father, if I borrowed a book of beginner commands.
I mounted one of the ladders attached to the shelves and began my search, swinging my lantern over all the titles.
This felt more satisfying than any meditation. The only sounds in the room were my own – the scuff of my feet against wood, my breathing, the crisp swoosh of turning pages, the creak of old binding. The library smelled of old paper and the faint scent of burning oil. The library lamp was an intricate thing, enclosed in glass to prevent any unwelcome contact with all this old paper.
On the third rung of the ladder, near the back of the room, I found what I was looking for.
It was the sort of book you might give to a child learning their letters. The symbols within were painted large, the written explanations short and simple and accompanied by illustrations. I wouldn’t be making any Empire-toppling constructs with this sort of information, but even the tallest tree starts from one small seed. I tucked the book beneath my arm.
And then something odd surfaced within me – a feeling that I’d been here before. Not just in this library, but here, on the third rung of this ladder, at the back of the room. No, the fourth rung. I took a step up and without knowing exactly why, I slipped my hand into the space above the books and below the shelf. I reached back and behind the books.
I should have felt surprise when my fingers closed around another book. I should have surmised that someone had pushed too many books onto this shelf and one had fallen to the back. Instead, I knew that someone had placed it here deliberately, to hide it.
I fumbled with the lantern and the book beneath my arm, but I managed to keep my grip on it. It was small, with a green cover, unmarked. When I opened it, it didn’t smell quite as old as the other books, its pages still white and not yellow. Dates were written at the tops of pages, paragraphs below. The handwriting was loose and flowing and it was like seeing a person on the street who could have been my sister in another life. I knew it the way I knew the shape of my nose. Yes, it looked a little more graceful, the words never cramped at the end of the page the way mine sometimes did – as though I’d never planned how to end each line. But it was my handwriting.
It was my book. I snapped it shut before I could lose my grip on the ladder. This book too I needed to take with me. I hurried down, nearly spilling the books from my grasp. The lantern swung from where I’d hooked it around my arm, the light casting moving shadows across the rugs. I hopped the last rung, relieved to be back on the ground again.
The sound of scratching emanated from behind me – nails against wood. I whirled, my heart sticking in my throat.
A spy construct watched me from the shelf, its tail twitching.