“Presenting Mistress Aoki-zhi of Shomu!” comes the announcer’s voice.
There’s the sound of Aoki getting to her feet. Her tentative footsteps, then the unmistakable swish of water as she enters the pool. Mistress Eira told us that the water is part of the ritual, symbolic of purifying our bodies before we meet the King. It’s been enchanted so it won’t affect our appearance. A short while later Aoki’s wavering voice rings out with the greeting Mistress Eira taught us.
“How sweet,” comes the sound of the King’s voice, quieter now but still heavy and deep. “What a cute nose.”
I grind my teeth. He makes it sound as if she were a toy, a plaything for him to toss aside once he grows bored.
Which is exactly what she is, I remind myself, pressing my fingertips firmer against the cold stone.
What we all are.
The King takes more time with Blue, who is called next, and with Chenna, until all too soon, the announcer sings, “Presenting Mistress Lei-zhi of Xienzo!”
I get to my feet, awkward in this ridiculous dress, my right shoulder still stiff from where it bashed into the carriage wall earlier. The chamber is deafeningly quiet. The silence seems to spool around me, catlike, coaxing my nerves. I walk forward, trying to mimic Mistress Eira’s light way of moving. But my steps are heavy. Like in the carriage, the whole situation has a dreamlike tint to it, and my heart surges with the hopeless desire for that to be all this is.
I’ve learned how to live with nightmares. I could cope with one more.
Though I keep my eyes firmly tracked on the stairs I’m making my way down—it’s all I can do not to trip over in this ridiculous dress—I sense the eyes of the crowd following me. Dzarja. The word bounds into my head. Is that what I am? Is that what the demons see, a girl who is a traitor to her own people?
When I reach the bottom of the steps, I let out a relieved puff of air—just as I take my first step into the pool and stand on the hem of my dress.
The crowd gasps as I lurch forward. My arms fling out inelegantly, and I grimace as I hit the surface of the water with a smack. It’s cold, a fist of ice. I expect to choke, but the water is like viscous air, and I wrestle my panic down, regaining my composure. Or at least, whatever passes for composure when you’ve lost all traces of dignity. I scramble up and stride on, the dark liquid of the enchanted pool flowing around me like smoke. I do my best at getting out the other side somewhat gracefully. When I climb onto the podium, I drop to my knees at the King’s feet without daring to look at him.
“I—I am honored to serve you, Heavenly Master,” I recite into the shocked silence.
More silence.
And then the room erupts with the King’s laughter.
“Look at the poor thing!” he cries, his sonorous voice echoing off the cavernous walls. “Dressed like a queen when she cannot even walk a straight line. How much liquor did you ply her with to calm her nerves, Madam Himura?” he jokes, and the crowd joins in, the hall reverberating with demon laughter as a servant darts forward to hurry me on, and I stumble away, face burning.
ELEVEN
MARIKO ALMOST THREW UP ON HIS FEET.”
“But she didn’t.”
“I think Zhen bowed wrong. It looked funny from where I was, anyway.”
“Aoki, I fell flat on my face. In front of the entire court.”
She sighs. “You’re right,” she admits. “It was a complete disaster.”
I break a smile, and she nudges me with her shoulder, green eyes glittering.
It’s early the next morning. The two of us are sitting on the steps to the bathing courtyard, wrapped in gray light and predawn hush. The calm is at odds with the busyness of the house yesterday, and I’m glad for this moment with Aoki before the day, our first as official Paper Girls, begins.
Last night, all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball of embarrassment after my display at the ceremony. Not just because of how humiliating it was, falling over in front of the whole court, but because of how it made me look to the King. Before last night, I thought I didn’t care what he’d think of me.
And then he laughed at me. Laughed, like I was a joke. And I want him—need him—to know that I am not.
To know that I am strong.
To know that whatever happens, whatever the official position says, I do not belong to him.
But as soon as we got back to Paper House, Madam Himura rounded on me, so incensed she could barely get a word out. “You didn’t just shame yourself, you shamed us! You shamed me!” she cried, before sending me to my room, Lill hurrying behind me, her cheeks as red as mine.
“Maybe it was a blessing in disguise,” I say now to Aoki. I sit straighter, scraping back the hair from my brow. “Now he definitely won’t call me first. Maybe he’ll never call me at all.”
She tilts to the side so she can look at me. “You don’t want him to?”
“No!” I say it a little too forcefully, and I steal a glance over my shoulder, as though Madam Himura could have snuck up behind us. Voice lowered, I ask, “Do you?”
“Of course!” she answers, also a little too hard. She takes a breath. “I mean… I’m not sure. I—I think so. He’s the King, Lei. It’s a privilege.” This part at least sounds like she believes it.
“But even so,” I press, “is this really what you want? What you hoped for of your life?”
Aoki twines her fingers in her lap, her teeth softly working her bottom lip. “I miss my family so much. I really do. But if I hadn’t been chosen, I would have been stuck in our tiny village for the rest of my life. Maybe I would have been happy there. But look at this, Lei,” she says, sweeping her arm at the empty courtyard, and I know she means not just here but the house, the palace, the beauty and extravagance of it all.
Unmoved, I mutter, “I’d rather be back in Xienzo.”
“Even though your family is taken care of now?”
I open my mouth to retort, stopping myself at the last moment. Aoki’s from a poor village, too. She has also known hunger and struggle, experienced the fierce bite of the cold and the heavy ache of exhaustion after a long day’s work, so deep you feel it in your bones.
Even so. I was meant to take care of them, my father and Tien. Me. Not the King.
Dzarja.
His money is dirty. Blood money.
“I wonder who he’ll pick first,” Aoki murmurs a few moments later.
Her question hangs coiled between us.
I flash her a sideways smirk. “I bet it’s Blue.”
She groans. “Oh, gods, no! We’d never hear the end of it.”
As we both snort, a maid hurries into the courtyard from the opposite side, hair still mussed from sleep and her night robe tied messily. She drops to the floor as soon as she spots us. “So sorry, Mistresses!” she stammers. “I—I didn’t know you would be up.”
“Oh, don’t worry—” I start, getting to my feet, but she darts off before I can finish. I turn to Aoki. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that. ‘Mistresses.’ It sounds so…”
“Old? Formal?” She giggles. “I guess that’s something else the other girls are used to. They were probably called Mistress since they were babies.” She puts on a posh accent, fluting her wrist fancily. “Mistress Blue, would you care for some honey in your mother’s breast milk?”