“So the rumors are true?” I say. “The assassins were helped from within the court?”
She nods. “I heard that he arrested eleven officials on suspicion of being involved with the attack just this morning. He’s out for blood.”
“Hasn’t he had enough already?”
In the dark, Wren’s eyes seem to flare as she answers huskily, “Not nearly.”
Gently, I help her out of her clothes. She’s wearing a tangerine-colored ruqun set with jewels, a slit running up the length of one side of the skirt. But as I pull her robes off, I discover that the slit isn’t a part of the design; the skirt has been slashed clean in two. Only a makeshift knot at its waist was holding it up.
I swallow, a prickly sensation creeping across the back of my neck. The sky is clear tonight, a moonbeam slanting into the room. By its light, I make out the dark blossoms of bruises on Wren’s skin. There’s one on her shoulder. More along her hips. A huge handprint wrapped around her throat.
I stare at them, heart wild. Anger charges through me so forcefully I almost retch.
“How dare he,” I snarl.
Wren grabs my hands. “Don’t waste your thoughts on him,” she says, lifting my fingertips to her lips.
“But—”
“Lei, please. At least not tonight. Not now. I can handle pain—it’s only temporary. And Madam Himura will have a shaman heal me tomorrow.”
I gape at her. “Do you realize how sick that sounds? ‘Dear shamans, won’t you please give us some magic so we can go back to the King and get broken all over again?’”
Wren kisses my hands softly. “No one said anything about breaking.”
We lie down and draw the blankets over us. Moonlight silvers Wren’s face, draws a sharp outline along the line of her cheekbone and the hollow of her neck. My fingers trace it down to the upward roll of her shoulder.
“Some of the girls are suspicious of you.” I say. “Aoki told me earlier. Zhin saw you leaving your room at night, and they think you might be going to meet someone. A lover. You have to be more careful, Wren.”
Her brow wrinkles. “They don’t know where I’m going.”
“Neither do I.”
“Lei—”
“I know,” I say before she can finish. “You’re trying to protect me.”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
I sigh. “It’s just, I’d prefer it if you let me decide whether to be protected.” My thumb skims her shoulder, sloping up into the warm dip of her neck. “Maybe I can handle it. Whatever you’ve got going on, maybe I could help.”
Wren closes her eyelids. Tiredly, she takes my hand and moves it to cup her cheek, her palm on top of mine. She opens her eyes. In the moonlight they are bright—the opposite of her voice when she whispers, “You can’t. Not with this. No one can.”
I want to press her more. But remembering what she went through tonight—the thought of it makes bile fly up my throat—I stop myself. Pulling her close, I burrow my nose in her skin, drawing her cool, ocean scent into my lungs. She smells like home, like happiness and safety and hope and… love.
I want so much in that moment to tell Wren how I feel. To offer her the words that come to my lips every time she kisses me now, every time she even looks my way. But I wait too long and my courage fades. Instead I murmur, “Can you imagine a world where we’re free to be with each other?”
“Actually,” she replies after a pause, “I can.”
“Then take me there, Wren. Please.”
She answers, so quiet I barely hear it.
“I will.”
I leave her room shortly after, so full of the glowing thrum being with Wren brings, and the promise in her words, that a smile lifts my lips. So when I meet Aoki’s eyes where she’s watching from her own doorway, half wrapped in shadow, arms rigid at her sides, it takes a few seconds for the giddy look to drop from my face.
Perhaps if I’d not been smiling, I’d have been able to hide it. I could have said we were just talking, the same way Aoki and I still do some nights, though admittedly not as often recently. But I know that she realizes the truth the minute she sees my expression.
It’s how she looks when she talks about the Demon King. Radiant. Lit from within.
Without a word, Aoki pivots on the spot and slams the screen door shut behind her. The sound has bite in the quiet of the hallway. I lurch after her, not caring in that moment who might hear. She backs away as I enter her room, and I falter, stung.
The look on her face. I never would have believed she could look at me that way.
“Please, Aoki,” I say, my throat narrowing. “You—you can’t tell anyone.”
Her laugh is hollow. The scowl warping her mouth makes her look ugly, so unlike my sweet friend, the girl whose laughter lifts my soul like sunshine. She usually seems so young, full of lightness, her insides practically effervescent. But there’s something about the way she’s holding herself right now, as if she’d aged years in the blink of an eye.
“Is that how little you think of me?” she says, and there’s hurt in her voice, too. “I thought we were friends. That we told each other everything.”
“How could I have told you about this?” I cry, flinging my arms wide. “I know how close you are with the King! You wouldn’t approve—”
“Of course I wouldn’t! We’re Paper Girls! We’re not meant for anyone else.”
My fingers tighten into fists. “He made that choice for us. How is that fair?”
“It’s not about fairness. It’s about duty.”
“Gods, you sound just like Madam Himura.”
“Good,” Aoki flings back. “That means I’m doing my job well.”
I scowl at her. “No. It means you’re not thinking for yourself.”
Aoki stiffens, anger rising from her like heat-shimmer on wet stones. Her eyes are fierce, and I realize what she’s going to say a second before she speaks.
“I love him.”
The sentence hits me with a physical weight. Silence stretches between us, a dark, pulsing thing.
I just about get the words out. “You hated him, once.”
“I didn’t know him then.” Aoki softens, voice curling like a sleeping cat’s tail, and she kneads her hands in front of her, wide eyes glowing in the dark. “He’s good to me, Lei—kind and caring and fair. He’s even said he’ll consider making me his queen if I continue to please him.”
I almost choke. “His queen?”
Her cheeks flush, and she shrinks back. “You don’t think I’m good enough for the throne?”
“No! That’s not it—”
“Because he could, if he wanted to. Instead of a Demon Queen, he could have a Paper Queen. I could be his wife.”
My jaw slackens. Scenes from the past few months plow into me, one after the other: Aoki’s eyes brightening when she talks about the King; what she told me that night at the koyo celebrations; her excitement at the executions; the look on her face every time the bamboo chip arrives and her name isn’t the one on it. Like mine for Wren, Aoki’s love for the King has been building over the months. I’ve just been so wrapped up in my own feelings that I didn’t realize it.