I drop my eyes to my lap. “Thanks.”
“I lost my mother, too, you know,” she says.
My head jerks up. “You did?”
“She was a courtesan,” Zelle continues, a stiffness to the lift of her neck. She runs a hand over the viridian-green silks she’s wrapped in today, her fingernails picking at the silver threads patterning it. “Like me, here for any demons in the palace with a Paper fetish. Mistress Azami gives all of us medicine to keep us from getting pregnant, but it doesn’t always work, and once a courtesan has a baby, she’s not allowed to work anymore.”
I think of Mariko. “What happened to her?”
“Right after she had me, she was sent as a gift to one of the court representatives in Jana. I’ve never even met her.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Zelle gives a little shake of her head. “That’s just life in the palace,” she says with a bitter echo of her crooked grin.
“Have you… have you ever thought about escaping?” I ask quietly.
Her eyes glint. “Every second.”
I have no idea how to respond to that, so we fall silent. Eventually, Zelle says, “I heard about Mariko. You know, it’s not the first time that’s happened. Some girls manage to keep their affairs hidden, but it’s easy to get caught. I’ve had a few close shaves myself.”
“You have a lover?” I say, gaping at her.
“Of course,” she replies airily with a twirl of a wrist. “Hundreds, in fact. That is my job, isn’t it?” She gives me a wink, but there’s something pinched about her expression as she continues, “Yes, I did mean a lover of my own, not a client. Though it was a couple of years ago now.”
I shift forward. “Can I ask what happened?”
“He died,” Zelle says simply.
“Oh. I’m—I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she replies with an odd little shrug. She casts her face to the window, and the muffled light glazes it into a white-gray mask. “I’ve come to terms with it. Anyway, if he were still here, we’d have been caught eventually. Then we’d both be dead.”
Again, we fall quiet. Zelle must sense my mood, because she doesn’t press to start the lesson. It’s the coldest day so far this winter, the wind full of bite, but her room is warm, lantern light flickering off her glossy hair and making our shadows shiver.
As we sit in silence, something wild starts to wing through me. A ragged, reckless feeling. I didn’t sleep at all last night, thoughts about Wren and the assassination plans spinning on through the long, dark hours. Since finding out everything, my heart has been swinging between defiance and fear. Sometimes all I can think of is how powerful the King is, and how delicate Wren’s human frame is. How futile it’s been to believe we can defy him with just our love and hope. But seeing my name on the bamboo chip at lunch just made it even clearer how if we don’t do anything, that’s what the rest of our lives will be—waiting for someone to call us to do something we can hardly bear to do. Whether we become wives to generals after our year as Paper Girls, or stay on in the palace as courtesans, or artists, or teahouse owners, it will all be a performance. And all we’ll ever be are actors in our own lives.
The first time I kissed Wren, I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to let that life become my future. I might not have known at the time, but that’s what that first kiss was—a promise. A seal. Not to Wren, but to myself.
I’m not spending the rest of my life a prisoner.
“I have one,” I say suddenly. It comes out before I even know I’m about to speak. I risk a glance up, testing Zelle’s reaction. “A… a lover.”
She gives me a small smile. “I know,” she says, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Is it that obvious?”
“It was that obvious even in our first lesson.” She tilts her head. “But it’s progressed to something more now, hasn’t it?”
I nod.
“You’re in love.”
My answer comes, bright and defiant. “Yes.”
Zelle watches me, her face impassive. Then she lets out a sigh, folding her fingers in her lap. “I don’t know what to tell you, Nine,” she says, and her voice is weighted, a tightness to the cast of her shoulders. “I could say that I wish the two of you all the happiness in the world—and I do. Of course I do. But you’re a Paper Girl. The King’s concubine. That makes you his, and his alone.”
Whatever reaction I’d been expecting, this wasn’t it. Anger rattles through me. Out of everyone, I thought Zelle would understand.
“You told me that my thoughts and feelings are my power,” I say, a ball in my throat.
“And they are. But I meant that you’d always have something the King could never take from you. Love will only make it harder.”
“Did it? For you?”
“It still does.” She cuts me a sharp look. “Falling in love is the most dangerous thing women like us can do.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Oh? What do you think love is, then?”
“Necessary. Powerful. Maybe the most important thing women like us can do.” I picture Wren’s smile, the way her body fits with mine. My words shine with the truth of it, the truth of her, of us. “Love is what gives us hope. What gets us through each day.”
Zelle lifts her chin, her brows arching. “And what about the nights? Will it get you through those?”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
For the first time, something almost angry flares across Zelle’s features. “Don’t deny him again, Nine. I’m sorry you have to go through this, I really am, but you have to find a way to endure it. To hold your true feelings back. Because if he finds out that you’ve given yourself to someone else, he won’t just brand you—he will kill you.”
“Let him try,” I growl. My fingertips dig into my palms. “Maybe someone else will get to him first.”
It’s out before I can stop it.
Zelle blinks.
“I—I mean,” I amend quickly, “maybe I won’t take it anymore.”
“And what do you plan to do instead? How are you going to stand up to the King? You aren’t a warrior. I bet you’ve never even handled a weapon before. Didn’t you used to work in an herb shop?”
Her words smart, even though she doesn’t mean them cruelly.
Then I grin. Because yes, I used to work in an herb shop.
And it might just be what saves me.
My plan forms on the carriage ride back to Paper House.
When I knew the King would call me next, I thought that I’d just have to bear it. Wren told me last night that the assassination attempt will be soon. This might be the only time I have to go to his chambers before we get out of here. Just like Zelle asked me, I was prepared to endure it. That’s why I avoided Wren’s eyes earlier. Looking at her, seeing the hurt in them, would have made it a million times harder—when it’s already impossible. But Zelle’s throwaway comment about my herb-shop background reminds me that I might not be as helpless tonight as I believe.