I wished I could do the same.
Without Yao-guài to distract her, Yún wandered over to the calculor. She flicked through a dozen channels, before settling on a news vid-cast with several split viewports. I could tell she wasn’t really watching, but I could also tell she didn’t want to talk.
Restless, I wandered through the suite. Except for Lian’s study and the rooms immediately around her bedchamb
er, it was stripped bare. One small library had a few books on its shelves, but the rest were gone, most likely packed into crates and loaded onto wagons by the Zhang-Yin Freight and Transport Company. Most of the servants had gone, too. Only a couple of maids remained. They were chatting over a pot of tea while they mended what looked like palace uniforms.
In a tiny room I came across an ancient vid-screen and calculor on an overturned packing crate. I dropped onto the floor and tilted the screen down. Flicked on a switch. Magic flux crackled, and the screen wavered queasily before it snapped into focus. Wrinkling my nose against the metallic stink, I scrolled through the programming menu, but my mind wasn’t on cartoons or medieval documentaries.
How do we get out? How?
We had to get out and soon. Lian’s father was sick. Dying.
(Or dead.)
I cursed Kaishan Zhu and all his ancestors. Cursed the gods. Cursed my own bad luck. If we’d only stayed away from Lian, Quan might have smuggled a letter into the palace. Lian might have smuggled herself away from the palace. Quan himself could have helped us escape . . .
Quan. He had escaped the palace, the day before.
I flicked off the vid-screen. Stopped myself just in time. Those spy cameras would notice if I went racing back to Yún and told her about any secret passages. I stood up lazily, stretched and yawned, then sauntered to Lian’s study.
Yún had shut off the calculor and was staring at the empty walls. She looked tired and frustrated.
“Hai, Yún,” I said. “Got a question for you, Hotshot Girl.”
Her eyes widened slightly. Her eyebrows lifted in curiosity.
“Those scrolls,” I said. “I mean books. The ones Princess Lian wanted returned to the library. Didya do that yet?”
Enlightenment showed in Yún’s expression. “Ah, yes. Those books. The ones she told you to return. You forgot them?”
“C’mon, Yún.” I let my voice slide into a whine. “Remember how she sent me out to that stupid transport company, all for nothing?”
“And what does that have to do with anything? Idiot,” she hissed. “Here, here are the books. And while you are mucking and loitering about the palace, here is a list of the scrolls she wishes to study tonight. If,” she added, “you can remember to fetch them.”
“I’ll remember,” I snarled.
I snagged three books from Lian’s study—ones with cracked covers and stamped with the Phoenix Empire seal—and trotted through the palace labyrinth to the small library. Right away the chief librarian stopped me at the entry door.
“Books,” I said, holding them up carelessly. “My royal princess asked me to return these. And she wants me to fetch some different ones. It’s for her research paper.”
A pained expression crossed the old man’s face. “Give me those before you damage them. Yes, the Essays of Suyin Wei. Philological Observations from the First Empire. Poetry of Cheng-hao Li. Hmmmm. That last does not appear to be a standard text for the university.” He glanced up, still somewhat distracted. “No matter. You say the princess wished to borrow other books in return?”
“These,” I said breezily, waving the list. And as the chief librarian scanned the paper, muttering to himself, I added, “She mentioned one or two others. Don’t know if she really wants them or not. Said they were in that room we visited yesterday. Do you mind if I look?”
The chief librarian glanced up, and now his eyes narrowed. “What kind of books? Oh, never mind. Go, do what you must. But do not remove any scrolls or books without showing them to me or my chief assistant first. We keep records, you understand.”
I poked around the room Lian and Yún and I had first visited. The ghost dragons stirred upon my entrance—I heard a hissing above, like the first faint whistle from a steam kettle—but none of them tried to stop me as I pulled out books, or wiggled the shelves, or kicked the base of the bookcases. More important, none of them gave any alarm.
Much good it did me. The shelves were nothing but wood. And kicking the bookcases only gave me a sore foot.
After fifteen minutes, I sat down on a bench and massaged my toes, cursing. Quan had come from somewhere. But which direction?
I closed my eyes and tried to remember every moment exactly.
I remembered us sitting around the same square table, all of us bent forward and the griffin gripping my shoulder with his claws and listening intently. Quan had appeared in the doorway to my left. Either he’d followed us from outside, or he’d waited in one of the many side chambers we’d passed.
(Didn’t matter where he came from. What’s important is where he went.)