The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(47)

She’d kissed me the day after the dumplings, solemn as the day she’d told me we could only be friends. And then she’d laughed when it was done, and I’d laughed, and then I’d kissed her again and again, as if the world was the ocean and she the only air I could breathe.

Sitting in my boat, remembering this, I couldn’t tell if I was crying. The rain was warm against my cheeks. Mephi crept over to my feet. He stared at my face and then leapt into my lap. He rose onto his haunches and placed his paws on my chest. “Not good?” he said, looking into my eyes.

“No.” I cleared my throat. “It’s the sort of good that you get sad about because you no longer have it. A very good.”

He pressed his head to my chin, his whiskers tickling my neck. “A very good,” he cooed.

I rubbed the little nubs on his head. I thought of what Emahla would make of this creature. “Someday. Someday we’ll find it again.”

He leaned against my chest and sighed.





18





Lin


Imperial Island

I could feel the pulse of my heart at my neck, throbbing beneath my ear. My father locked his gaze with mine. I wanted very much to avert my eyes, to look away, to make some apology. Why had I drawn his attention to me instead of Bayan? Would he send Tirang to cut me down? But I kept my head high and I studied each movement in his face. Anger, hot as the blacksmith’s forge, then dismay. Fear, so quick I almost missed it. He settled finally into embarrassment. “Perhaps imprudence can be a learned trait,” he said grudgingly. “I do my best not to teach it.” He lowered his hand to the table.

Tirang strode back to his cushioned seat, as if he’d not been about to wreak violence at all.

I let out a breath. Bayan looked sick with relief.

But I’d not escaped all consequence. Father’s gaze still rested on me. “Do you claim more prudence, that you should lecture me on the lack of it?”

“No, of course not,” I said, and this time I did lower my eyes.

“May I remind you that you only have six keys.”

Nine, I corrected in my head. “That is true.”

I heard him shifting on his cushion, the brush of fingers against the table. When I looked at him again, he’d moved his plate to the side, his hands clasped in front of him. “You said you’ve been meditating on your past. I think it’s good that you’re finally putting in some effort, and effort does not go unnoticed.” He reached into his sash pocket and produced a key. It clicked against the wood as he laid it on the table. “I have some questions for you.”

For the first time I didn’t feel weak with wanting. Anger roared in my belly. He laid the key on the table like I was a dog and the key a treat. He’d give the treat to me, yes, but only if I performed first. So many times I’d been denied satisfaction. But this time I’d read some of the journal. My journal. “Ask,” I said.

I must have given some hint of my anger, for Father looked a little taken aback. Bayan, next to him, shrank into his seat as though he wished he could sink into the floor. But soon Father gathered himself. “What was the name of your best childhood friend?”

I let the first two questions pass – he always asked three – though I hemmed and hawed as if I were truly struggling to find an answer. “Perhaps I need to meditate more,” I said after the second.

Father only looked displeased and asked me his third question. “What was your favorite flower?”

A sprig of jasmine blossoms had been pressed into the front pages of the book, the scent of it mingling with old paper. “Jasmine,” I said. I paused and closed my eyes, taking in a deep breath. “I think I used to keep some of it even when it was out of season. I’d press it and smell it, even long after the petals had dried out.”

Father’s face went slack. Amazement and something else. Hope? Did he truly hope for me to regain my memories? If he did, why didn’t he tell me my old memories, all the times we’d interacted? Surely that would jog loose memories more swiftly than this. “Yes,” he said softly. “You loved jasmine, even more than all the exotic lilies in the garden.” His gaze went far and away.

I let him have whatever memory paraded in his skull, though I really just wanted to shake him and ask what he saw in his mind. Instead, I waited and then cleared my throat. “The key?”

Father shook himself, appearing more like the old man he truly was. “Yes.” He slid the key across the table to me.

I waited until his hand was back at his side before I took it. It was bronze and small and still warm to the touch, a simple bamboo pattern stamped onto its bow. Certainly a less elaborate key than others I’d seen upon my father’s chain, but I was beginning to find out that the intricacy of the key had little to do with the value of the secrets I’d find behind its door. “Which door does it go to?”

Father waved a dismissive hand. “You can find out yourself. The both of you may go.”

Bayan started as though expecting another blow. I’d barely touched my meal but I rose to my feet and watched as Bayan did the same. He seemed to regain some of his dignity as he straightened, running his hands over his tunic and wiping at the corner of his mouth. He gave my father a wide berth as he made his way to the door, and gave the four constructs an even wider berth. I followed him into the hall.