Descendant of the Crane(33)

He cocked his head to the side. “You’re one of those, aren’t you?”

“Those…?”

“A queen who’d be assassinated in broad daylight.”

He came closer before she could be properly affronted, invading the wide breadth of personal space Hesina preferred to maintain at all times with strangers. She rushed to organize her desk, but he passed it for her bookshelf.

“You’re welcome to any,” she said as he surveyed the rows.

Of the many he could have chosen, he slid out her copy of Assassins through the Ages.

“Yes, I probably shouldn’t have that.”

Expression unreadable as always, Akira flipped through the book. “Interesting.”

“What is?”

Without answering—a quirk Hesina found infuriating—he set it back on the shelf and took a seat on the floor. “So, how do you want to do this?”

After some wrestling with her desk drawer, Hesina successfully lifted the chest of her father’s items. She laid out the contents. The snuff bottle. The tripod bronze goblet. The Tenets, open the way her father had left it. She spread the clothes he had worn: the navy courier’s hanfu, the brocade broad-belt strung with his paring knife, and a knotted cord with a medallion in the center.

She removed the pouch containing the vial last, and hesitated as she slid out the tiny glass bottle. Half of the gas had already been wasted on the Investigation Bureau. The golden wisp was smaller than ever. Swallowing hard, she handed it to Akira.

He turned it to the light. “Mind if I study this further?”

She wanted to protect the vial, keep it out of sight. But she had to trust Akira, so she said, “Do as you please” instead. Then she reached for the bronze goblet. “Here. This might be linked—”

“Hold. Where do these items come from?”

Slowly, Hesina withdrew her hand. “His study. It was the last place he was seen.”

“Did anyone else enter the room that day?”

“No. At least, that’s what the maids say.”

“The guards?”

“They wouldn’t know.” She wound a tassel on her sash around and around her index finger. “Father always hated having them stationed in the inner palace. But I went to the kitchens after…”

I found his body.

Hesina counted to ten. By seven, her throat stopped closing. By nine, her eyes cleared up. But there were not enough numbers in the universe to seal the hole in her heart when she said, “Breakfast is”—was—“his favorite meal of the day. But all the cooks and maids claimed he didn’t want breakfast that morning.”

Akira took the goblet and ran a finger along the rim. “There’s a residue.”

“Sometimes Father keeps”—kept—“a stash of persimmons in the study. He likes to juice them himself.”

Then Hesina froze. When had he been poisoned, if no one had delivered food and drink that day?

“Some poisons take several days to act,” Akira said. “Or the cup was already coated.”

That made sense. Bit by bit, she unwound the cord around her finger.

Akira pulled the Tenets close. Together, they studied the pages. It’d been left open to a biography on One of the Eleven. The man had spent his early life as a humble street actor before committing some unspecified offense against the emperor and being slated for execution. The rest of the details—about his escape with ten other convicts and his subsequent rise to leadership—were just as vague.

Hesina wasn’t surprised. Legend was the sort of wool that people willingly pulled over their eyes, especially when it came to heroes. One was the best example: an overwhelming chunk of the passage praised his kindness and fairness. This kind, fair man had gone on to kill tens of thousands of sooths, but no one mentioned that.

If Akira had an opinion on One, or any of the Eleven, he didn’t show it. He simply rose, taking the book with him, and held the pages over the candle flame on the desk.

“What are we searching for?” Hesina ventured. She felt as though she was in her swordsmanship lessons again, always one step behind Sanjing.

“An assassin’s mark.” Akira touched the book to his nose. For an alarming second, Hesina thought he might lick it, but he only inhaled from the pages.

“But why would an assassin want to leave a mark?” She feared she was asking the obvious. “Wouldn’t that give them away?”

“People think poison is the subtlest method of killing.” Akira set the book down and started going through the other items. “In reality, you can arrange a carriage accident just as easily. A poisoner who doesn’t dispose of the body wants to send a message.”

He handed her the corded medallion before she could ask anything else and turned his attention to the courier hanfu.

On her own, Hesina studied the character etched into the jade round. Longevity. A generic bauble. There was nothing notable about the cord looping either.

The scream of tearing silk shredded her thoughts. She winced as Akira finished splitting apart the hanfu’s seam, but helped him smooth the single layers flat. Nothing unusual appeared inside.

She sat back on her heels and saw her “evidence” for what it really was: a random collection of knickknacks. What could she learn from an ornament or a paring knife that her father wore everyday on his belt? Reeling with disappointment, she reached for the last item remaining: the snuff bottle.