Girls of Paper and Fire (Girls of Paper and Fire #1)(14)

We’re in an enormous square. Braziers illuminate the vast space, shadows deep at its edges, empty except for a guards’ pavilion and a row of stables. A couple of guards hurry over as our carriage comes to a stop. The General seems to know them well, and greets them warmly—or at least what constitutes as warmth coming from him—before we continue on.

Now that we’re actually here, a strange sense of calm starts to take over me, like a blanket laid gently over something smoldering. I angle myself at the window, trying to get a better view, but the horses pick up the pace. Everything flies by in a blur. I catch only quick glimpses of my new home. Rain-slicked cobbles. The dark rush of gardens at night. Elegant temples with furled roofs, their ornate architectural styles unfamiliar to me. We pass through small courtyards and wide, open spaces; linked squares with bridges arching over water; grand, imposing structures crafted from marble. It stuns me how vast the palace is. Not just a palace really, but a city—a labyrinth of streets, courtyards, and gardens, like the veins and arteries flowing through a giant creature with the King nestled at its core, its own living, beating heart.

I wonder if that heart is as black as I’ve been told.

After twenty minutes, the horses slow. “This is it,” General Yu announces as they draw to a halt. He leans forward to tug aside the curtain at the front of the carriage. “Women’s Court.”

Massaging the numbness in my legs, I get to my feet and step out into rain and lantern-lit darkness. We’re in what looks to be some kind of residential area. Tall walls enclose a web of streets comprised of interlocking houses and covered walkways set on raised platforms. The buildings are ornate, with dark walls of what looks like mahogany and rosewood, glossy under the downpour. Sliding bamboo screens—so delicate compared to the thick doors we have in Xienzo—reveal the backlit silhouettes of figures inside. Porches ring every house, lined with vases of white-petaled orchids and peonies.

My feet slip in the muddy earth as the General leads me down one of the unlit paths at the base of the buildings. He keeps one hand on my shoulder to stop me from bolting. Though even if I knew where to run to, I’m not sure I could. My body seems bound to some unseen current as we move through the unfamiliar space, everything cast in a dreamlike ruby haze from the red lanterns dangling from the curved eaves of buildings, like ripe fruit. Rain-dampened sounds drift out from open windows and doorways above—female voices raised in laughter, plucked zither music, lilting and beautiful.

We stop beside a servants’ entrance built into the side of a grand-looking house. The General pulls a rope, sounding a bell.

A few seconds later the door flies open. Light spills into the alley. A young girl of ten or eleven blinks out at us. She has a gentle, moonlike face and round doe eyes, her hair pulled messily back into a lopsided bun. Loose strands unwind around her long, fluted ears. They are the only part of her that suggests she’s not Paper; she’s a deer-form—Steel, but barely. Lantern light glides across her smooth human skin, a mirror of mine, and an immediate sense of kinship rushes through me. After days in the sole company of demons, I want to hug her, press her soft, bare cheek to mine.

“Oh!” she cries, dropping to the floor in a low bow. “General Yu!”

He barely looks at her. “Fetch Mistress Eira,” he commands.

The girl bounces to her feet at once, scuttling back inside the house. Her bun of hair bobs like a doe’s stubbed tail, as though trying to help her appear more demon than she is.

I peer after her. Past the doorway, a flight of stairs leads up to a lantern-lit corridor. Voices float down from the rooms beyond, and the air is warm, tea-scented. There’s something so welcoming about the house that for a second it’s easy to imagine myself walking inside to find Tien and Baba and Bao. The pain is so sharp then that I have to dig my fingernails into my palms just to feel something else.

This is not my home.

Nowhere else ever will be.

We’ve only been waiting a few minutes before the young girl reappears at the top of the steps, this time with a tall woman at her side.

“Thank you, Lill,” the woman says, and the girl scurries off.

The Paper woman turns to us. There’s a pause as her eyes settle on me, and then she begins to make her way down the staircase. She moves impossibly lightly, a grace even to how she holds the hem of her plum-colored silk robes—the most exquisite I have seen in my life. They drape round her slim form effortlessly, pattered with silver embroidery and held together at her waist by a wide band of fabric. It’s this that jolts my memory to Tien showing me drawings one of our customers once gifted her. The illustrations reflected the styles of women’s clothing favored by the central provinces. If I’m remembering correctly, these types of robes are a specific style of hanfu originally worn by the aristocracy of northeastern Shomu.

At the bottom of the stairs, she bows. “General Yu.” She stays just beyond the doorway, under the shelter of the house. Her jet-black eyes shine with intelligence, and a serene smile touches her lips. Instincts tell me that this woman was once a Paper Girl herself. Though she looks in her early forties, the bronzed skin stretched over her high cheekbones is as smooth and poreless as a young girl’s.

The General inclines his head. “Mistress Eira. I apologize for coming to Women’s Court and disturbing you without forewarning. But this matter couldn’t wait.” He pushes me forward. “May I present Lei-zhi.”