THE NEXT DAY, Ji cleaned encrusted pots and greasy pans until lunchtime. He was elbow deep in a casserole dish when the kitchen maid curtsied, and Brace stepped inside.
He seemed different, though Ji couldn’t figure out exactly how. Maybe he looked a little taller, or older? His eyes were still blue, though, his face was still long, his shoulders were still bony. Maybe he was just standing straighter.
Ji bowed his head. “My lord.”
“Miss Roz told me that you’d like to sleep in the attic.”
“Me and Sally,” Ji said.
“I discussed your request with Proctor.” Brace strolled closer, running a gloved finger along a countertop. “He told me to decide, and I chose to allow it.”
“Did Roz, uh, ask about anything else?” Ji said, wondering if she’d mentioned Chibo. “My lord?”
“Is that all you have to say?” Brace asked.
Ji dried his hands on a cloth. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Truly?” Brace cocked an eyebrow just like Baroness Primstone. “Nothing else?”
“Well, I’ve got plenty of other questions, if that’s what you mean. Like, for example, are ant lions actually part lion? Why is it called Mirror Lake? And what—”
“I meant,” Brace cut in, “is there anything you have to say, considering that I’m allowing you and Sally to sleep in the attic?”
Ji scratched his cheek and pretended to think. He knew what Brace wanted: his groveling thanks. And maybe he should just grovel . . . except he liked Brace too much to kiss his butt. So instead he said, “Nah, I don’t care which room I get.”
“I’m not talking about rooms! A servant with better manners might thank me, you know.”
Ji bowed his head deeply. “Yes, my lord. I am so very grateful for your kindness, my lord. You are as caring and wise as Baroness Primstone, my lord.”
Brace scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, my lord,” Ji said innocently. He needed Brace to help him, but he also wanted to help Brace—to remind him that he wasn’t like Nosey and Pickle. He was better than them.
After a tense moment, Brace’s scowl turned to a thoughtful frown. He glanced at the kitchen maid, then murmured to Ji, “Let’s go outside.”
Ji tossed the cloth into the sink and followed Brace into the kitchen garden, a patch of earth where Cook grew ginger and cilantro and chilies. A handful of edible flower bushes bloomed on the border, and bees buzzed from blossom to blossom.
“I guess I’m a little worn out,” Brace said, plucking a leaf from a passionflower trellis.
“You’re working hard,” Ji said.
“Yeah, all this studying and sparring is backbreaking. . . .” Brace grinned, looking more like his old self. “But amazing. I’m learning things I’d never even imagined. It’s exhausting, though, and it never stops.”
You’re probably working almost as hard as a servant, Ji didn’t say. “Long hours, m’lord?”
“Late nights, early mornings . . . and I never, uh, got a chance to thank you.” Brace tossed the leaf into the garden. “For what you did. At the bone crypt.”
“I’m happy to serve, my lord,” Ji said.
“You should be!” Brace nudged Ji with his shoulder. “Anyway, thanks.”
Ji didn’t push his luck by saying you’re welcome, but he liked that Brace had thanked him. Most nobles wouldn’t have even thought of thanking a servant. And they never would’ve nudged him like that—like a friend. So even after he’d been studying with Proctor, there was still a lot of Brace left.
A bee buzzed past, and Ji smiled, remembering the afternoon he and Brace had spent eating honey bread and arguing about the big questions. Like, who’d win in a fight, a spearman or a swordsman? Which was stronger, an ogre or a bugbear?
“So Proctor’s teaching you to fight, huh?” he asked.
Brace nodded, his eyes dancing with eagerness. “It’s better than I ever dreamed! And swordplay’s only a tiny part of it. Proctor’s amazing. He knows everything about politics, tactics, and power.”
“Yeah?”
“Power is a tool, Ji, like an anvil or a loom or a, a—” Brace looked around the garden. “A watering can! Just having it isn’t enough. You need to be trained in its use.”
You didn’t actually need to be trained in the use of a watering can, but Ji decided not to mention that. “I bet he’s good with a throwing dagger, too.”
Brace frowned. “What?”
“Er, nothing.” Ji tried not to think about Butler. “Thanks for letting us sleep in the attic.”
“Happy to help!” Brace said, with a chuckle he’d obviously copied from Proctor. “Oh, and Roz did say something about Sally’s brother. Um, apparently he’s not happy with his job?”
“He’s spending twelve hours a day at a loom. I bet he’s a tiny bit gloomy.”
“Well, Proctor says that the finest tapestries are worth any sacrifice. They bind the realm together, you know. Have you ever seen a true tapestry?”
“A magic one, with pictures that move?” Ji shook his head. “Nah.”
“In the Forbidden Palace, there are dozens of them,” Brace said, his blue eyes glinting. “They show the rise of the first queen, and when the terra-cotta warriors slaughtered the ogre nation. Then there’s the enslavement of the goblins. . . .”
Ji nodded along without listening. Tonight was the night. He’d climb the wall and sneak through the streets. He’d slip into windows and creep through mansions, dodging servants and guards. His heart pounded with excitement—and fear.
That evening, after scrubbing dueling boots and riding boots and walking boots, Ji headed to the attic instead of his pallet, rubbing a painful knot in his shoulder. He’d never cleaned dueling boots before, and the laces took an hour. He hoped that nobles would choose a wiser, kinder method of resolving arguments in the future.
Or that they’d start dueling barefoot.
Two lanterns glowed in the attic’s main room, and a bouquet of scraggly flowers tilted in a mug on a table. Sticks of incense sprouted from a copper burner, and Roz curled in a chair with a book, wearing a cheerful yellow frock.
“What do you think?” Sally asked Ji, grabbing a bottle of rice milk from a bench. “Better than the stables!”
Ji smiled. “It’s better than the kitchen, too.”
“It’s almost a barracks,” Sally said. “If you kind of squint.”
“There is no way in which this looks like a barracks,” Roz said, gently closing the book. “There are no bunks, there is no armory. There isn’t a single soldier.”
“There would be if someone gave me a sword,” Sally said.
“You’re not a soldier,” Ji told her.
“You’re not even a little drummer girl,” Roz said.
“And it’s more like a picnic than a barracks,” Ji said.
Roz blinked at him. “A picnic? Did a load of boots fall on your head?”
“Nope, but I stole these!” Ji pulled a stack of tortillas from under his shirt. “Instant picnic.”
“Tortillas!” Sally grabbed one from his hand. “They’re still warm.”
“Of course they’re warm,” Roz said, with a shudder. “Did you not see where he was carrying them? In his actual armpit.”
“Soldiers can’t be choosers,” Sally told her, and tore into the tortilla.
Roz read a few pages of Ti-Lin-Su’s sonnets while they ate. Ji didn’t understand a single line, but that didn’t matter; he liked Roz’s voice, and the way she read the words. When they finished dinner, she looked at Ji and said, “When are you leaving?”
“Middle of the night. And while I’m stealing stuff, you find out where the tapestry factory is.”
“How? The maps aren’t helping.”
“I don’t know,” he told her. “Use that big brain of yours.”
“What about me?” Sally asked.
“Use your less-big brain.”
“Jerk.” She threw a cushion at him. “I mean, how can I help? You want me to come along tonight?”
“You can’t steal things, Sal.”
“I could for Chibo.”
“And if the guards catch you, you’ll confess. It’s easier if it’s just me.”
Sally frowned at him, her gaze thoughtful. “What aren’t you telling me?” She looked to Roz. “What isn’t he saying?”
“That if he gets caught,” Roz said, “he wants you to stay free, to help Chibo.”
“Oh.”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” Ji lied. “I was thinking that I need to do this. I need to prove that I’m not worthless.”
“Sally and I already know that,” Roz told him. “So who, exactly, are you trying to convince?”
“Oh, shut up,” he grumbled. “And read another sonnet.”
Three crescent moons were shining when Ji crept to the stables for a length of rope. He wished he could leave through the front gate, but the coachman lived in the carriage house and he’d investigate any suspicious sounds.
Ji crossed to the kitchen garden. He climbed a passionflower trellis beside the spike-studded stone wall that surrounded Proctor’s property. A grassy scent rose when his sandals crushed the vines. He tied the rope to the top of the trellis, then clambered onto the wall. He almost fell but caught himself with a lunge, scraping his shin. He checked for blood, then lowered himself down the rope on the other side of the wall.
He stepped on a steep slope—and slipped on the wet grass.
His yelp echoed across the canal. He grabbed the rope, barely staying on his feet. Five feet below him, the water rushed past, black as an ogre’s heart. When his pulse stopped pounding, he sidled carefully along the slope to a narrow footbridge.
He climbed the railing and looked toward the glowing lanterns outside Proctor’s town house. He’d made it!
He slouched away, past ornate gates and lavish lawns, and beneath a gargoyle in a flapping purple cloak that seemed to watch him from a rooftop.
On the next block, two gentlemen strolled along, swinging canes. Then came a lady wearing a pointy hat, followed by two maids wearing shorter versions of the same hat. If Ji had been twice as big, he would’ve mugged them. Sure, and if he pooped diamonds, he wouldn’t have needed to.
He strolled past mansions and shrines, memorizing landmarks and scanning for open windows. That was why he spotted the gargoyle in the flapping cloak again. Except it wasn’t a gargoyle: it was a person, running across the rooftops.
“Either someone really hates sidewalks, or . . .” Ji swallowed. “Or that’s a thief.”
Craning his neck, Ji followed the fluttering cloak around a corner. Because he needed a thief. Maybe this rooftop bandit would help him steal stuff . . . or lead him to a stash of loot.
He jogged along a canal, tracking the flashes of movement above. He stopped eight blocks later, panting, outside a town house with hibiscus flower banners. He didn’t see anything on the roofs other than chimneys. He’d lost the thief.
“Stupid sidewalk hater,” he grumbled.
He climbed a flight of stairs and crossed a park . . . and a crew of goblins loped across the street in front of him. They woofled and hunched, their knees bending the wrong direction. Ji’s stomach twisted. They looked so wrong. Nonhuman and beaver faced. He ignored them, until one goblin pointed at him with a belly-arm.
Ji’s nerve broke. He raced away and didn’t stop until he reached the attic.
Maybe slinking around at night wasn’t the best idea. Everything was locked and the streets were quiet—plus the idea of breaking a window or squeezing under a gate terrified him. Almost as much as goblins.
Except he’d promised Sally that he’d save Chibo. And he needed to replace all the loot he’d lost at Primstone. So he kept climbing the wall . . . until the night the city guard caught him.