AFTER JI FINISHED cleaning the boots, he packed them in his boot bag and slunk through the scullery—and a bony hand grabbed his neck.
“Hey!” he said, trying to pull away. “You chuckle-knuckle!”
The hand pinched harder. “What did you call me, boy?” Butler’s voice rasped from behind him.
“Oh,” Ji mumbled. “Sorry.”
“Leave the clean boots outside the guests’ rooms, you laggard, then get to sleep.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do!”
“And none of your lip,” Butler snapped. “You have a big day coming.”
Ji lowered his head to hide his glare. “Yes, Butler.”
“Help the kitchen maids before you start the boots tomorrow.”
“Yes, Butler.”
“And wash your face!” Butler grabbed Ji’s hair in one hand and scoured his cheek with a rough cloth. “You’re filthy.”
Butler’s breath smelled like pickled eels. His nostrils flared and his fist tightened in Ji’s hair. Tears sprang to Ji’s eyes, but he clamped his teeth and didn’t make a sound.
“That’s not dirt,” Butler said, releasing him. “That’s just you. Get moving! Lazy mutt.”
Ji wiped his eyes and trudged toward the fourth floor, where poor relations and unwanted guests stayed. Stupid Butler. He rubbed his stinging cheek, exhaustion weighing him down like a pair of punishment shoes. He usually only worked twelve hours a day, but with this house party, it was more like sixteen. There were endless boots, and instead of doing laundry twice a month, they did it twice a week.
When he reached the fourth floor, he passed a painting of the long-dead Summer King. His Majesty stood above a crowd of half-human beasts with curved tusks and weird wings who knelt to serve him, monstrous heads bowed.
Ji considered the picture. Maybe Butler knocked him around a bit, but at least he didn’t have tentacles. On the other hand, imagine how easy boot cleaning would be with a few tentacles.
His mood a little lighter, Ji tapped on a plain door at the end of the hall. A shuffling sounded and the dead bolt rattled, like the person inside was checking that it was locked.
“Master Brace?” Ji said, softly. “It’s me, Jiyong.”
“Ji?” Brace asked, a hitch in his voice.
“Yeah,” Ji said. “I mean, yes, my lord.”
“Are you alone? Is anyone else there?”
“Just me.”
The bolt rattled again and the door opened an inch. One of Brace’s blue eyes appeared, and he scanned the hallway behind Ji.
“Come in!” he blurted, when he didn’t spot any threats. “Quickly.”
Ji slipped inside. Compared to the chimney, Brace’s bedroom was airy and luxurious, with a bed, a dresser, and even a window. But for a member of a noble family, it was cramped and dingy.
Brace locked the door behind Ji. “Whew.”
“Are the twins picking on you again?” Ji asked.
“None of your business!” Brace snapped.
“Sorry, m’lord,” Ji said, bowing his head. Because showing disrespect to your betters could get you whipped.
Brace chewed his knuckle and probably would’ve said sorry, if nobles were allowed to apologize to servants. Instead he just stood there, nervous as a newborn colt on a frozen pond. His long face, sharp chin, and bony shoulders looked horsey, too—but for some reason, the chambermaids all thought he was handsome.
“Um . . .” Brace gestured toward his bed. “I’m fighting the Siege of Mount Atra.”
Which was as close as he could come to apologizing to a servant. Ji eyed the bed, where toy knights and soldiers were positioned on blanket-mound hillsides, surrounding a few strips of leather that represented ogres.
“Looks like you won,” he told Brace, which was as close as he could come to saying apology accepted.
“Nah,” Brace said. “I can’t take the caves.”
Ji frowned at the toy battle. “What caves?”
“They’re underground.” Brace lifted a blanket to reveal more strips of leather. “I can’t flush them out.”
“Send your troops after them.”
“I tried that. I don’t mind sacrificing knights as long as I win. But I lost them all for nothing.”
Ji considered the bed. “The mountains are snowy, right? What if your guys melt the snow and flood the caves?”
“Huh.” Brace’s eyes gleamed. “That might actually work.”
Ji used to sneak into Brace’s room every few days, to reenact skirmishes with him, using toy soldiers. Mostly for fun, but also because he felt sorry for Brace. Which was stupid. A boot boy feeling sorry for a noble was like an earthworm feeling sorry for a hawk. Still, Brace was so scrawny and meek that Ji felt like he needed to stick up for him—and befriend him, as much as a servant could.
Plus, Ji liked playing strategy games and reenacting battles.
They’d almost become actual friends, until Butler caught Ji slinking into Brace’s room. Nobody cared that he’d been invited: Butler belted him for not knowing his place. Brace didn’t get off unpunished, either. Baron Primstone had given his favorite horse, the only thing his parents had left him, to the twins. And in the past two months, Brace had been afraid to even look at Ji.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Brace said, probably remembering his lost horse.
“If anyone asks, I just came for these.” Ji grabbed a pair of boots from the floor. “So, uh, do you know Proctor?”
“I’ve met him,” Brace said. “He’s the reason for all these guests.”
“He is?”
“Yeah, they’re having a party so nobody will realize that Proctor’s here on palace business. A proctor is a sort of fancy teacher. I guess he came for the twins. Everyone wants their kids to be taught by a proctor instead of an ordinary tutor. That’s how you get closer to the queen.”
“He didn’t come for the twins,” Ji told Brace. “He came for you.”
Brace gaped at him. “For me? No way.”
“I heard the whole thing!”
Suspicion flickered in Brace’s eyes. “Did the twins tell you to say that, just so they can laugh at me for believing it?”
“Do you really think I’d do that?” Ji asked.
“Well . . . no.” A gleam of hope replaced Brace’s suspicion. “So it’s true?”
“Yep. I heard Proctor talking to the baroness.”
“Whoa. He’s going to train me? Why?”
“Uh, for the ‘deedledum’? I’m not really sure.”
“Who cares?” A smile curled at Brace’s mouth. “Taught by a real proctor! I’ll learn sword fighting and strategy and everything!”
“He wants to take you to the city, too.”
“No way!”
“There’s only one problem.”
Brace’s smile froze. “What? What problem?”
“The baroness won’t let you go while the desert lotus vine’s still blooming in the mausoleum.”
“That dumb flower never brought me any luck.”
Ji cleared his throat. “Um, there’s one solution.”
“What?”
“Sneak into the mausoleum and kill the flower.”
Brace paled. “The mausoleum?”
“Yeah.”
“By myself? Are you coming?”
“I can’t! They’d hang me.” Ji swallowed. “They’ll hang any commoner they catch trespassing. Maybe the twins will go with you?”
“They’d rather throw me down a well!” Brace looked like he wanted to cry. “Lady Posey says they’re going to lock me on the roof again.”
Ji winced. A few months earlier, the twins had shoved Brace onto the roof after his bath. He’d been stuck there for hours before a chambermaid spotted him, naked and shivering. And a week later, they’d poured a barrel of lard over his head and shoved him onto a hill of ant lions.
“You’ll have to convince them,” Ji told him. “Or sneak through the bone crypt alone.”
At the words “bone crypt,” a sense of danger shivered in the air. Danger and dread, like that moment after a glass bowl topples off a shelf but before it hits the ground.