Page 23 of The Blood Orchid

He shook his head. “Postal couriers will open soon,” he said. “I need to write to Yufei. If the Empress has returned, she definitely wants her body back.”

“You don’t think my wards will keep her out of the palace?” I said.

Wenshu shook his head. “I think Yufei will go out on a midnight snack run unless she knows her life is on the line.”

To that, I had no argument. I sat back as Wenshu unfurled the paper, knowing he wouldn’t talk to me while writing at the same time. He was so proud of his precise penmanship.

Durian waddled closer to me, pecking at my leg. I tried to scoop him up, but he dodged my hands and waddled away, quacking. Beneath the blankets, something gold shimmered. I crawled forward and pulled the covers back.

Three golden eggs sat beside the pillow.

I picked one up, turning it over in my palm. It was oddly heavy, like it was made with solid gold.

“Gege?” I said, holding one up to the light.

“A little busy,” he said, swirling ink powder together with water from his satchel.

“I think Durian laid eggs,” I said.

Wenshu frowned, turning around. “I thought Durian was a boy?” he said, jamming his brush at Durian accusingly.

“So did I,” I said, setting Durian down and turning the egg over in my hands. I shook it gently, but I couldn’t hear anything inside.

“So your demon duck laid golden eggs,” Wenshu said, picking up another one and holding it up to his candle. “Great. What do you think is inside? Dynamite?”

“He’s not a demon,” I said, frowning.

“He’s not ahe,” Wenshu said, glaring at me before turning back to the egg. “I wonder if we can sell these.”

“No! What if more alchemy ducks are inside?”

“They’re not fertilized eggs,” Wenshu said slowly. “That duck lives in your bag. Where do you think it found a boyfriend?”

“I know that!” I said, snatching the egg from him. “I’m just saying, Durian isn’t a regular duck. Stranger things have happened because of alchemy.”

It was probably a good idea to get rid of the eggs, one way or another. Durian was born from alchemy, life created where there was none.You cannot create good without also creating evilwas alchemy’s principal rule. And yet, I’d created a seemingly normal duck that hadn’t shown a single sign of evil... yet. There was no way these eggs could be a good thing.

I thought of the prince, how he would have insisted we keep the eggs on the slim chance that there were baby ducks inside. I imagined him tethered to the tree, the distant look in his eyes.

“Let’s keep them,” I said. “Maybe we can eat them or something?” I added, even though I had no intention of trying that, but maybe it would convince Wenshu not to sell them.

“You want to eat something that came out of a demonduck?” Wenshu said, raising an eyebrow. “Whatever you want, Zilan. Just remember there won’t be anyone around who can resurrect you.”

He turned back to his letter, so I wrapped two of the eggs in my extra undershirt and set them beside my bag. There wasn’t any more fabric to spare, so I slipped the third into the hidden pocket of my skirt, the kind Auntie So had taught me and Yufei to sew into our clothes in case we were robbed. It was hard to see the pocket among the folds of fabric unless you knew it was there.

Durian hopped down from my arms, burrowing into my bag.

“Don’t let it poop on the Sandstone Alchemist’s papers,” Wenshu said without looking up.

I rolled my eyes, dragging the bag closer to me by the strap, and pulled the papers out, Durian seated comfortably on top of them. I set him down on the bed and unfurled the paper with the transformation, running my fingers over the line that was no longer a mystery.

But what good does that do me if I don’t even know what the transformation does?I thought, leaning against the wall and thunking my head back, glaring accusingly at the cracks in the ceiling.

I’d tried to prove to the Sandstone Alchemist that I wasn’t an ignorant child, and yet I’d crawled from his home half alive with a bunch of useless scrap paper to show for it.

You two could never find Penglai Island with only a map, he’d said. And he was probably right. What had we even achieved besides accidentally killing an entire palace full of alchemists and servants, all to defeat an empress who apparently didn’t see death as an obstacle? His taunt echoed again and again in my mind, his jagged words cutting deeper each time because I knew they were true.

But the more I replayed his words, the less sense they made.