Page 54 of The Blood Orchid

Zheng Sili frowned, stepping around me to examine the man more closely. “No alchemy rings,” he said. He grabbed one of theman’s hands, running his fingers over the smooth skin. He knew as well as I did that alchemists usually had calloused palms and broken nails from our transformations. “He doesn’t look like an alchemist. He looks like a student who snuck away from his studies.”

“I’m not an alchemist!” he said. “And my father can give you more if this isn’t enough! Whatever you want!”

“We’re not mugging you,” I said.

“Unless you lie to us,” Zheng Sili added. “We’re not people you want to lie to.” Then he turned to me expectantly. “Hùnxie?”

I blinked. “What?”

“Show him,” he repeated. “Go on.” When I didn’t move, he rolled his eyes and switched to Guangzhou dialect. “Go beat some answers out of him.”

“We don’t even know if he’s the Arcane Alchemist,” I said. “And why do I have to do it?”

“Isn’t this how peasants solve problems?” he said. “By knocking each other’s teeth out?”

“And what do the rich do instead?” I said, clenching my fists. “Bludgeon each other with their massive bags of gold?”

“We’re wasting time,” Wenshu said from behind us, arms crossed. “If you don’t think it’s him, we need to get back inside before anyone else in blue leaves.”

I sighed, sheathing my knife with more force than necessary. Surely there were many men who fit the hasty description in my note, and this clearly wasn’t the one. The man looked between us as we released him.

“You’re really not mugging me?” he said.

“Just go,” I said, massaging my forehead. What a waste of time. No wonder the Empress was taking over whole towns—we were never going to find her alchemist at this rate.

“Unbelievable,” Zheng Sili said, crossing his arms. I didn’t know if he was more frustrated with me or the man we’d almost mugged, but I didn’t care.

The man bowed awkwardly, then turned and rushed off.

The Arcane Alchemist had probably left before we returned to the pub. He could be anywhere in Zhongwei by now, or maybe he’d even fled to another city. Just like with the Sandstone Alchemist, I’d rushed into meeting someone powerful without fully thinking it through and been woefully unprepared. I could almost picture the Moon Alchemist shaking her head in disappointment. I clenched my teeth against the sudden urge to cry, even though I would rather have eaten sand than cry in front of Zheng Sili. But as the cool winds of the north tore through my silk robes, I remembered once more how far I was from home, chasing after a myth, with nothing at all to show for it. What was I even doing here?

“If there’s anyone else you want to interrogate, do it now,” Wenshu said. “He seems the type to call the police.”

“Right,” I said, the word clipped so he wouldn’t hear any sadness in my voice. The man was almost gone now, hurrying back to the street. A breeze descended from the mouth of the alley and gently nudged his hair over his shoulder.

There, on the back of his collar, a copper hairpin glinted in the moonlight.

I pressed a hand to the right side of my head, where my hair clip had disappeared that afternoon around the same time the compass had broken. As expected, my hair hung loose, the clip gone.

My hand fell to my side, my gaze locked on the man as he turned to look over his shoulder one last time. Our eyes met, and all at once, I remembered.

Zheng Sili’s compass pointing straight toward the entrance of the pub.

A man in blue silk bursting outside.

Eyes like shooting stars, face as soft and white as a lily, a wicked pearl smile.

A swift argument, then Zheng Sili’s compass crushed beneath his boot.

See you never, Scarlet, he’d said, waving goodbye, heading back into the pub.

But before he’d disappeared, I’d slipped one of my hairpins onto his clothes, praying we’d stand a chance at finding him again.

And it might not have worked, if I’d actually been an aristocrat from Chang’an—the rich wore gold hairpins, the same ones that held up this man’s hair. Seeing one on the back of his clothes might not have meant a thing.

But I had always worn copper hairpins made from Wenshu’s old scroll clips, ever since I’d used one to stab Zheng Sili at my first alchemy trial.

I was running before I even realized what I was doing, yanking the man back by the collar. I gripped him with one hand and unsheathed my knife with my teeth, then pressed the blade to his throat.