Sensei Madame Liao doesn’t reply.
When we reach my dormitory chamber, she accompanies me inside and slides the shoji door closed.
“Chen Peasprout,” she says slowly. “The steps of an honorable person lead through walls; the steps of a dishonorable person become a prison.”
She makes a hollow fist and strikes me in the five essential meridian points.
The Dian Mai.
My own body has become a prison.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
The flakes float upward like snow cascading in reverse.
The pearl in the courtyard of the girls’ dormitory has been shedding flakes for days, lifted by the gaseous substances issuing from the pearl now that it is the Season of Drifts.
It must be distracting to do wu liu in these drifts.
The birds must not like them, either. I wonder if they have to write their headlines differently to compensate. I hear them crying as they must do two headlines a day now to keep up with the news. I could see them if I stood in the center of the courtyard.
But that would require me to take more than five steps outside of my dormitory chamber.
Today, two girls skating down the hall stop as they hear the birds. They stand in the courtyard and read aloud what they see in the sky.
“Mutilated. Hostage. Sent. Back. By. Empress. Dowager. Tells. Of. Mysterious. Third. Skater. Sent. In. Failed. Plot. To. Free. Them. Buy. Pearl. Shining. Sun. News. To. Get. Whole. Story.”
I should be paying attention to this because it could be true and it could affect me. The newspaper was right about the Empress Dowager binding her hostage’s feet, after all. Who is this third skater? Did the Empress Dowager capture him or her?
However, I can’t summon the energy to care. Exhaustion pours through me. I close my shoji and crawl back to my futon.
My body feels torn. I’ve never been more depleted in my life. I’ve never been more agitated. At some point, I just go numb. I scoop my spirit and set it in a bowl floating beside my body.
* * *
Look at that girl, kneeling on her futon for the last five days so that she doesn’t accidentally take five steps. Trapped in a space that any baby could cross.
She once said that she is the smartest, most capable person she knows.
She’s been wrong about so many things and so many people.
But she was right about some things and some people.
If she can’t keep her brother safe, no one can.
If she can’t save herself, no one can.
And she is truly on her own.
In the evening, there is a knock on my shoji. I collect my used dishes and chamber pot and bowl of bathing water for one of the Shinian servant girls to clear. None of them ever speaks to me. I keep wondering if one of them is the girl who tried to teach me how to eat the Cave of Jade during the Osmanthus Banquet, whom I was so cold to. However, I never got a good look at her face. Every servant girl who comes in could be that girl, could spit in the food she brings me.
“Enter,” I say.
It’s not the Shinian servant girl.
Hisashi skates in. He kneels in front of me.
“They said you could have visitors now.”
I don’t say anything.
“Do you want me to leave?”
I say nothing.
“I blame myself. I should have tried harder to convince you not to—”
The emotions I’ve been holding away begin slamming into my stomach again. I can feel the shape of their fists as if they’re screaming their names with every punch to make sure that I never forget them.
I double over. “Just … go.”
Some time later, there is another knock on my shoji.
When I do not answer, the door slides open slowly.
It’s Doi.
She does not kneel down to me.
“Stand up,” she says.
I don’t look at her.
“Peasprout. Stand. Up.”
I’m so weary.
“Peasprout, don’t you see?” She comes closer and kneels next to me. “This is the best thing that could have happened. If there’s another attack while you’re imprisoned in the Dian Mai, you’ll be proven innocent.”
She’s right. If I weren’t so weary, I might have thought of this. I get up. I make sure to plant my socks firmly on the pearl and not move them so as not to take any steps.
“How do we know that another one’s going to happen?” I ask. “Why would Suki do that when she knows I’m trapped in here? She’s already won.”
“Forget about Suki! Every mistake you’ve made this whole year has been because you were focused on Suki. Focus on your own safety.”
“What does it matter anymore?”
“Then focus on Cricket’s safety.”
At the sound of his name, I straighten up. Doi is right. I don’t have the luxury to feel discouraged. They could still charge Cricket as an accomplice. His safety depends on my finding out who the true criminal is. “All right. I have noticed a pattern. The attacks always happen at the site of the boys’ Motivations. The night before they’re to take place. Doi, what if someone wants to prevent the boys’ Motivations from proceeding?”
I look to see if Doi shares my excitement about this revelation. She looks as if she’s so intensely bored that her heart might stop beating.
“That’s silly. Why would anyone want to do that? New Deitsu just repairs the damage and the boys’ Motivation goes forward in a day or two.”
“That’s true. Well, it doesn’t matter anyway because I can’t wait until the sixth Motivation. The tribunal of Chiologists is going to hold my trial in two days.”
“Maybe another attack will happen sooner. Don’t worry about that. Just stay here. That’s the best thing you can do for yourself and Cricket.”
“But I can’t count on another attack happening! And without that, I don’t have any evidence to disprove the Chairman’s interpretation of Chingu’s oracle! And even if another attack happens
