She’s right. I can’t be caught outside of the Dian Mai. I let go of the wig and we race back to the girls’ dormitory.
When we skate into the central courtyard of the girls’ dormitory, Sensei Madame Yao is standing there, waiting for us. Her muscles bulge through her little night undershirt. Suki stands next to Sensei, holding the cord of the alarm. The House of Flowering Blossoms girls flank her in formation, shoulder to shoulder, all of them in their night-robes, with their hair clamped in wooden straightening paddles. Suki stands next to Sensei, holding the cord of the alarm.
Sensei Madame Yao skates to Doi and me. She reaches into the sacks that we have slung around our shoulders and pulls out the balls of salt. For the first time I have ever seen, she smiles.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
First, Sensei Madame Yao brings us to Supreme Sensei Master Jio’s chambers, then the two of them take us to a tower I have never been inside along the edge of the Principal Island. Doi and I are placed in a round chamber at the top of the tower.
Sensei Madame Yao commands, “Kneel on the pearl. Do not speak to each other. Speak into this if you have a confession to make about your crimes.” She places a letter orb on the pearl between us. “Or about each other’s crimes.” She exits.
Supreme Sensei Master Jio looks at us with his hands folded up in his sleeves. I expect him to spout some useless, shaming nonsense. Instead, he says, “This hurts me, my little embryos. You have done something so extreme. People do not do something so extreme unless they are really suffering. My heart hurts because I failed to help you through that. I failed even to see that. I apologize.” He bows to us.
And I thought he was a fool.
He leaves, closing the shoji.
“You owe me some answers,” I say. “Start talking now, or I’ll tell the senseis everything.”
“I didn’t want you to get involved. I was trying to protect you.”
“Do you even have a brother named Hisashi?”
“Yes. But he’s in Shin.”
Chingu’s oracle was correct after all. We just interpreted it incorrectly. If Doi’s brother is in Shin, then the criminal responsible for attacking the buildings is not me, the sister of the boy from Shin. The criminal is Doi, the sister of the boy in Shin.
“Why isn’t he here?”
“Hisashi went to try to bring back the New Deitsu skaters. He pretended to be a third wu liu skater from Pearl Famous. He brought some of the pearl to create a skating court for them to perform on for the Empress Dowager. They were going to invite her to sit in the place of honor, in a little structure in the center of the court.”
“Just like Lim Tian-Tai got the eunuch Mu Haichen to do,” I say.
“Yes. Once the Empress Dowager stepped in it, Hisashi would trap her and threaten to shrink her into a trinket unless she gave him and the New Deitsu skaters safe passage out of Shin. My task was to stay here and pretend to be both of us so that nobody would know he wasn’t at Pearl Famous. But the Empress Dowager wouldn’t step into the little structure.”
“How did you know what he was doing in Shin?” I ask, but then I realize I already know the answer. “You were communicating through the Chi pulse messages.”
“Yes.”
Someone comes skating up the ramp to our chamber at the top of the tower. The shoji door is unbolted and flung open so hard that the entire chamber shudders with the force. Chairman Niu’s silhouette towers like a monster in a shadow-puppet play. He sees me, hisses, and grabs a fistful of my robe. He hauls me up so forcefully that both my skates leave the pearl for an instant.
“Let me go!” I pull my arm back to deliver a three-fingered gouging phoenix strike at his face.
“Don’t hurt him!” Doi cries. Her arm shoots out at my head, but her fist stops short of my ear.
How dare she! I launch my other fist at her and stop just short of the Chi spot between her eyes.
The three of us stand there locked in this ridiculous triangle, our arms unmoving, all of us darting our eyes from one person to the other.
Finally, the Chairman releases his fist from my robe with a shove of his palm. I drop my arms only when Doi drops hers.
“I’m innocent,” I tell him. “You have no right to detain me here.”
“I owe you an apology, Father,” Doi says. “Hisashi and I were just trying to help you. But I was careless, and I got caught.”
The Chairman’s head whips toward Doi when he hears Hisashi’s name. “What does your brother have to do with this?” He turns to me. “Did you drag him into the Empress Dowager’s plans?”
I open my mouth to tell him the truth, but I pause. Doi came up with this plan that could have gotten me imprisoned. But she also convinced her father to let me consult Chingu. When she knew that Chingu would name her. She couldn’t have counted on the oracle being misinterpreted. She risked herself for me.
I fall silent. I can’t tell the Chairman that Doi was responsible for all of this. It has to be her decision to do so.
“You Shinian snake,” the Chairman spits, reaching for me.
“No, Father!” Doi says, shifting in front of me. “I’m the one who’s been attacking the structures.”
The Chairman stares at her. When it comes out, it’s almost a bellow. “Why?”
“The boys’ Motivations were at the same time as the girls’. I couldn’t be in two places at the same time, so I had to find a way to delay the boys’ Motivations.”
“Two plac— Where is Hisashi?”
“He’s in Shin. That’s why I had to pretend to be both of us. So no one would know about our plan.”
“What plan?” he
