Page 54 of Song of the Crimson Flower

“Vy’s people have transferred the bulk of the drugs and the blood they’ve collected there. They also brought out roots and seeds and pods, anything to ensure they can keep growing the plants long after this battle. It is the Gray City’s ultimate protection.”

Lady Yen looked from Lan to the witch, her breath coming fast. “Wei needs to be told about this at once. He’ll be wasting his resources trying to breach the wall when they should be out at sea, attacking the ships. We can’t let her win.”

“We need to get out of this cell,” Lan agreed, newly formed panic rising in her throat. “If Vy is willing to bleed and imprison her own sister, what is she going to do to Bao?”

Huong shrugged. “If he refuses to help her, then she’s going to keep him from seeing me. Not that I can do anything about the spell, but neither of them know that.”

“What?” Lan demanded. “You created the enchantment. Of course you can break it!”

“I’m the only one in my family who doesn’t want to destroy humanity. I also happen to be the only one with powerful magic, and any spell I cast is permanent, no matter how much I want to undo it. I’m sorry, young woman,” Huong added, and she sounded genuinely regretful, “but I cannot help you.”

“But what about Vy?” Lan asked desperately. “She seems to love Bao. At least, he thinks she does.” But even as she spoke, she knew they could not rely on Bao’s ruthless mother. And even if the womandidhave the power and inclination to keep him alive, she might use him as abominably as she had used her own sister. Lan sank to the floor. The revolting smell grew stronger, but she barely noticed. “Therehasto be a way. We can’t have traveled all this way for nothing.”

Lady Yen put a hand on Lan’s shoulder and glowered at the witch.“Why are you trapped in here if your magic is as powerful as you say? Can’t you enchant your way out?”

“You may have noticed that I didn’t rise to welcome you,” Huong said sarcastically. “This cell is lined with iron, which blocks magic and weakens anyone whose veins carry it. Even if she had left the door up there wide open, I would still be too weak to leave.”

Lan bent her head, trying to think, but it felt hopeless. She was locked in a dungeon with a useless witch while Bao was out there, being coerced into helping his murderous mother. And when the moon rose tomorrow night, he might be trapped inside the flute forever. She would never see him again, and he would never know what he had come to mean to her.

She felt both women’s eyes on her and kept her head down so she wouldn’t have to see their pity. As she shifted, something creaked on the ground, and she ran her hands over what felt like a metal grate. It was wet and slimy, and the awful smell was emanating from it.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Huong said, amused. “That’s the opening to the sewer. You may have noticed the absence of a chamber pot in here...”

“Lan, stop touching it!” Lady Yen shrieked, looking green.

But it was a testament to how badly Lan wanted to get out that she ignored them both. “It’s too late. My hands are already coated in...” She swallowed hard and decided not to think much more about that. Back home, she had never so much as looked at her chamber pot—it was to be used, and then taken care of by the servants. But she steeled her nerves and looked at Lady Yen with mounting excitement. “You said the door up those stairs is locked. But the sewer could be another way out of this dungeon!”

The witch barked a laugh. “I’ve had stomach trouble and so have the last dozen prisoners, as you can smell. I can’t imagine you fine ladiesgoing down there, not when it could be just a dead end and an empty pit.” She paused. “Well, notempty.”

“You cannot be serious, Lan,” Lady Yen said weakly.

“If we get out of here,” Lan said, still feeling around the edges of the grate, “we can warn Commander Wei about the ships. And we can find Bao and stay with him until he...” She swallowed again and gave Yen her fiercest glare. “I don’t intend on rotting in here while our friends need our help, and if that means wading around in human waste, then so be it!”

There was a momentary silence. “I can tell from the way you talk that you were raised with maids and silk slippers,” Huong remarked, studying Lan. “Yet you’re willing to crawl through the sewers to escape?”

“I would do worse than that to get back to Bao.”

A little smile touched the witch’s mouth. “You love him,” she said slyly. “I can hear it in your voice.”

Lan’s heart gave a painful clench. “I don’t know anything about love. I didn’t know it when it was right in front of me.”

“Youdoknow about it. I’ve seen you,” Lady Yen said gently, regaining some of her color as she smiled at Lan. “I’ve been watching you two since we started this journey. You and Bao have something, like a link.” She moved her hand in the air helplessly, trying to find words.

Lan recalled the first time she had sensed the connection between Commander Wei and Lady Yen. “A spark,” she said, and the woman nodded. “Like lightning moving between you. Do Bao and I really have that?Canwe have that after such a short time together?”

“Time doesn’t matter when it comes to love,” Lady Yen said. “It might come to two people who have only just met, but not to two others who have known each other for a century.”

Huong watched Lan with an inscrutable expression. “You’re afraidto admit you love him. But know this: Bao was born of a union between my sister and the man I loved. I wanted to punish them with a spell that can only be broken byreallove. If you feel even a fraction of that, then you have more of a chance to save Bao than anyone else. And if he feels the same—”

“I hurt him so badly,” Lan said, her eyes stinging. “Even if he still cares for me as much as he used to, I don’t know if I would deserve it.”

“But isn’t it worth taking the chance to save him?” the witch asked. “And if you are the one who has been keeping him whole, keeping him from becoming a spirit...”

Lan thought of the early days of the enchantment, when Bao had faded unless she had touched him, and of the night in the village when he had pulled her to him and they had almost kissed. She was certain that those moments had not affected her alone. It was so different from what she had felt for Tam—from what she had once expected love to be. “I guess there’s only one way to find out,” she said, blinking away tears. “But even if we manage to get out, the place is crawling with people. How are we going to find Bao?”

“Let me worry about that,” Huong said, and she sat up straighter, as though drawing strength from her own words. “Get me out of this iron cell, let my powers come back slowly, and we will find your young man. I want to see the Gray City in ruins as badly as you do, and I want my sister to answer for her crimes.”

Suddenly, Lady Yen dropped to the ground beside Lan. “I’m doing this for you, Wei,” she muttered through clenched teeth, and laid her hands upon the grate. For a moment, she looked like she might be sick, but then she steeled herself and began straining to lift it.

---