Character Index

  Zhou Yunqi: The current Emperor.

  Ashina: Princess of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate.

  Shu Ling: Kayla's female retainer.

  Feng Yi: A hapless merchant who was roped into Kayla's plots in Book 1.

  Li You: Kayla's retainer.

  Ke Yongqian: Hu Qing's retainer.

  Zhao Chao: Kayla's retainer.

  Tao Qian: Kayla's Head Retainer.

  Sun Zhong'e: Kayla's retainer.

  Shen Liangjun: Vice-Director of the Court of Judicial Review

  Lord Cui: Head of the capital aristocrats and the Traditionalists.

  Zhou Xianchun: An Archduke, Yunqi's younger brother.

  Qiu Jinwei: Yunqi's loyal advisor.

  Xiang Daozong/Qu Boyong: Lord of the Xiang clan.

  Liang Hongfei/Hu Qing: Lord of the Liang clan, an Oversight Officer in the Northern Army.

  Empress An: Current Empress, cousin of Kuang.

  Cao Shuyi: Princess Consort of Kuang.

  Zhou Kuang: Grand Prince, deceased.

  Lord He: Lord of the He clan.

  He Zhengda: Lord He's wanton son.

  Luo Qichen: Former retainer of Lord He.

  Cui Lihua: Lord Cui's daughter, engaged to He Zhengda.

  Zhou Ying: Previous Emperor, posthumously titled Emperor Xuanzong.

  Chuluo: Khagan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate.

  The first snows of winter coated the capital city in a mild dusting of white, welcomed as a fortuitous sign for the times ahead. It had been seven months since Yunqi had taken the throne, and half a year since the Emperor’s reforms had passed into law–they had gained the simplistic nickname as the New Reforms, much to the chagrin of its primary architect Zhao Wenyuan. As to why the Duke disliked this nickname, no one knew for sure.

  To the surprise of almost everyone in the court and a great majority of the populace, the reforms rolled out smoothly, meeting barely any resistance or hurdles as it led to a series of rapid and drastic changes throughout the country.

  The Traditionalists didn’t even attempt to sabotage the reforms. Instead, new cities and ports sprang up across the country, local officials were swamped with applicants for the Green Sprout program, and the war in the North ended.

  The final part had very little to do with the reforms at all, but it had a drastic effect on making the reforms that much more timely–and despite reluctance from a great many sectors, highly desirable. Trade increased in leaps and bounds now that a raging war between the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganates was blocking the most convenient land route from Sogdia and Persia.

  Unsurprisingly, Zhao Wenyuan had ballooned in influence and acclaim with the success of his plans. His shady past was temporarily forgotten, the court and populace alike hailing him as someone who dared to think and dared to act, and had the competence to actually pull it off. His own household had undergone no small number of changes–he and his wife were getting ready to welcome a child, a matter of national importance to two countries thanks to Princess Ashina’s royal status. Another change, overlooked by most, was that the Duke’s trusted retainer was marrying a merchant under his patronage.

  Shu Ling was marrying Feng Yi, for whom she had once been a bodyguard. She had been the one to propose.

  The wedding took place on a day with lovely weather, crisp and cold but free of snow. Shu Ling and Feng Yi were married in a tasteful ceremony with the blessings of the Duke and his heavily pregnant wife.

  The female retainer was, to everyone’s surprise, retiring from her well-paid role in the Zhao household to peddle wares with her amiable husband. Being the Duke’s patrons, they of course had a competitive edge in their stall location, wares, and prices, and the happy couple were off to a mundane and peaceful life.

  “Who would’ve thought?” Li You said in amazement.

  “Everyone saw this coming,” Ke Yongqian said drily, having come over for the wedding. “The two had a thing going on for months now.”

  “I didn’t know!” Li You protested.

  “You wouldn’t,” Ke Yongqian quipped.

  Li You ignored him. “But to think she would quit to-to be a housewife!”

  “A peddler,” Zhao Chao corrected.

  “Whatever! It doesn’t suit her at all,” Li You said.

  Shu Ling was one of the most competent young women in the field. And she had a promising future under the Zhao household. It would have been a different story if Feng Yi had quailed at her profession, but Feng Yi was in awe of his younger wife, and was so wide-eyed and in love that Shu Ling’s friends all applauded the match as a good choice. She would rule the roost, that was for sure. Feng Yi wouldn’t have dared to give so much as a chirp if Shu Ling had chosen to continue working. But she had quit, which meant that she’d quit entirely of her own accord, despite having one of the most coveted positions in the entire capital as a retainer of the powerful Duke Zhao.

  “Well, you know how it is, she wants to settle down now that she’s got a family,” Tao Qian said diplomatically in response to everyone’s confusion.

  “She’s been wanting to quit for a while now,” Zhao Chao muttered.

  “But to just take off like that…honestly, it’s rather unreliable of her, isn’t it?” Ke Yongqian asked.

  Sun Zhong’e gave him a scolding look.

  “Don’t be so unfeeling towards your fellow retainer! A woman hasn’t got many chances for happiness, you know, especially not in our line of work,” Sun Zhong’e said. “If she’s gotten the right man, by all means she should have him!”

  “She’s made a smart choice,” Tao Qian said. “Now she’s happily married, the Duke’s given her a good dowry in addition to her own savings, and she’s peacefully out of the occupation with her health and wits intact. That’s no easy feat.”

  “Indeed it isn’t,” Li You muttered.

  Zhao Chao nudged his friend playfully. “When will you get to retire? Never?”

  “Not him! He’s got to work for the missus’ upkeep!” Ke Yongqian laughed.

  “The missus doesn’t want for much! The trouble is having all these boys to raise! How am I to get them all married?” Li You threw his hands up helplessly. He was one of the few rare exceptions in the entire industry who was happily married without having retired first. An orphan raised by an older brother from the impoverished region of Anhui, Li You had gotten married at twenty, when he had still been a normal laborer. His older brother passed away when Li You was twenty-three and first dabbling in the underworld, and his sister-in-law followed soon after, leaving four nephews in his care in addition to the three consecutive sons he’d managed to have.

  It fell to Li You’s warm-hearted wife to care for all seven boys while he worked to keep food on the table. Thanks to his new employer, six of the seven were now in school, with one still too young and rambunctious to stay in a schoolroom all day.

  “They’re giving you much trouble?” Ke Yongqian asked, rather sympathetically, as he did not like children.

  “No, they behave themselves,” Li You said. “I tell my nephews, it’s my duty to raise them on account of my brother, so they don’t have to be grateful to me. But they need to be grateful to my missus, since she’s got no relation with them and she’s still doing it. They behave themselves rather nicely–thankfully, my own boys worship them for being older and follow their example.”

  The heartwarming response did nothing for Ke Yongqian, who again, did not like children, though it pleased everyone else and elicited approving nods.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll be off the hook once they can start bringing in money,” Sun Zhong’e offered. “Not everyone has the fortune to have an early retirement like Shu Ling does.”

  “She has got herself a good husband,” Zhao Chao remarked. “I like him, even though he does seem a little pathetic.”

  “Pathetic or not, it’s personality that counts in a man,” Sun Zhong’e said. “Shu Ling was smart enough to go for Feng Yi instead of some cad who’s good to look at but not good to use.”

  A small chorus of dirty jokes arose at that remark before Tao Qian cut in again.

  “It’s good that Shu Ling’s met a good man. But we oughtn’t have anyone following in the same example. If anyone’s to quit, they’ve got to recruit and train a replacement properly,” Tao Qian said. “We’ll make an exception for Shu Ling, since it’s hard for a woman in this trade to marry out, especially not to a man she actually likes. Plus, she had to live in close quarters for him for several weeks during her guard detail–we can all agree that she’s the right to wed him after that if she wants to.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “The Duke was pretty generous with the wedding though,” Ke Yongqian said, ever hungry for gossip. “I suppose he wasn’t too miffed at her quitting?”

  “I doubt it,” Tao Qian said firmly. And since he was head retainer, they left it at that.

  “But after his vow and all that, how are his finances? Keeping you guys and all, and he’s still got funds to spare for getting Shu Ling hitched? I would’ve thought he would save up a bit more, there’s going to be a lot more costs once his kid is born,” Ke Yongqian said.

  “The princess is excellent at handling the finances,” Tao Qian said, by which he meant that Ashina was smart enough to approve whatever budgets Housekeeper Li arranged. “And the ceremony didn’t cost much anyway.”

  “But it won’t be easy on her,” Li You said. “I’ll bet it’s a son–doesn’t want to come out of his mother’s stomach so he’s stubbornly staying in there. Isn’t the princess due soon?”

  “Don’t invite trouble, you crow-mouthed fellow,” Zhao Chao said. “She’s a woman of great fortune, she’ll surely be fine.”

  “Your master seems pretty stressed,” Ke Yongqian egged on.

  “First-time father,” Li You said knowingly, and that ended the line of conversation, which once again drifted to the unlikely match their colleague had made.

  Kayla rubbed at her eyes, still exhausted after the wedding festivities ended the night prior. She had actually left early out of concern for Ashina, but her worry for the princess had kept her up late into the night.

  Shu Ling had officially left the house that morning, after bidding a formal farewell to Kayla and Ashina.

  It hadn’t come as much of a shock that Shu Ling and Feng Yi were a thing–and Kayla knew the real reason for Shu Ling’s early retirement. More so that desire for a peaceful life, it was disillusionment with Kayla’s methods. Shu Ling had never revealed to Feng Yi that Kayla had set up his tribulations on purpose. But she knew it, and resented it on his behalf.

  Perhaps that was love. Perhaps it was just having a conscience.

  Well, it was nice of Shu Ling to stick around this long.

  Her thoughts turned towards her upcoming meeting at the State Department.

  For some reason, there was a discrepancy in the criteria for evaluating local officials on the reforms that needed to be addressed. There were a few subtle but important differences in the documents that the State Department held and that the Court of Judicial Review held, differences that could decide what counted as corruption and what didn’t.

  It could be sabotage, but more likely, some secretary had just sent out the wrong version.

  Kayla doubted that it was her own aides, who seemed more afraid of her pointing out mistakes with a smile than being lambasted at full volume by Vice-Director Shen.

  There were just too many drafts flying around, it was all understandable.

  But it’s a fucking pain.

  Especially since Lord Cui insisted on meeting over this in person. They both had staff who could deal with this, but Lord Cui was evidently in a fighting mood.

  Kayla couldn’t hold back a smile, more of bleak humor than of genuine amusement.

  Lord Cui was a funny one, she thought. He didn’t stand in the way of the reforms, but he also hounded Kayla within an inch of his being. She could deal with that–better this than the alternative.

  But it did mean she had to suffer through verbal sparring sessions whenever Lord Cui started boiling over with resentment again.

  Kayla was greeted by a nervous staff member at the State Department, led to where Lord Cui awaited in a meeting room with another nervous staff member. Kayla’s own aide went to join the staff corner, where the two men watched on anxiously.

  “Duke Zhao.”

  “Lord Cui.”

  He gestured for her to sit. “Please, have some tea.”

  Kayla accepted with a frosty smile. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me amidst your many duties,” Lord Cui said. “I know that you’re a busy man.”

  “Not at all, this too is part of my job.”

  Lord Cui gave a thin smile.

  “I’ve read the reports on your work. They say you’re raising cities out of mud, a miracle of speed,” Lord Cui said. “And especially along the coast. It’s truly impressive, Duke Zhao. But when something is constructed in such a haste, one has to wonder, are they really stable foundations, or merely mirages over the sea?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Indeed, being overhasty runs the risk of compromising quality,” Kayla said. “That is why we have strict auditing and regulations to ensure that we do not set crooked foundations for the next generation.”

  Lord Cui smiled thinly. “Indeed, how wonderful.”

  Their aides nervously eyed them, but the warmup match had already ended. Lord Cui and Kayla leisurely sipped their tea.

  “I noticed that most of the Border Markets are concentrated in Lingnan so far, save for only a few,” Lord Cui said. “How fortuitous for the locals.”

  “Lingnan’s coastline is uniquely suited for maritime trade,” Kayla replied.

  Canton and Quanzhou, the shining pearls of the Southeast coastline, had been joined by the newly redeveloped ports of Fuzhou, Jiangmen, Yangjiang, and Zhangzhou in the Lingnan circuit. There were also the cities of Mingzhou and Beihai as rare exceptions. After ample consideration, they had chosen to start with ports that already saw a small volume of foreign trade, rather than simply eking out a new hub from nothing. The other planned ports were also mostly in Lingnan.

  “Hmm,” Lord Cui took another sip. “Yet the ancients were wise to caution us that we should not fear poverty but fear inequality. Will the surrounding regions really be satisfied with this? No, even within these towns, I’m sure that some are celebrating and some are plagued with worries. ”

  Kayla hid a grimace by taking a sip of tea herself.

  Lord Cui wasn’t too far off the mark. The developments came with welcome and unwelcome changes for the local residents, who saw their cozy ports torn down and revamped to accommodate much more traffic, a drastic influx of merchants, foreigners, and bureaucrats alike, and surging real estate prices that came with all this. Those who owned land or buildings were delighted, while renters found themselves frustrated by soaring costs

  “Words of wisdom,” Kayla said. “But all things are hardest at the start. We’ll still need to rely on your experience to navigate the next steps.”

  “Goodness, you’re too kind towards an old man like myself,” Lord Cui said. “I’m the better part of fifty now, there’s only so much I can do. It’s up to young folks like yourself. You and His Majesty the Emperor are at the perfect age for that sort of thing…so is Archduke Xianchun, for that matter.”

  Kayla’s eyes sharpened.

  “Indeed,” she replied.

  “Why then do you not recommend him for a position at court?” Lord Cui asked with convincing innocence. “Whatever the grievances between the Emperor and the Archduke, they’re brothers after all. As His Majesty’s closest confidant, you should help them to reconcile, should you not?”

  This old piece of– Lord Cui was asking her to bring back Xianchun, the one who posed the greatest threat to her position, and making her look bad for not doing it? She would almost be infuriated if not for the fact that she was impressed at how well Lord Cui leveraged faux ignorance.

  Kayla forced a smile. “His Majesty and the Archduke are a shining example of harmony between brothers, my lord. What reconciliation is there to effect? His Majesty is the best judge of how to employ his brother’s strengths.”

  Despite her fears, Yunqi hadn’t brought his younger brother back into politics. Xianchun was still stewing unhappily in his estate, to his misfortune and Kayla’s relief.

  Neither did Qiu Jinwei ever make an appearance at court–Kayla had spent countless hours planning what she should do if Qiu Jinwei was suddenly given a shiny title and became a proper official, but her strategies proved unnecessary. He remained within the palace, moving to an annex further away from the women’s quarters out of respect. Kayla had no idea how long this state of affairs would last, but she hoped it would continue for a great deal longer.

  “Well, in any case, you ought to at least recommend your cousin Lord Xiang,” Lord Cui said, once again positioning himself as the wise and well-meaning elder who you had to give face to.

  “I will follow His Majesty’s decisions on personnel,” Kayla said primly.

  They stared each other down, restraining themselves from a glaring match.

  “His Majesty is a wise judge of character,” Kayla continued. “His recent choices of consorts are excellent examples of that. They were chosen for virtue and wisdom rather than looks alone, reflecting the fastidious nature of our liege. If not for the lack of an heir, I don’t think he would have even assented to taking consorts within a year of his father’s passing, being as filial as he is.”

  It had been the Traditionalists’ doing to browbeat Yunqi into expanding the Imperial harem. After much haranguing, Yunqi had assented to taking three new consorts.

  “An example to us all,” Lord Cui said unpleasantly. “I hardly would have liked to interfere with a son’s filial duty, but one really must consider the stability of the dynasty. Of this entire generation, Prince Chenqian was the only boy begotten. The Emperor’s sisters have a few daughters between them, but that means little to the line of succession.”

  “I agree with your reasoning,” Kayla said. “An Emperor should have a son.”

  Or if anything happened to Yunqi, there could be war. Xianchun and Chenqian both had a claim–and if they did, then so did all the Archdukes from Emperor Xuanzong’s generation. Right now, Chenqian was the most likely heir until Yunqi had a son of his own, and would likely be adopted if Yunqi was still without a son a few years down the line.

  Kayla wasn’t sure she wanted that.

  “Three consorts should not be enough, given that the Emperor is still young,” Lord Cui said. “But I suppose it’s better than nothing.”

  He glanced slyly at Kayla. “Pity it is that they will be unranked until your sister-in-law arrives to become the Royal Consort. What would that make you? The Emperor’s brother-in-law as well as his cousin?”

  Kayla lowered her eyes in a farce of modesty.

  “Though it is a predicament for the consorts, the Royal Consort will enter the palace within a month or two,” Kayla said. “I hope that this match will strengthen the ties between the Wu and the Eastern Turkic Khaganate for the sake of both our peoples.”

  Lord Cui smiled entirely without mirth. “I hear that Lord Liang will be escorting the Royal Consort to the capital?”

  What was the old man up to now?

  “Yes,” Kayla replied, thinking with some relief of Hu Qing’s imminent return.

  “How nice for both you and your wife,” Lord Cui said. “She reunites with her sister, and you with your old retainer.”

  So that’s what he was aiming for–disparaging Hu Qing’s “lowly” origins.

  “An old friend,” Kayla corrected him. “I have long held Lord Liang in my respect and good affections.”

  She would have to take extra care in making arrangements for the delegation–not just for the sake of the Turkish princess' comfort, but also to keep men like Lord Cui from criticizing Hu Qing.

  Lord Cui visibly bit back a scoff before launching his next attack.

  “I wonder, the Empress relies on you so much right now, how will she feel when the new Consort is of your kin?” Lord Cui asked with mock concern.

  Kayla swallowed a string of curses with her tea.

  The current Empress An was a lovely young woman. She was also trying very hard to rope in Kayla’s support.

  As someone who went from a very normal young lady with no hopes of marrying higher than her father’s rank to the Empress of the entire country, Empress An naturally felt a sense of affinity for the person who had recommended her–Zhao Wenyuan.

  An affinity that was entirely misplaced. Kayla had recommended an Empress An, not this Empress An. It could have been any Empress An of the many potential empresses of appropriate age from the An clan. Kayla had no wish to be involved in the politics of the Inner Palace, where her presence as Zhao Wenyuan would be seen as an intrusion by Yunqi.

  “Empress An has maternal dignity that reigns over all under heaven,” Kayla replied. “She is not a woman of such pettiness, or how could she be the matron of a country?”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t dare to imply that,” Lord Cui said, retreating a little bit. “But with the Cao clan so hostile to her, it’s hardly strange that she would want someone to rely on. After all, the Emperor could hardly mistreat the widow of his older brother, but where does that leave the Empress? There’s a great deal of sympathy towards her these days, but so is there for the Grand Princess Consort.”

  Fuck. You’re just going to lift whichever kettle doesn’t boil, huh? You old shit?

  The shaky line of succession had the inadvertent effects of pitching the An clan and the Cao clan against each other, though they had previously been in-laws while Grand Prince Kuang was alive. The Empress’ position was threatened by Chenqian and Cao Shuyi for as long as she lacked a son of her own. And the Cao clan, of course, was downright hostile towards Kayla.

  Cao Shuyi had nearly become Empress. Now, she was a widow at only thirty-one years of age, and could never remarry even if she wanted to. She had a lifetime of loneliness ahead of her, a son who nearly became Crown Prince and who still could become Crown Prince, and a festering hatred for the man whose negligence cost her husband’s life.

  Which of course meant that Empress An thought Kayla her natural ally, well in advance of a post-Yunqi world.

  For fuck’s sake, he’s still young and healthy—and Yunqi, please just hurry up and have a son–a fat and healthy son who can survive infancy, Kayla pleaded silently.

  “The sympathy for the Grand Princess Consort is well-deserved,” Kayla said. “But Her Majesty the Empress has no reason to fear. She is the revered Empress of this nation. The Grand Princess Consort would not dare to cause harm to the Empress–nor would she wish to, being a woman of sufficient virtue to be selected as Princess Consort.”

  Fine, that wasn’t the best answer she could give, but it was better than nothing. And it did bind Lord Cui’s tongue on the matter, for he could no longer proceed without insulting either woman. Still, he had gained an upper hand, and he was smugly preening in it.

  “It is a pity your daughter was not selected, or she would have been in good hands with Empress An,” Kayla said as politely venomous as she could manage. “I would have supported her candidacy, but I mistook it as an accidental nomination, having thought that the young lady Cui was already engaged.”

  Lord Cui’s eyes blazed briefly with white-hot rage. It was no secret that Lord Cui and Lord He had fallen out. Not for politics, not for business interests, but over the marriage between their children. Lord He wanted to marry He Zhengda off before Luo Qichen could destroy the young man’s reputation. Lord Cui was adamant that his precious daughter would not marry a good-for-nothing to clean up the cad’s mess.

  So the marriage was called off after Cui Lihua and He Zhengda had been engaged for most of their lives. And of course, Lord Cui thought that the Emperor could be a better husband and nominated his own daughter as a consort candidate, further angering his erstwhile friend and ally.

  For nothing. Cui Lihua hadn’t even made it past the first round. She never even stepped foot into the palace. All that Lord Cui gained from the whole enterprise was a great deal of mockery and snickering.

  “She is no longer engaged,” Lord Cui said very pleasantly, which meant that he was mentally stabbing Kayla a hundred times for her role in the whole mess.

  “Ah, apologies. My mistake,” Kayla said. Very graciously too, given that she had managed to hit him where it hurts.

  The two aides were stiff in their seats, both wishing desperately to be anywhere else but here, where they had the responsibility to stop a fistfight.

  “My children aside, how about you, Duke Zhao?” Lord Cui said, viciousness dripping from his gaze. “Isn’t your wife due soon?”

  “I thought so too, but the healers think that it might be a late birth,” Kayla said. On her lap, her fingernails dug into the flesh of her palm.

  The whole debacle about Ashina’s pregnancy had finally reached a solution that no one was pleased with–given that Ashina had faked a pregnancy about three months too early to line up with her actual pregnancy, there was no way they could wait that long without being accused of deceiving Emperor Xuanzong and Chuluo Khagan, an accusation that could ripple out to have international repercussions. After a great deal of scrounging the countryside with as much discretion as she could afford, Kayla had finally managed to find a female healer who dealt exclusively with pregnancy timing discrepancies.

  Healer Zhang was a kindly old woman who could delay or hasten a pregnancy based on the timeline a woman provided to her family, and could even safely end the pregnancy altogether without causing any long-term damage. She could also fake miscarriages for women who weren’t actually pregnant to begin with. The only place she refused to take commissions was inside the Inner Palace. For a hefty sum, she agreed to induce Ashina’ preterm labor.

  It wasn’t possible for the timeline to match up exactly, but a few weeks late wasn’t all that uncommon. After all, the first pregnancy announcement had left some leeway as to how far Ashina was into her second month, as such announcements often did. Ashina would give birth approximately two months earlier than her due date.

  Even with Healer Zhang’s impressive record, both Kayla and Ashina were worried sick. Even if the child could survive as a premature infant, there was no telling what long-term health consequences there would be. Kayla would’ve preferred to brave an international scandal instead, if not for the fact that the timing was too close to the Grand Prince and Emperor Xuanzong’s death. If people suspected the pregnancy, then it would hardly be strange to start suspecting the death of the Grand Prince as well. And then there could also be questions about the deaths of General Shu and his sons right before Yunqi was named Crown Prince, which then could lead to questions about Emperor Xuanzong’s death. Kayla knew all too well how the convoluted chain of events led into one another like a stack of dominoes, and so did Ashina, for that matter.

  In the end, they chose to risk something rather than risking everything.

  “You must be worried about your wife,” Lord Cui said knowingly.

  “Of course, with this being her first pregnancy too,” Kayla said, uneasy at where this was going.

  “Well, I hope that things proceed smoothly,” Lord Cui said. “After all, the child’s being born in a household without any elders in it…there’s very few older women who can offer the princess comfort in such a trying time, and even fewer men who can share their experiences with you to ease the nerves.”

  “Unfortunately,” Kayla said, trying not to clench her jaw.

  “How difficult it must be,” Lord Cui lamented. “Pity that your grandfather left so soon! He missed the birth of his great-grandchild by just under a year.”

  Kayla tightened her grip on her cup of tea, biting back a ready insult.

  This wasn’t about the Grand Duke, who Lord Cui hated. It was about the shady circumstances of his death, which Kayla had once been arrested for.

  “Well, you know what they say,” Lord Cui said, smiling very genuinely now. “The dead never truly leave us. They continue to watch over us, with all their affections…”

  His eyes narrowed. “And their grievances.”

  A sudden jolt of ice shot through Kayla’s veins. She fought to keep it from showing on her face.

  What the fuck was that just now?

  “It is comforting to know,” Kayla said out loud.

  I know I felt it just now. What the hell? Her heartbeat was loud in her ears, and her palms were suddenly clammy. A brief flash of insight, and she crossed the barrier back from superstition. Kayla calmed herself. Had she really felt something supernatural? Or was it just an instinctive surge of panic? Definitely the latter, fueled by old fears of the Grand Duke.

  Kayla put it from her mind, especially now that Lord Cui was gloating very mildly. He had gotten a reaction out of her, however subtle, and he was very pleased about it.

  She braced herself for him to continue jabbing now that he had needled under her skin, but Lord Cui seemed satisfied to end on that note.

  “Well,” he said in a tone that meant they were getting back to business, finally, “shall we take a look at the procedures?”

  “Yes,” Kayla said, hiding her relief. “There’s a few discrepancies between the versions we have–see here, on the thirty-second line.”

  The discussion that followed was professional to a letter until the very end of the meeting. That was Lord Cui for you. Psychological torture followed by impeccable work.

  Had it been Lord He opposite her, they never would have gotten anything done.

  The price we pay, Kayla lamented.

  Cultural Notes

  王安石新法/Wang Anshi's New Reforms: The failed reforms of the Northern Song dynasty headed by the forward-thinking Wang Anshi. The factional conflicts alighted by the New Reforms led directly to the end of the Northern Song dynasty.

  青苗法/Green Sprout Law: A law proposed by Wang Anshi (that Kayla has adapted), in which farmers can take government loans in spring that they can repay after the harvest, which keeps small farms soluble and lowers precarity.

  敢想敢做/Dare to think and dare to act: A Chinese saying referring to someone who acts boldly and decisively.

  好看不好用/Good to look at but not good to use: A Chinese saying referring to either an item or a person who is pretty but useless/unreliable.

  乌鸦嘴/Crow mouth: A Chinese term referring to someone who jinxes a bad event by "speaking it into existence", aka makes negative predictions about future events that later come true.

  海市蜃楼/Mirages [of building] over the sea: An Ancient Chinese proverb referring to the phenomenon of mirages on the sea where you see floating buildings based off reflections of light. It's often used to refer to illusions of success, unattainable hopes, etc.

  岭南/Lingnan: The Ancient Chinese administrative region in Southeast China that includes modern-day Guangzhou and Fujian. This includes many ports along the Maritime Silk Road, which includes Canton, modern-day Guangzhou; 泉州/Quanzhou, a port city in Fujian; 福州/Fuzhou, a coastal city in Fujian; 江门/Jiangmen, a city in modern-day Guangzhou; and 漳州/Zhangzhou, a city in modern-day Fujian.

  明州/Mingzhou: A city located in modern-day 宁波/Ningbo, located in Zhejiang province. Was a port on the maritime Silk Road.

  北海/Beihai: A city located in modern-day Guangxi. It's not actually directly on the coastline, but connected to the ocean by a river.

  不患寡而患不均/Fear not poverty but fear inequality: An Ancient Chinese saying from pre-Qin China, a quote by Confucius.

  有人欢喜有人愁/Some are overjoyed/celebrating and some are plagued with sorrow/worries: A Chinese saying that refers to the constant interplay and overlap of emotions in the world.

  万事开头难/All things are hardest at the start: A Chinese saying that is often used to encourage people. Basically anti-procrastination, get started and stay persistent, and things will work out.

  兄弟和睦/Harmony between brothers: An Ancient Chinese proverb, referring to the ideal state of interaction between brothers.

  母仪天下/Maternal dignity that reigns over all under heaven: An Ancient Chinese saying that is used to refer to Empresses and Empress Dowagers in praise of their dignity and virtue.

  国母/Matron of the country: An Ancient Chinese saying referring to Empresses and Empress Dowagers.

  哪壶不开提哪壶/Lift whichever kettle doesn't boil: A Chinese saying that means to bring up difficult topics, or to ask about the one thing you shouldn't ask about.