Chapter 4

Mother seemed unable to bear the smell of blood in the family shrine, and her brow creased.

Nanny Griggs understood at once.

"Take her to the pauper's burial ground already. Don't foul my lady's sight."

I watched them wrap Peaches in a straw mat and carry her out.

I said nothing.

There was not a single person here who would help me.

The only one who had ever helped me when I was punished, Peaches, was dead too.

A grief I couldn't put into words made me deaf to everything.

"A long night breeds bad dreams. Just carry her to the Sparks estate at dawn. Say she'd long admired the Prince and couldn't wait for an auspicious day."

Mother meant to hand me over to Blake Sparks right away.

Dazed, I was dressed in the wedding clothes and let them paint and arrange me however they liked.

Seeing me look like a woman whose heart had turned to ash, Mother came over herself, holding a small vial.

She pried my mouth open and poured a sweet-tasting liquid down my throat.

She sneered.

"You can be as chaste and unyielding as you like. Drink this, and you'll be begging a man for it."

I had so many things I wanted to ask her.

Did she hate me this much, hate me enough to send me to my death?

But the answers no longer mattered.

"Mother, you're going to regret this."

Someone will avenge me.

They helped me up into the bridal sedan.

The drug I'd swallowed was working, a heat spreading up from my belly.

I took out a bronze mirror. The woman in it had a flush across her face, red enough to frighten.

Good thing this drug was so strong.

"Cough."

I coughed up a mouthful of blood, and the mirror slipped from my hand and fell to the floor.

A body riddled with wounds could never withstand a drug this fierce, and with the injuries on top of it, I was already at my last breath.

"Mother..."

If she knew it was her own drug that had taken my life, what would her face look like?

It's all right. I've left her a gift.

I hope she can still smile when the time comes.

Slowly I closed my eyes, each breath fainter than the last.

Before long, the breathing stopped.

Father, Peaches, I'm coming to find you.

...

Sitting upright in the noble house, Mother felt a sharp pain shoot through her heart, as if something important had vanished.

She pressed a hand to her chest.

"It must be that wretched girl who's angered me so. Another day I'll go to the temple and have a master drive off the ill luck."

Theodore Henson patted her hand.

"You've worked hard, my dear. Alma, hurry and thank your mother."

Alma Henson cooed and fawned at Mother, Ulysses teasing from the side, the whole scene warm and merry.

"My lord! My lady! Someone's come from the palace!"

A servant rushed in, flustered, to report.

A eunuch had brought a decree.

"By the grace of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: there is a daughter of the house, peerless in beauty, rich in talent and virtue... She is hereby named Noble Consort, to enter the palace on a chosen day."

The eunuch tucked the imperial decree away with a smiling face.

"Now, which of you is Miss Henson? Loretta Fox?"