Chapter 3

A cold spread through me, and my stomach cramped.

Burn the genealogy, wipe out the Henson name. What Leonard loved wasn't me. It was a puppet who could only cling to him to survive.

Stay in this palace, and sooner or later he'd devour me until nothing was left.

I had to go.

Before dawn the next day, Leonard was pinned in the imperial study by an urgent report from the frontier, and he sent four imperial guards to escort me to the Ministry of Rites.

I made an excuse about fetching the genealogy from a side hall and pressed the golden hairpin into the hand of the palace steward in charge of purchasing.

"Get me a set of eunuch's clothes, and ready a slop cart that leaves the palace to dump the waste."

He gripped the hairpin, his face going pale.

I lowered my voice.

"There's five hundred taels of gold waiting at a bank outside the city. Get me out, and it's all yours."

He swallowed, greed working in his throat.

Half an hour later, I knocked over the lamp oil, and the flames raced up the eaves. The crowd scattered the imperial guards. I changed into the clothes, took the seal I'd lifted from the Ministry of Rites, and climbed into the slop cart by the back gate.

I crouched behind the wooden barrels, listening to the wheels grind over the flagstones.

Once I was past the north gate, I could find a way to reach the Transmigration Bureau and rewrite the flaws in the book.

"Stop. Search it."

The moment the driver held out the papers, the clatter of armor rose inside the palace gate.

"Imperial guards, seal the north gate."

I clutched the seal, its edge biting into my nails until they ached.

The boards of the slop cart were wrenched away.

When they were, Leonard was sitting on horseback, his black cloak falling past the horse's belly, my forged papers between his fingers.

"Lisa."

He said it softly, the way he usually called me to rise and eat.

"That handwriting. I taught you every stroke of it myself."

He unrolled the papers and tapped the signature.

"How could you forget I'd know it?"

Leonard swung down from the horse and came toward me, step by step. I jumped off the cart, snatched the saber from a guard beside me, and leveled the point straight at him.

"Don't come closer!"

Every blade around us hissed from its sheath, but Leonard raised a hand.

"Back off. Don't frighten her."

He walked toward me, and there was almost a smile in his voice.

"The blade's too heavy. What if you hurt your hand?"

I swung it at him. He turned aside, caught the edge in his palm, blood sliding down between his fingers. He seemed to feel nothing, closed his grip around my wrist, and slowly bled the strength out of my arm.

"If you want to kill me, you don't have to fight this hard."

I stumbled back, and he reached out to cradle the back of my head, gathering me against him.

"I thought that if I erased the Hensons, no one could shame you again."

Gently, he brushed the wet hair stuck to my face.

"So it turns out that in your eyes, I'm the one who did wrong."

He stared at me, the anger in his eyes pressed down very deep.

After a moment, his arms tightened.

"But even so, I can't let you go."

He took the sword an imperial guard handed him and set the point against my left ankle.

I struggled with everything I had, and all it earned me was a soft sigh.

"Don't be afraid. It'll be quick."

He drew the sword down.

The tendons of my ankle felt as if they'd been torn apart. My mouth fell open, and it was a long moment before the scream came out.

He still held me, waiting until I stopped struggling, then moved the point to my right foot.

"Then these feet will never run again."

He pressed his forehead to mine.

"Bite me if it hurts. As long as you never leave me again."

My vision went black, and the taste of blood rose to the root of my tongue.

In my head, the system's voice was as flat as ever.

"Ding. Achievement unlocked: A Gilded Cage."

So this was what the despair my friend left in that review had meant.

Leonard lifted me sideways into his arms and strode toward the bedchamber.

Back inside.

He laid me on the soft imperial bed and brought over a bowl of tonic.

"The physician says grief has knotted itself in your heart. If you don't rest and recover, your body won't hold up."

He dipped a spoon and blew on it lightly.

"Drink."

"From now on, you'll spend your whole life in this bed, and I'll be with you every day."

I looked at the bowl of medicine, then at that tender, devoted face of his.

And I smiled.

If I couldn't escape, then I'd make him die here at my side.