Jovis had laid his staff next to him, but he tapped it with his fingernails. I cast him a disapproving glare and he stopped. It was beyond rude to touch a weapon at a dinner table. Behind us, my maidservants rose and then set our dishes in front of us, taste-testing completed.

I picked up my chopsticks and everyone else at the table did the same, their gazes on their plates. The servants moved swiftly about the room and I judged their postures. Shoulders were tight, gazes low, steps close together. They were anxious, though I didn’t know why.

The man next to Wailun sighed. His skin was darker than hers, his eyes narrower. Her adopted son was Chala, from my reports, barely old enough to sit at this table. He’d not yet picked up his chopsticks. “Mother, I’m sure the Emperor has a plan or she wouldn’t be returning the shards.”

I was returning the shards because I could do nothing less. Still, I shot him a grateful look. “That I do. Are you not happy?”

Wailun looked at me, unblinking. “Of course I am happy.” Her expression never changed. She did not offer any gratitude before digging into her food.

I felt Jovis’s gaze on my face, and I did my best not to look at him, keeping my expression flat. No need to let everyone know how uneasy we both were. I’d known I couldn’t expect Wailun to welcome me with open arms, but this was not what I’d expected. Yes, I was a stranger to her, but she was just strange. It was as if I were looking at a book turned upside down. I could read it, but nothing was quite right.

I barely noticed the sweet-salty taste of the hand-pulled noodles, the crispness of the bean curd.

There was something Wailun wasn’t telling me, and if I was to obtain the assistance of Hualin Or’s guards, I needed to find out what that was.

30

Jovis

Hualin Or

Ylan is back. His family is gone.

I thought at first he’d come back as a pleasure visit, and though we hugged and greeted one another as old friends, his face was drawn.

He’s older now, wrinkles forming at the corners of his eyes. I didn’t expect that.

Philos and Viscen got into a disagreement over the allocation of caro nuts. A tsunami was the result. It wiped out the village where Ylan’s parents lived. Aunts and uncles. Cousins. All gone.

“Dione,” he says to me. “You’re powerful. They respect (or honor?) you. Do something. Please.”

—Notes from Jovis’s translation of Dione’s journal