Her voice was cold and angry. If I was wrong about her, about this palace, I’d be setting off a diplomatic incident. I supposed I already had. There was no easy way to explain away my presence. Everyone would hear about the Emperor skulking about in Hualin Or’s palace in the middle of the night. No one would trust me. They’d label me mad, unstable. They’d depose me.

If I was wrong.

I pressed past the fear and stepped closer.

She retreated, pulling her robes tight about her with one hand. “What are you doing?” I reached for her and she whipped a dagger out from a hidden pocket.

There was no turning back at this point – she’d caught me in her rooms and I would have to answer for that. Unless I was right, then there was still a chance to fix this. I grabbed her wrist. She was surprisingly strong, the arm beneath my fingers warm and sinewy. Her face twisted into a grimace as she tried to pull free of my grasp. I reached for her torso and she ducked out of the way.

Before I could react, she switched her grip on the blade, ever so slightly, and dug the point into my wrist. I sucked in a breath but didn’t loosen my fingers.

“Let me go!” she cried out too loudly.

“I’m sorry.” She opened her mouth to shout again and I plunged my free hand toward her chest.

I should have been surprised that my fingers did not stop at her skin. Instead, I only felt a cold and certain dread as my hand entered her body. I’d been right. Shiyen might be dead, but the results of his actions still lived.

I felt around until I found the shards, clustered close to her spine. He must have invited them to visit at the palace, and then, once they were there – he’d murdered them. I thought of what I’d seen in my father’s memories. So much blood burned in the memory machine brazier, along with witstone. He didn’t have Nisong’s blood, but he had the blood of her family.

And then he’d replaced the family he’d murdered.

I fished around, pulling a few shards free. I held them to the lamplight. The commands they held were complex, but still not at the level that Ilith’s, Construct of Spies, had been. Write in your journal – he hadn’t specified exactly what. Tithe regularly to the Emperor – that one referenced other shards. Sleep in your bed. He must have placed some of the memories back into their lifeless bodies, made them into constructs, and then counted his work done.

How arrogant, how foolish! To think no one would notice. To think no one would figure it out.