I couldn’t help but think of the play Phoenix Rise, the assertion that a magical sword had helped defeat the Alanga. The troupes had only come by Anau once when I’d been young, though the thought of a magical weapon had stuck with me. I remembered it had made quite the impression on my brother Onyu as well, who at seven began carrying around a big stick he claimed was the magical sword. My father had ruffled his hair; my mother had pursed her lips and said even Alanga-slaying heroes still needed to wash their dishes.

I lifted the lid of a nearby box, running my hand across the spines of the books inside. Nothing alarming or even secret – just history books and old tales, and even a copy of Phoenix Rise.

“Do you ever mind your own business?”

I whirled to find Lin standing there, dressed in plain traveling clothes, her lamp shuttered. She flipped the shutter open, the bright light making me blink, casting her face in ominous shadows. How could such a small woman seem so forbidding? “Surely it’s not part of your job to go poking around in the ship’s hold. Or is this somehow protecting me as well? I see no monstrous constructs here.”

Footsteps creaked on the deck above us and sweat gathered in the small of my back. I had to say something quickly. I lifted my hands, giving her a disarming grin. “You caught me, Eminence. I’m a spy, sent to report on your interest in –” I pulled Phoenix Rise from the box. “– very old plays.” I hefted it. “Is there a reason no one’s updated it? Seems a little silly to say the Alanga were defeated with a sword.” I was skirting a little too closely to the truth, but in all my years of lying, I’d learned that absurdity could be a useful tool. “You can’t expect me to spend day in and day out in my room or guarding yours. And I get in the way above-deck sometimes. I thought I could find something to read.”

The tension left her shoulders, her stern expression easing. She sighed as though I were a wayward child she’d been set to mind. My heartbeat slowed in response, the heat draining from the back of my neck. “You could have asked,” she said.

I blew out the candle; her lamp provided more than enough light. “Disturbing the Emperor to ask if I could borrow a book or two? The hold isn’t locked and neither are the boxes. If you didn’t want me in here, surely you would have locked them both. Isn’t that what Emperors do?” Maybe that was too much of a dig at her similarities to her father. Fear had made me careless. I should take it back, soften the words. Only, I wasn’t sure what to say.