shoulder before leaving. “Make peace with your enchanter. He loves you very much.”
Alone, I stood at the edge of the pool a long time, listening to the trees and the wind. I understood now why so many revered Amana’s dresses, why some called them her greatest legacy. Because of them, she gave us the world as we knew it. Day after day and night after night, she spun the dawn and unraveled the dusk.
And somehow, I was closer to that legacy than I had ever dared dream.
Slowly, I slipped off my robes and stepped into the spring. The water was mild, and fish tickled my feet. Then I held my breath and sank down until I was fully submerged, coming up for air only at the last moment with a quiet gasp.
The crescent moon shone above me, a broken pearl in the black sea of night.
I reached into the pile of my robes and took out my scissors, holding them in my hands as if in offering. “Amana,” I whispered, “Amana, I thank you for this gift you have bestowed upon my family. And I pray for your forgiveness. If you do not wish me to make the dresses, I will stop. But please, please do not punish Edan for my foolishness. Please let there be a way to free him from Bandur.”
I waited a long time. But, as I feared, Amana did not answer.
* * *
• • •
Dawn arrived, with no sign of Edan. I kept expecting to see his shadow glide across the walls, the last caress of night on his wings as he soared through the window.
I’d never worried about Edan as a hawk before. But now I couldn’t stop—what if he was flying over a lake when dawn broke? He couldn’t swim. He would drown!
Or what if a hunter had shot him? Or one of the shansen’s men, perhaps—did they know what Edan became at night?
I sat on my bed, untangling knots in my hair with my fingers. It had grown long during my journey. I’d have to cut it soon, before we returned to the Autumn Palace. Then again, before the war, it had been tradition for men to wear their hair long.
I touched the ends of my hair. Would the emperor let me remain as the imperial tailor after I finished the three dresses…and after Edan left me?
These questions were painful, sharpening the loneliness already aching inside me. Getting up, I moved to the small table in my room and started a letter to Baba and Keton. My journey is nearly over, I wrote. I’ll soon be in the Autumn Palace.
My words felt stiff and distant, yet no matter how I tried, I couldn’t muster a lighthearted tone. My own heart was too heavy.
And Maia—ninety-five steps, I finished. I hope I’ll be home to walk with you soon.
I set down my brush to dry and covered the inkpot. As I folded my letter, the air shifted.
“Morning,” Edan’s voice greeted me from the door.
I hadn’t heard him come in. “Where were you?”
His hair was wet, and his monk’s robes flowed loosely on his thin form. He raked a hand through his hair, slicking it back. The effect made him look impossibly young. “I promised to help with the horses. So I did.”
I wanted to tell him what I’d learned about my scissors. But seeing how awkward he was there, by the door, I bit my lip. “Are you tired? You usually sleep as soon as you turn back.”
“I’m fine.”
The ensuing silence between us was heavy. Edan stayed at the door, and he gestured at the dress I was working on. It lay on the other side of my bed.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “Lady Sarnai would be a fool not to appreciate it.”
I could hear the monks chanting. I didn’t understand the words, but they were rhythmic and steady, blurring together into a deep hypnotic drone.
“Did you have to chant every day?” I murmured. “When you lived in a monastery?”
“Yes,” Edan said. His voice lifted with cautious hope. “Every day.”
“I could get used to a monk’s life,” I said. “It’s not so different from a tailor’s. Sewing all day, chanting all day—I used to count my stitches out loud when I was a girl.”
“You’d hate it.” Edan leaned against the frame of the door. “You don’t belong here, chained to a monastery. You should see the world.”
My breath caught in my throat. I walked to him. “Edan…”