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“What do you want to eat? I’ll cook you anything you want. I know the culinary styles of all twelve provinces. Except the Monkey Province. Too spicy. It’s not good for you. I also don’t do stinky tofu. My only constraint is what’s on the market, but I can get just about anything at the import store. Any favorite recipes? Lobster? Or water chestnuts? You name it, I’ll cook it.”
Rin, who was accustomed to eating the uninspired slop of the Academy canteen, was at a loss for a response. How was she to explain she simply didn’t have the repertoire of meals that Lan demanded? Back in Tikany, the Fangs were fond of a dish named “whatever,” which was quite literally made of whatever scraps were left at the shop—usually fried eggs and glass noodles.
“I want Seven Treasure Soup,” Kitay intervened, leaving Rin to wonder what on earth that was. “And Lion’s Head.”
Rin blinked. “What?”
Kitay looked amused. “Oh, you’ll see.”
“You could act less like a dazed peasant, you know,” Kitay said as Lan laid out a spread of quail, quail eggs, shark fin soup served in turtle’s shell, and pig’s intestines before them. “It’s just food.”
But “just food” was rice porridge. Maybe some vegetables. A piece of fish, pork, or chicken whenever they could get it.
Nothing on the table was “just” anything.
Seven Treasure Soup turned out to be a deliciously sweet congee-based concoction of red dates, honeyed chestnuts, lotus seeds, and four other ingredients that Rin could not identify. Lion’s Head, she discovered with some relief, was not actually a lion’s head, but rather a ball of meat mixed with flour and boiled amid strips of white tofu.
“Kitay, I am a dazed peasant.” Rin tried fruitlessly to pick up a quail egg with her chopsticks. Finally she gave up and used her fingers. “You eat like this? All the time?”
Kitay blushed. “You get used to it. I had a hard time our first week at school. The Academy canteen was awful.”
It was hard not to feel jealous of Kitay. His private washroom was bigger than the cramped bedroom Rin had shared with Kesegi. His estate’s library rivaled the stacks at Sinegard. Everything Kitay owned was replaceable; if he got mud on his shoes, he threw them away. If his shirt ripped, he got a new one—a newly made shirt, tailored to his precise height and girth.
Kitay had spent his childhood in luxurious comfort, with nothing better to do than study for the Keju. For him, testing into Sinegard had been a pleasant surprise; a confirmation of something he’d always known was his destiny.
“Where’s your father?” Rin asked. Kitay’s father was the defense minister to the Empress herself. She was privately relieved she wouldn’t have to converse with him yet—the thought itself was terrifying—but she couldn’t help feeling curious about the man. Would he be an older version of Kitay—wiry-haired, just as brilliant, and exponentially more powerful?
Kitay made a face. “Defense meetings. You wouldn’t know it, but the whole city is on high security alert. The entire City Guard will be on duty all this week. We don’t need another Opera incident.”
“I thought the Red Junk Opera was dead,” said Rin.
“Mostly dead. You can’t kill a movement. Somewhere out there, some religious lunatics are intent on killing the Empress.” Kitay speared a chunk of tofu. “Father’s going to be at the palace until the parade is over. He’s directly responsible for the Empress’s safety. If anything goes wrong, Father’s head is on the line.”
“Isn’t he worried?”
“Not really. He’s done this for decades; he’ll be all right. Besides, the Empress is a martial artist herself; she’s hardly an easy target.” Kitay launched into a series of anecdotes his father had told him about serving in the palace, about hilarious encounters with the Empress and the Twelve Warlords, about court gossip and provincial politics.
Rin listened in amazement. What was it like to grow up knowing that your father served at the right hand of the Empress? What a difference an accident of birth made. In another world she might have grown up at an estate like this, with all of her desires within reach. In another world, she might have been born into power.
Rin spent the night in a massive suite she had all to herself. She hadn’t slept so long or so well since she came to Sinegard. It was as if her body had shut down after weeks of abuse. She awoke feeling better and clearer-minded than she had in months.
After a lackadaisical breakfast of sweet congee and spiced goose eggs, Kitay and Rin wandered downtown to the marketplace.
Rin hadn’t set foot downtown since arriving to Sinegard with Tutor Feyrik a year prior. The Widow Maung lived on the other side of the city, and her strict academic schedule had left her with no time to explore Sinegard on her own.
She had thought the market was overwhelming last year. Now, at peak activity during the Summer Festival, it seemed like the city had exploded. Pop-up vendor carts were parked everywhere, crammed into the alleyways so tightly that shoppers had to navigate the market in a cramped, single-file line. But the sights. Oh, the sights. Rin saw rows upon rows of pearl necklaces and jade bracelets. Stands of smooth egg-sized rocks that displayed characters, sometimes entire poems, only if you dipped them in water. Stations where calligraphy masters wrote names on giant, lovely fans, wielding their black ink brushes with the care and bravado of swordsmen.
“What do these do?” Rin stopped in front of a rack bearing tiny wooden statues of fat little boys. The boys’ tunics were yanked down, exposing their penises. She couldn’t believe anything this obscene was on sale.
“Oh, those are my favorite,” Kitay said.
By way of explanation, the vendor picked up a teapot and poured water over the statues. The clay darkened as the statues turned wet. Water began spurting out of the penises like sprays of urine.
Rin laughed. “How much are these?”
“Four silvers for one. I’ll give you two for seven.”
Rin blanched. All she had was a single string of imperial silvers and a handful of copper coins left over from the money Tutor Feyrik had helped her exchange. She had never had to spend money at the Academy, and hadn’t considered how expensive things might be in Sinegard when she wasn’t living on the Academy’s coin.
“Do you want it?” Kitay asked.
Rin waved her hands wildly. “No, I’m good, I can’t really . . .”
Understanding dawned on Kitay’s face. “My gift.” He handed a string of silvers to the merchant. “One urinating statue for my easily entertained friend.”
Rin blushed. “Kitay, I can’t.”
“It costs nothing.”
“It costs a lot to me,” she said.
Kitay placed the statue in her hand. “If you say one more thing about money, I’m leaving you to get lost.”
The market was so massive that Rin was reluctant to stray too far from the entrance; if she became lost in those winding pathways, how would she ever find her way out? But Kitay navigated the market with the ease of a seasoned connoisseur, pointing out which shops he liked and which he didn’t.
Kitay’s Sinegard was full of wonders, completely accessible, and crammed with things that belonged to him. Kitay’s Sinegard wasn’t terrifying, because Kitay had money. If he tripped, half the shop owners on the street would help him up, hoping for a handsome tip. If his pocket were cut, he’d go home and get another purse. Kitay could afford to be victimized by the city because he had room to fail.
