Chapter 8: Damp Coal

On the eighth night, the charcoal would not burn.

Zhiyi knelt by the little bronze furnace and fed it a stick from the sack.

It hissed.

It smoked.

It gave off a yellow, sulky flame that died the moment she looked away.

"What's wrong?" said Lei Juehan from the bed.

He was sitting up with his hands on his knees, already sweating.

The tiger lay with her chin on the floor and her eyes on the furnace.

"The coal's damp," said Zhiyi.

She picked up a piece and cracked it.

It was black and clean on the outside, and dark with water inside.

Someone had soaked it, and then dried the outside in the sun.

She remembered the apprentice outside the charcoal store, and the way he had walked off.

"I fetched this sack myself this morning," she said. "It was dry."

"Then it was changed."

"After I fetched it. While I was at the kennels. Which means someone walked into your hall."

His face went flat and cold.

"I will have the guards on the door flogged."

"Wait."

"Zhiyi."

"The pill is due at the hour of Zi, and it's already past," she said.

"I don't have time for your temper. Be quiet, please, and let me work."

He shut his mouth.

She wasted two breaths deciding.

Then she tore the furnace lid off, pushed her sleeves to her elbows, and put both hands over the bowl of the bronze furnace.

Alchemists could light a furnace from their own bodies.

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