Chapter 13: Stay or Be Sent

"You can't send a copyist away like a parcel," Shuyi said.

"I can send you under guard if I must."

Lanxin's voice was level, and her hands were not.

"Try it," Shuyi said.

"Call your guards and tell them to carry me out of the gate."

"Then I will scream that the general's husband never existed, in the street, in front of the cart."

Lanxin stared at her.

"You would not."

"I'd sooner do that than ride south while you walk up the Drum Tower stairs alone."

The wind pushed the torn pieces of the pass across the flagstones.

Lanxin bent, picked up the nearest one, and crushed it in her fist.

"Do you know what a rope does?" she said.

"I know what you think it does."

"It does not care that you are small, or clever, or sorry."

"It does not care that you only held the brush."

"So you'll hang for all of it," Shuyi said, "and be proud."

"I will hang for it because it is mine."

"I wrote every word."

"Mo only carried them, and you only copied them."

"I put that husband on the wall."

"I told two thousand men to live for a man I made out of ink."

Her voice cracked on the last word, and she turned her face away.

Shuyi did not move.

"Look at me," she said.

Lanxin looked.

"You keep saying it's yours," Shuyi said.

"Your lie, your rope, your death."

"Everything you did, you did for them, and you want to die for it so it stays tidy."

"That's not noble, it's just stubborn."

"I have heard that you are the stubborn one."

"I'm the stubborn one," Shuyi agreed.

"So I'll say it plain."

"I'm not leaving, and I'm not letting you die for the sake of a clean ending."

"Then what do you want from me?"

The words came out half a shout.

A sparrow burst out of the plum tree and flew over the wall.

Shuyi took a breath.

"Write to the Emperor," she said.

"Before the Drum Tower, before Du reads his roll."

"Put it all in your own hand, the siege, the marshal, the letters, the two thousand."

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