Chapter 9: The Inspection

Ruoxi took the Marquis through the Eastern Kitchen.

She opened every cold room and every spice cupboard.

She named the cooks, the dishwashers, the boy who split kindling, and the old woman who plucked the ducks.

"Your cooks wash their hands in front of me," she told him. "Every morning, every one, and I check their nails."

"Do they mind?"

"They'd mind more if I didn't."

Fang Liyun stood by the great stove with her arms folded, saying nothing.

The Marquis looked into pots.

He lifted lids and sniffed.

He found a basket of cabbage, and a dish of salted fish, and a tray of cakes cooling by the window.

He found nothing.

"Remarkable," he said. "Not a lock on the sugar. Not a guard at the back gate."

"There's no need," said Ruoxi.

"Is there not?" he said, and ran a thumb along an empty shelf.

"I'm here."

"So you are," he said, and smiled at Fang.

Fang looked at the floor.

It struck Ruoxi, for one cold instant, that Fang had looked at the floor a great many times lately.

She pushed the thought down.

She had no room for it.

At the end of the inspection, the Marquis wiped his hands on a cloth, bowed, and went off toward the garden to find the princess.

Ruoxi followed him.

She came around the plum hedge in time to see him stand very close to Mingzhu on the path, his head bent and his voice low.

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