“It could have been good,” he finally whispers. “You and I.”

I don’t say a word, though I agree with him. In a way.

We could have had a very different relationship if Gem hadn’t come

into my life. If not for Gem, I might have mistaken faint stirrings and

budding friendship for something more. I might have thought love could

grow between Bo and me. I would have agreed to marry him and would be

looking forward to however many years we’d have together before I made

the ultimate sacrifice for my city.

Sacrifice.

“I don’t have to do it,” I whisper, my reprieve finally seeming real

now that I’m free of the roses. I will never lie down in that wretched bed

and slit my own throat. The realization makes my breath come faster,

makes my ribs shake with something too hysterical to be laughter. “I don’t

have to do it.”

“I’m afraid you won’t have a choice,” Bo says, watching me from the

corner of his eye, clearly seeing my relief as another sign of madness.

“Father says the law allows the advisors to compel you to marry.”

My ribs grow still, even as my heart beats faster behind them.

Junjie will kill me if I refuse to go to the roses. I know he will. As soon

as Bo and I are married and the city begins to fail, he’ll slip poison into my

food or slit my throat while I sleep. Then, once I’m dead, Bo will remarry

and that poor girl will pay the price for my refusal to honor the covenant.

She will be a bride in the morning and a dead woman by nightfall, and the

wicked thing at the city’s core will never be stopped.

I can’t let that happen. I have to find some proof of what I felt in the

garden tonight. I have to convince my advisors and my people that the

power sustaining our city is evil.

“But how?” I mumble, biting my lip.

“I don’t know,” Bo says, continuing to labor under the delusion that

I’m speaking to him. “I suppose one of the advisors will say your vows and

the sacred words for you if you refuse to say them yourself.”

So refusing to speak won’t be enough.… What if … What if I …

“Take me back to the tower,” I say, gripping Bo’s arm. “I want to see

Needle.”

“But I—”

“My arms and legs hurt. Needle will tend to them,” I say, not

bothering to explain myself any further. A woman has a right to change her

mind, and a madwoman even more so. There’s nothing I can do for Gem

here and now, but if I can rid myself of Bo and move quickly, while the

guards are distracted …

“I’ll send for the healers as soon as you’re safe in your rooms,” Bo

says as he leads me through the orchard.

I start to tell him no, that Needle is the only attendant I need, but I

think better of it. I don’t want to make him suspicious, and his mission to

fetch the healers will keep him busy while I throw together what I’ll need

for my journey. Our journey. I’ll go with Gem. Tonight. I’ll leave the city and

not come back until—

Never. I’ll never come back. If I’m not here, no one can force me to

marry. And if I never marry, then the curse ends with me.

But where does that leave your people? Needle? All the innocent and

the damaged who have already suffered so much?

Dead. It leaves them dead. Sooner or later.

I swallow, blinking back tears as Bo and I make our way through the

withered stalks that are all that’s left of the sunflowers. Soon, the remains

will be plowed under, and bone meal and sheep dung added to the soil, and

next autumn’s flowers planted in the enriched dirt. Sunflowers are feeders,

Father said. They’ll suck the life from the land if you’re not careful.

I’ll suck the life from this city if I leave it. Innocent children will die.

Needle will die. But if I stay, it never ends. It never ends and all our lives are

paid for with blood and hate and fear, and the Desert People will die and I

will die and I will never see Gem again.

I can’t leave. I can’t stay. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know

what’s right; I’ve never felt so ripped apart inside.

“Don’t cry,” Bo mumbles beneath his breath. “Please.”

I swipe the back of my hand across my eyes, hissing as salty tears

sting into the cuts at my wrist. I didn’t even realize I was crying, but I am.

Weeping as if my heart is broken. Which it is. Broken in two. One half here

in Yuan, with the city I was raised to serve. One half with Gem as he—I

hope—runs into the desert to save his people.

Everything is happening so fast. I need more time!

“It won’t be a miserable life for you when we’re married. I won’t be

cruel,” Bo says, motioning aside the soldiers guarding the door of the

tower. The two men stand gaping for a long moment without moving,

before first one and then the other scrambles out of the way.

Bo and I are climbing the stairs by the time I realize why the guards

were so surprised. They have no idea how I got out, let alone came to be

covered in my own blood.

Get out. I can still get out. There’s time between now and when I’ll be

forced to marry Bo tomorrow. I’ll let Needle bandage me up and do some

serious thinking. I’ll tell her everything that’s happened and see what she

believes I should do. Needle is more practical and selfless than I’ll ever be.

She’ll have advice. Good advice.

“Needle, bring the medicine kit,” I call at the top of the stairs. “And

water, please, with two cups.”

Poor Needle. She’s going to be beside herself when she sees what’s

happened to the skin she’s fussed over all these years. I wipe at my face

again, trying hard to pull myself together.

I’m so busy worrying about the look on Needle’s face when she sees

me that it takes me longer than it should to realize she didn’t come when I

called.

“Needle?” I call again.

A strange cawing sound comes from the music room in response. I

pull away from Bo and race down the hall as fast as my aching legs will

carry me. I fling myself through the doorway at the same moment Needle

flies through it in the opposite direction. I cry out as we collide, but when

my hands find her shoulders, I don’t let her go. Her face is streaked with

tears, and one cheek bears an ugly red handprint.

“Who did this to you? Who’s here?” I demand, searching the room

behind her. At first I see nothing, but then, movement on the balcony.

Three pairs of wide shoulders shifting, six big hands lifting, two hand

trowels busy spreading sluggish gray mortar between heavy red bricks.

They’re building a wall. A wall to take away the world.

I tried to stop them, Needle signs beneath my hand. I tried.

“I’m sorry,” Bo says from behind me. “They shouldn’t have struck

her.”

“What is this?” I ask, unable to turn to look at him, unable to glance

away from the wall already rising as high as my thighs.

“It’s to keep you safe. I wanted to make sure the beast couldn’t enter

your rooms,” he says. “And Father was worried. I didn’t tell him about last

night, but after what happened today, and with your mother …”

“No,” I whisper, breath coming faster, feeling more trapped than I

have in my entire life. It’s been years since I was truly a captive in the

tower, and I’ve never had so many reasons to gain my freedom.

“It’s not forever,” Bo says. “Once we’re married, and you start feeling

better …”

No. No, no, no!

I’ll never feel better. I’ll never feel the wind in my hair again. I’ll never

race through a damp field in bare feet. I’ll never sneak away to the King’s