She did not find Kirin.
There was no sign of Spring, nor spirits nor demons.
Nothing stopped along the bed of a granite corridor and put her hands flat to the cool stone. “Demon,” she whispered, in the same tone she used to speak with the great demon of the palace. “Demon, I know you are here. You are the Fifth Mountain. I am Nothing, and a friend to demons.”
Quieting herself, Nothing listened. She evened her breath, went still. “Demon,” she whispered.
There came no response. No word, no vibration of a snore or laughter. It did not wish to speak with her.
Curling her hands into fists, she pushed back and then with all her might screamed, “Sorceress!”
The cry cut away, and then the mountain shivered.
Nothing heard a huge heartbeat; it knocked her off her feet. She landed on her knees.
Then all was silent again.
She panted, and in between her frantic breathing, she heard something come into focus, as if she’d removed a stoppage from her ears: that heartbeat pulse, soft and slow.
Nothing stretched out on the ground, palms flat, cheek and breasts and belly and thighs pressing down, her knees, too, and the tops of her feet. She listened to the heartbeat. It was too slow to be human. Too slow to even align her breath with easily.
It couldn’t be the demon. Demons had no life, and thus no heart. But what if it was Spring’s heart? What if the sorceress took the hearts of maidens and set them somehow into her mountain to fuel… what? Her power? Was it her bargain with the demon? A greater demon shouldn’t need such a thing, but perhaps a demon and a sorceress together liked to augment their strength.
If the demon wouldn’t talk to her, how could she convince it to help her?
Frustrated, Nothing squeezed her eyes shut.
“Where is Kirin?” she whispered.
She had no idea what to do.
For much of her life, she’d been idle. With no daily work other than entertaining the prince or suffering at his side as his tutor attempted to teach, or learning the smoke ways or gathering gossip to trade, or tickling the great demon of the palace. When she hadn’t known what to do, on the rare occasion she needed to do anything, Kirin told her.
All her life, Nothing had known the rules.
In the Fifth Mountain, she didn’t know where the smoke ways could be found or what gossip was worth. She didn’t know where to go, what was safe. She didn’t know much at all.
Turning over, Nothing stared at the arched ceiling. These walls were narrow and low, shot through with quartz. But where she’d sprawled, several corridors came together and their crossing place climbed into a dome. At the peak of the dome was a carving like the one on her doorknob: a many-petaled flower, like a chrysanthemum or a rose with pointed oval petals.
Suddenly Nothing recognized it.
It was the same flower as on the silk she’d been wrapped in as a baby. The same as the burn scarred into her flesh.
Nothing’s hands flew to her chest, fingers finding the point even through layers of clothing. She pressed on her scar. It didn’t hurt. But as she stared up, her entire body warmed.
She’d not recognized the carved version of the flower. The colorless lines of its dimensions, bent around a knob. But there, at the height of the dome, it was shaped flat.
Nothing stared, feeling like her whole heart gasped. What did it mean?
Was she from here? From the Fifth Mountain?
Flinging to her feet, Nothing ran back down the corridor the way she’d come, saying, “I want my room,” again and again.
She found it much too soon for magic to not be involved: the door carved with red and pink flowers and its knob the many-petaled flower.
Nothing opened it, dashing in.
Snoring on the chair behind the desk was an extremely old woman.
Nothing stopped abruptly and made a little noise of surprise. “Hello?” she said. “Sorceress?”
With a snort, the old woman opened her eyes. They were pink from exhaustion, and teary, but the color was dark brown. The eyes were like tiny black beetles in the wrinkled white landscape of her face. Her steel-gray and black hair was twisted into three topknots pinned in place with long-toothed crystal combs, and she wore thick, quilted robes in bright brown and bloodred. They were embroidered thickly in black and silver in patterns Nothing had never seen before. It all coordinated. No contrast: she might’ve been made of earth and wood but for those silver flashes of starlight embroidery. “Hardly,” the old woman grumbled.
“Um,” Nothing said. “Are you the great demon of the Fifth Mountain?”
“Pour me some tea, girl.”
Reacting to the crotchety command, Nothing hopped to action, unsurprised to find the teapot Spring had left some time ago still hot and still full. Nothing poured both bowls and brought one to the old woman. She handed it over wordlessly, then waited for the old woman to drink first.
She did, closing her eyes. Her thin lips were possibly more wrinkled than the rest of her. When she finished, she put the bowl down and stared at Nothing until Nothing hurriedly finished her own bowl.
“Now, girl, are you ready to dress for dinner?”
“But who are you?”
The old woman got up from the chair, moving with ease despite her appearance. She was a little fat, though it hung from her bones with dragging age, and her back bent like a grandmother’s grandmother. “You may call me Insistent Tide. What color shall we use as your base? Do you have perfume?”
“Um. I don’t care. And—no. I don’t need perfume.” Nothing trailed behind the old woman, shocked because she recognized the name, and when the old woman pushed up the lid of the largest trunk, Nothing reached out and touched her shoulder. “Do you mean Queen-Before Insistent Tide?”
“Yes, yes, I was part of the tribute sent by the Emperor with the Moon in His Mouth to the great demon of the Fifth Mountain after the mountain died.”
“But that was more than a hundred years ago!”
But Insistent Tide was humming to herself, spotty and off-key, as she pulled through dresses and robes and underthings, sashes and veils and clothing Nothing had no idea what to call.
“Insistent Tide,” Nothing said urgently, and the old woman turned. Nothing bowed her head politely. “You’re still alive.”
“This is a sorceress’s mountain.”
“But—”
Insistent Tide made an impatient face. “What else do you want to know?”
Nothing opened her mouth, still shocked.
The old woman said, “Yes, I volunteered for this, you know, as I hadn’t left the palace in decades. I wanted adventure, and here I am, losing track of the aches and pains and what to call my own age.”
“Do you—do you know Kirin?”
“Is that the maiden with the heart she wants?”
“Maybe,” Nothing whispered. She could not imagine the sorceress wanting a heart and not getting it. “Why hasn’t she taken it yet?”
“Why does she do anything?” Insistent Tide grumbled. “Now, orange or blue?”
“Um, orange?”
The old woman eyed Nothing. “Blue.”
Nothing crossed her arms, annoyed at being asked then dismissed. “Is Kirin well?”
Insistent Tide shrugged and began undressing her, with none of the gentleness of Spring’s hands. She stripped Nothing, put her in a new shift and underclothes, knotted her hair out of the way with a wide sash, then began layering a thin, spider-silk delicate gown onto Nothing.