I have to take the risk, Jebi thought, circling the relevant glyphs. To tell the truth and to exercise discretion, two conflicting directives. Which would, according to Nehen, mean that the dragon could choose.
ADAY AFTER her return, Vei checked in with Jebi. She knocked on the door to the workshop before entering, a peculiar quirk given that she had the key and all the artists were in the habit of leaving the door ajar. Ordinarily Jebi liked that about her, that ingrained courtesy. But now all they saw when they looked at her was that red-and-blue outfit, and their sister-in-law Jia’s face on the last day before she went off to the war.
“Is something the matter?” Vei asked as she approached Jebi’s workstation.
Jebi hastily smoothed their expression. “Just worried,” they said. They had no intention of telling Vei that they were going to question Arazi. “Any word on the investigation?”
“Issemi?” Vei shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing new from the deputy minister. He does want to know, however, if you’ll be able to restore the dragon’s function.”
“About that,” Jebi said, both grateful that Vei hadn’t pried into their unease and nervous about the current topic. “What is the timetable for this?”
Vei’s face stilled.
“I realize there are security implications,” Jebi said, picking their words with care. They glanced down, saw that their hands were tapping nervously on the work bench, made them stop. “But I can be of more use to you if I know how fast I need to work, and what to prioritize.”
“I can’t answer that question,” Vei said, to Jebi’s surprise. “But the deputy minister can. He’s been wanting to talk to you anyway. Come with me.”
“I was working on—”
“Come with me.” Because she was Vei, she rose and waited for Jebi to follow suit, rather than striding off and expecting them to catch up.
Jebi’s hopes for an aboveground excursion were dashed when Vei led them to a corridor they hadn’t explored before. They smiled at the guards, even the silent automata, out of pure nerves. The guards saluted Vei and did not challenge her right to enter.
Vei stopped in front of the only unlabeled door down this hall. “Deputy Minister,” she called out. “I’ve brought the artist.”
“Come in,” Hafanden said, and Vei did. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Jebi waited until Hafanden gestured impatiently at the seat across from his desk to sit down. They’d assumed that Vei would take it, but apparently not.
Jebi’s gaze was arrested by the immense map that covered the wall behind Hafanden, one that had not been present in his aboveground office. It took them a couple of seconds to spot Razan’s home archipelago, and then Administrative Territory Fourteen, and the immense land of Huang-Guan to the north of the Territory. But the map depicted lands beyond the three that they knew, with unfamiliar names and shapes, as well as notations for existing colonies and—most worrying of all—planned conquests.
Hafanden said, “It’s time to get a progress report directly from you. Vei, you may leave us.”
“Of course,” Vei said, and slipped out as quietly as she had come.
Danger, Jebi’s senses whispered to them, a cold hole at the pit of their stomach. “I had thought that the duelist prime was reporting on my doings,” they said, careful to speak deferentially.
“Yes,” Hafanden said, leaning forward, “she had mentioned that you’d spotted sabotage. How close are you to finding a solution?”
At least Jebi had an answer to this. “The design work is straightforward,” they said, their voice trailing off uncertainly because they didn’t know how much Hafanden wanted them to explain. But Hafanden nodded and turned his hand over, indicating that Jebi should continue. “The problem is supply.”
“Supply of what?” he asked sharply.
“Pigments,” Jebi said. “I’ve been talking to Shon about it. We are almost out of the enchanted pigment known as Phoenix Extravagant. I asked him if it was possible to obtain more, but he said that this will take time because of the rarity of suitable source artworks.”
“You needn’t concern yourself with that,” Hafanden said. “A supply will be obtained.”
“Be obtained,” Jebi thought: passive voice, with no indication of who would do the obtaining. “I’d understood that the project was urgent,” they said.
“That it is,” he said, and for the first time his face sagged into weary lines.
Jebi gathered their courage and ventured, “I hadn’t thought that the Empire anticipated any difficulty in the Administrative Territory? The dragon Arazi is an impressive achievement, but I’d been told it was intended to defeat tanks, and surely I’d have heard even here if we were under that kind of threat.”
Hafanden’s smile lacked humor. “Not here, no. I don’t expect an artist to keep track of international relations”—insulting, but in Jebi’s case, true—“but the Western powers have been circling Razan and Huang-Guan like hungry sharks. It is only a matter of time before their navies show up to annex us the way they have annexed other lands.”
“I had no idea,” Jebi said blankly. Like many of their people, they had only a vague idea of geography beyond Hwaguk’s nearest neighbors. “So Arazi is intended to be our defense against the Westerners.” They’d almost said your, but caught themself in time.
“Correct.” Hafanden folded his hands together, his face stern. “You will have guessed that the advantage of automata is that they can be manufactured in whatever quantities our resources permit. We have secured sources of metal, and we have built factories.”
Hwagugin metal, Jebi thought. They did know that one of Razan’s motivations for invading mountainous Hwaguk had been its wealth of ores and minerals. Bongsunga had always complained that they should have built more guns and swords to arm their soldiers before the war; but it was too late now.
“So you’ll secure more of the pigment?” Jebi asked, frowning.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s my problem.” Hafanden straightened. “I want you to document everything about the fix, and hand it in to Vei once you’ve unriddled the notes completely. Understood?”
“Understood,” Jebi said, more certain than ever that they didn’t dare tell Hafanden—or Vei, for that matter—that they already knew how to fix the problem. The question was, did they trust the Razanei to use weapons like Arazi against foreigners, instead of Hwagugin rebels? And the answer to that was obvious.
EIGHT
JEBI’S PLANS RAN aground on an unexpected shore: sickness. They woke up coughing in the middle of the night, their nose runny and their throat sore. They almost called out for Bongsunga before remembering where they were.
I hope she’s far away, Jebi thought. Surely by now she would have noticed Jebi’s disappearance and drawn her own conclusions—none of them good—about Razanei involvement.
The next day, they woke to find Vei at their door with a tray of food. “I have to work,” Jebi protested when Vei told them the time.