I didn't ask to see Prince Zhen.
But three hours after I returned the concubine's tray and slipped the incense box back where no one would notice, I received a summons.
The kind written with no ink.
Just a pressed seal one that smelled faintly of cinnabar and smoke.
He was expecting me.
His outer quarters were quieter this time. No bustling aides, no ceremonial incense. Only one attendant waited inside a boy with a scar across his neck, who said nothing as I entered, only nodded and backed away.
The room smelled of iron, paper, and old jasmine.
And Prince Zhen was already seated. In black.
"The concubine will live," I said. "She was lucky."
He didn't answer right away. Only poured tea. One cup. For me.
"You found something in the archive storeroom."
He wasn't asking.
I kept my voice light. Almost indifferent.
"Someone went to great lengths to make a certain ledger disappear. A shame it contained failed alchemical infusions, doesn't it? Trials conducted years ago… on servants no one remembers."
He took a slow sip from his cup.
"What makes you think I didn't burn it for good reason?"
"Because someone keeps reusing the recipes."
A flick of his gaze. Sharp.
But still not surprised.
I didn't pull the hidden copy from my sleeve not yet. Instead, I passed him a drawing I'd made of one page. Just one. The page I'd found tucked between the physician's records and the incense box:
'Subject 14 – slowed breath, rapid pulse, flushed face…'
'Non-lethal in low doses; allows for altered emotional compliance…'
He read it, then looked up.
"Why show me this?"
"Because I need to know if the concubine was a target of yours."
That was the real test.
Not whether I could find the truth.
But whether I'd ask it aloud.
And he smiled. Not kindly. But with… approval.
"If I wanted her dead, little mouse, she wouldn't have collapsed in her powder room. She would have died in her sleep."
I left with more questions than answers.
But as I stepped back into the lower corridors, I slipped the rest of the pages under the false bottom of my medicine basket. I had more analyzing to do and the toxin matched one used five years ago on a maid who vanished after serving the Empress's retinue.
The same maid listed in the missing volume.
And someone had scratched a single character beside her name in the margin:
"Betrayer."