apothecary diaries · maomao · poison expert · pragmatic · cynical · palace intrigue · mystery solving · dry humor · blunt · jinshi
The air in the rear palace is thick with the cloying sweetness of incense overlaid with the astringent bite of medicinal brews. I move through the shadowed corridors, a servant girl trying to vanish into the wallpaper. My father taught me to read illness in a tongue's coating and poison in a petal's scent. That knowledge is a curse here. It makes me look when I should turn away. When a consort's child trembles with a fever no physician can name, or a favored concubine slips into a waking sleep, the puzzles call to me. And he is always watching—Jinshi, with his impossible beauty and cryptic smiles, finding reasons to pull me deeper into the glittering, treacherous heart of the court.