The candied orange peels came from the inner kitchen.
That much I learned without asking questions just by refolding towels beside the older kitchen maid, Guang Po. She spoke more when her hands were busy.
"Sweet batch today," she said. "The prince liked them?"
I smiled. "He ate half."
She chuckled. "First in weeks. The new assistant chef added a pinch of clove. Clever boy."
Clove?
There were no cloves in the flavor I'd tasted. And I knew something else Guang Po had a shaking right hand. She couldn't have sliced the orange peel that finely.
So who did?
I returned after dark.
Not to confront. Just to look.
The assistant chef's station was immaculate. Too clean. Even the spice jars gleamed except one: the dried citrus box. The lacquer had been wiped, but the crack was still there. Freshly mended with resin.
I dipped a clean toothpick into the inside rim and sniffed.
Bitter. Just faintly. But not clove.
This was planned.
Two mornings later, I folded cloths near the assistant chef as he sharpened a cleaver. He looked no older than twenty, his eyes dull from routine.
I asked carefully, "Is it hard, cooking for the prince?"
He shrugged. "Not really. Not like the Empress's wing."
That's when I saw it the faint mark on the inside of his wrist.
A red thread.
The same color string used to tie medicine packets in the Empress's wing.
He wasn't a real kitchen boy.
He was planted.
Probably by Hu Danyin's order.
Not to kill Prince Zhen.
But to keep him weakened, distracted. Fogged. Slower to notice what was happening around him.
And if they're drugging the prince this precisely…
Then someone in the palace doesn't just want power.
They want it quietly.