"Princess, you can't have done this—" Nurse Rong's wail cut off when I sucked in air like I had been underwater.
"Where am I?" I croaked, my voice smaller than I expected.
"She's awake! Wake! Call—" Nurse Rong's hands fumbled at the curtains and then clutched my wrist so hard I tasted metal. "Chu Anning, answer me. Do you remember your name?"
"I remember." I forced the original voice, the petulant soft tone that had been painted on the dead girl in a dozen reports. It fit the portrait they'd assigned her. It bought time.
"Your Highness?" Her eyes skittered to the doorway the way someone watching for a guardian's footstep looks to a gate.
"No pain." I kept each word clipped. Panic scraped my throat but I did not let it out. Panic would tell the wrong stories.
"You frightened us all." Nurse Rong's grip loosened a fraction. "You were gone for two days. They said—" She swallowed like she had to chew the last word. "Boat. The lake. Your Highness—"
"Everything is blurred." I let the original girl's foggy memory take shape for her benefit. "I remember the silk, the lanterns. The sudden cold." A lie built from scraps of what everyone already believed kept me safe right now.
"Bless the gods." Nurse Rong's face folded into relief and something like worship. "You must not try to stand. Drink this." She pressed a cup to my lips. Water burned
