Soyeon's blood turned to ice.
She spun around, the vial nearly slipping from her suddenly nerveless fingers.
The Empress Dowager stood in the doorway like a specter materialized from nightmare.
She wore sleeping robes of deep purple silk embroidered with golden phoenixes, her silver hair loose around her shoulders, making her look simultaneously ancient and ageless. The single lantern from the courtyard behind her cast her face in half-shadow, one eye gleaming in the darkness.
She was smiling.
"I—I—" Soyeon's mind went blank, panic flooding every synapse. "Your Imperial Majesty, I apologize, I was—I was looking for—"
"Medicinal supplies?" the Empress Dowager suggested pleasantly. She glided into the room with the grace of a much younger woman, the door clicking shut behind her. "At this hour? In my private storage?"
