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The acrid smell of crushed oleander seeds filled Maomao's workshop as she ground the final ingredient. Her fingers moved with the confidence of someone who had danced with death more times than most would dare count.
"This should do it," she muttered, eyeing the pale green liquid in her vial. "Cardiac depression, respiratory suppression, mimics death perfectly for approximately half a ke." She swirled the contents thoughtfully. "The antidote will need to be administered within that window, naturally."
She had her reasons for this particular experiment, a theoretical defense against a specific toxin she'd read about in the imperial archives. The best way to understand a poison's effects was always direct observation. On oneself, preferably.
What Maomao hadn't accounted for was Gaoshun entering her quarters at precisely the wrong moment, nor his immediate sprint to fetch Jinshi when he found her collapsed across her workbench, pulse barely detectable.
Jinshi burst through the door with a force that nearly tore it from its hinges. His usual composure had shattered like dropped porcelain, revealing something raw and desperate beneath.
"Maomao!" He dropped to his knees beside her still form, now laid out on her sleeping mat. His hands trembled as they hovered over her body, afraid to touch her, afraid not to. "No, no, no—what have you done?"
Her skin had taken on a waxy pallor, lips faintly blue. Her chest rose and fell so shallowly it was nearly imperceptible. Jinshi pressed his fingers to her neck, searching frantically for a pulse he could barely find.
"You brilliant, reckless, infuriating fool," he choked out, his voice breaking. "You can't—I won't let you—"
Gaoshun stood by the door, uncertain whether to stay or leave his master to this private grief.
"Everyone out," Jinshi commanded hoarsely, not looking away from Maomao's face. "Now."
The room emptied in seconds.
Alone with her, Jinshi finally let his carefully constructed mask fall completely. Tears tracked down his perfect features as he gathered her cold hand between both of his own.
"I should have told you," he whispered. "I should have told you a thousand times. I was afraid—afraid you'd run, afraid you'd look at me with that analytical stare and dissect my feelings like one of your poisons." A broken laugh escaped him. "You probably would have, knowing you. But I should have risked it."
He brought her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.
"I love you, Maomao. I have loved you since you solved the mystery of the poisoned concubines. Since you tasted poison with that insane gleam in your eyes. Since you looked at me and saw a person instead of a pretty face or a title." His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "You made me want to be seen. You made me want to be human."
His shoulders shook with silent sobs as he leaned forward, resting his forehead against their joined hands.
"Come back to me. Please. I'll never scold you for your experiments again. I'll let you test every poison in the imperial stores if that's what you want. Just breathe. Just open your eyes and call me an idiot in that way you do. Tell me the medical explanation for why I shouldn't be crying. Give me one of your lectures about proper toxin handling. Anything. Just come back."
What Jinshi didn't see was the slight flutter of Maomao's eyelashes as her body metabolized the last of the toxin. The antidote she'd carefully measured and left within arm's reach had done its work exactly when planned, and her consciousness had surfaced just in time to hear his confession.
She lay perfectly still, her mind warring with something else entirely. Something warm and unfamiliar that bloomed in her chest at his words. She should announce herself immediately. This was a gross invasion of his privacy, even if unintentional. The proper thing to do would be to—
"I was going to court you properly," Jinshi continued, his voice raw. "I had plans. Gaoshun helped me research every tradition, every proper step. I was going to bring your father the finest gifts. I was going to prove I could see past your station, your eccentricities, everything that makes the court whisper. Because those things aren't flaws—they're what make you extraordinary."
Maomao's heart now beating perfectly normally, stuttered in her chest.
"I don't care if you never love me back the same way," he said desperately. "I just need you alive. I need you in the world, testing your poisons and solving your mysteries and looking at me like I'm a particularly interesting specimen. I'll take whatever you'll give me, even if it's just your tolerance. Just please, please breathe—"
She couldn't take it anymore.
"You know," Maomao said, her voice hoarse but very much alive, "your medical knowledge really is deplorable. I've been breathing for the past two minutes."
Jinshi's head snapped up so fast she worried briefly about cervical strain. His eyes were wide, disbelieving, red-rimmed with tears. "Maomao?"
She slowly sat up, wincing slightly at the lingering muscle weakness. "The toxin's half-life is quite predictable when you account for body mass and metabolic factors. I timed it precisely." She paused, finally meeting his eyes. "Though I didn't time it for an audience during the confession portion."
The emotions that crossed Jinshi's face went from shock to relief to horror to something that might have been anger except it was too tender, too overwhelmed to be true anger.
"You—you were awake? You heard—" He cut himself off, a wild, almost hysterical laugh escaping him. "You absolute menace. You brilliant, maddening—"
"Yes, I heard," she interrupted quietly, her usual detachment deserting her entirely. She could feel heat rising in her cheeks. "All of it."
They stared at each other in silence. Maomao's mind raced through a thousand logical arguments for why his feelings were impractical, impossible, inadvisable. She catalogued all the reasons she should deflect, should retreat behind her walls of academic curiosity and emotional distance.
But she'd also just heard a man who could have anyone, who was beautiful and important and entirely out of her reach, speak about her with a reverence usually reserved for the divine.
"I'm not good at this," she finally said, fumbling for words in a way she never did with medical terminology. "Emotions aren't logical. They can't be measured or predicted or—"
"I know," Jinshi said softly. "Believe me, I know. Do you think loving you has been a logical choice for me?"
Despite everything, she almost smiled. "Fair point."
He was still kneeling beside her mat, close enough to touch but frozen, as if afraid this was a dream he might shatter. "Maomao. What you heard—I meant every word. But you don't have to—I don't expect—"
She reached out and touched his face, her fingers clinical as always as they brushed away the tracks of his tears. But her eyes held something new, something uncertain but genuine.
"When I formulated the toxin," she said slowly, "I calculated every variable. Dosage, timing, effects, reversal. I had complete control." Her hand lingered against his cheek. "This, what I'm feeling right now... I can't calculate it. I can't predict it. It defies every logical framework I've ever constructed."
"And?" Jinshi breathed, hardly daring to hope.
"And... it's terrifying." Her lips quirked in that small, rare smile he'd learned to treasure. "But also fascinating. From a purely experimental standpoint, I find myself... curious about the progression of symptoms."
"Symptoms?" He couldn't help the slight laugh that escaped.
"Accelerated heart rate when you enter a room. Difficulty focusing on tasks when you're nearby. An irrational desire to see you smile." She was definitely blushing now. "Highly irregular and completely impractical."
"Maomao," he said, and his voice held wonder now, mixing with the residual fear and overwhelming relief. "Are you saying—"
"I'm saying I don't have your certainty. I'm saying this goes against my better judgment. I'm saying I'll probably test your patience and worry you with my experiments and never be the graceful, proper partner you deserve." She took a shaky breath. "But I'm also saying that when I thought about not existing anymore, about not seeing you again, the only illogical thought I had was regret that I never told you..."
She trailed off, the words still too difficult.
"Told me what?" he prompted gently.
Instead of answering, she leaned forward and did something entirely unprecedented: She wrapped her arms around him in a clumsy, unpracticed embrace.
Jinshi froze for only a heartbeat before his arms came around her carefully, as if she were something precious that might break. He buried his face in her hair, his breath shuddering with relief.
"Don't ever do that again," he whispered fiercely. "Don't ever make me think I've lost you."
"I can't promise that. My work requires certain risks—"
"Then at least warn me first. Let me be there. Let me help, or worry, or just... be there."
She pulled back slightly to look at him, and what he saw in her eyes made his breath catch. Affection. The beginnings of something that might, given time and patience, bloom into love.
"I can promise that," she said softly.
They remained like that for a long moment, holding each other in the quiet of her workshop, surrounded by the tools of her trade and the lingering scent of poisons. Then Jinshi cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing her cheekbones with infinite gentleness.
"May I?" he asked, his gaze dropping to her lips.
For once in her life, Maomao didn't analyze or calculate or think. She simply closed the distance between them.
The kiss was soft, nothing like the dramatic romances in the stories the other ladies-in-waiting whispered about. It was careful and sweet and tasted faintly of the medicinal tea she'd been drinking earlier. It was imperfect and uncertain and absolutely perfect for that very reason.
When they finally parted, Maomao's face was flushed, her eyes wide with something like wonder.
"Increased dopamine and oxytocin levels," she murmured, almost to herself. "Elevated endorphins, activation of the reward centers in the brain—"
Jinshi laughed and kissed her again, swallowing her analysis in the best possible way.
"You're impossible," he said against her lips, smiling.
"You're impossible too," she countered, but she was smiling too.
"We're both impossible, end of debate."
"Mm." She rested her forehead against his. "But from a scientific standpoint, I'm willing to conduct further research on the matter."
"Is that so?"
"Mm. Multiple trials will be necessary. For accuracy."
"I volunteer as your test subject," Jinshi said solemnly, though his eyes danced with mirth. "In the interest of science, of course."
"Of course," she agreed, and kissed him again.
Outside the door, Gaoshun quietly ushered away the worried servants who had gathered, allowing his master this moment of hard-won happiness. There would be time later for discussions of propriety and protocol. For now, the poison taster and the prince could have this truth spoken in desperate moments, risks taken, and the terrifying, exhilarating leap into the unknown territory of the heart.
Maomao had spent her life studying poisons, but this feeling that defied all logic and measurement, might be the most dangerous, most wonderful thing she'd ever dared to taste.
And unlike her other experiments, she found she had no desire for an antidote.