Zott had been watching over the Shali, lurking just at the edge of the courtyard; his back against the wall, when it happened. Miss Nuna and Viseka were trying to teach Miss Komao a dance they had made up. Miss Lim was asleep on her mother’s lap, just out of the sun’s glare. 

Miss Jiwat skipped onto the porch, a steamed bun in her hand. Something she had pilfered from the kitchen? It was almost lunch.  Troublesome child. 

Zott’s focus was on the dance practice. The Shali were not far from the duck pond. If they fell in, he was primed to jump and save them. It was the least he could do after he had failed so badly at the guest house. Humiliated Duke Ashem so terribly…

Zott could feel his critical eye, but the Duke was hidden in the gloom of the tearoom. With young master Ven having descended the mountain again, Zott was less on edge than usual but still couldn’t relax. Not while his previous infraction was so fresh. 

“Darling! What’s wrong?” the voice of the Shana rang out. 

Miss Jiwat had barely made a sound, her face blue, grasping at her jaw. Miss Lim was crying, woken by her mother leaping up to see to her other child.

He was at their side in less than a second. She had eaten something. The steamed bun must have been-
“Get away, you idiot!” Duke Ashem shoved Zott aside and frantically looked over his grandchild. 

A servant had appeared in the doorway, attracted by the screams. 

“Go fetch Bejuk at once! Or any healer you can find!”

That other Duke, who so often caused Zott’s master a headache, and his queer, ghostly protege were soon seeing to the ailing Shali. They had managed to keep her throat from closing up, but she was still pale and weak, slipping in and out of consciousness. 

Zott’s stomach turned as he stood there, watching the healers, his Duke, and his Shana, tending to an innocent child he had sworn to protect. He had reached a new low. The guesthouse was a foolish mistake, but one the Duke could forgive with time. But this…

Something had to be done.

Zott’s mind was whirring. When he thought of who must be responsible, he could only think of one name. Rae je Kaolin. That hateful shakje. Now, the Shak.

He might look meek and harmless, enough to have young master Ven fooled, but Zott knew that the Koalin Shakje was the beginning and end of his master’s troubles. 

The Shak had ample motive to target the Duke’s family, to punish the Duke for his arrogance, the Shana for her marriage, and the Shali for their existence. For the Shak, those little girls were not innocent flowers, but weeds that needed to be culled. 

The sight of Miss Jiwat’s twisted up face, the Shana’s tears, the sound of little Miss Lim’s wailing… Zott couldn’t wait around for his Duke to give the order. He didn’t know if answers would be enough to save Miss Jiwat, nor what questions to ask, but he was going to bleed all the information he could out of the one responsible. The other Shali would not suffer the same fate. This, he swore. 

Whatever servants conducted the Shak’s wicked whims… he would skin them alive. Make them suffer ten times what Miss Jiwat was enduring.