Chapter 1 Kicking The Bucket

• "Tell them it was an accident!"
• Wei Chen's voice cut through the roar of the flames. I could barely hear him over the crackle of burning wood and the shriek of the smoke alarm.
• I didn't answer. I couldn't. Smoke had already filled my lungs, thick and hot and greasy. It tasted like failure.
• Let me explain who Wei Chen was, because you need to understand why I died hating him.
• Wei Chen was my business partner. Not my friend. Not my lover. Not my family. He was a man with money and a smile that never reached his eyes. Five years ago, he walked into my restaurant in Shanghai and offered to invest. I was young. I was stupid. I thought I needed help.
• I gave him thirty percent of my dream. He took the other seventy when I wasn't looking.
• He changed the name on the door. He hired his nephew as manager. He started showing up to events, shaking hands with critics, telling them he was the creative force behind my dishes. The dishes I had spent years perfecting. The recipes my grandmother had whispered to me when I was a little girl, standing on a stool so I could reach the stove.
• Wei Chen stole all of it.
• And when the building inspector came six months ago and said the wiring was dangerous, Wei Chen smiled and nodded and did nothing.
• "Too expensive," he said. "We need that money for marketing."
• Marketing. He wanted to spend money on advertisements while the walls of my kitchen were waiting to catch fire.
• The inspector was right.
• That night, the old wires behind the walk-in freezer finally sparked. The flame started small, hidden inside the wall, smoldering for hours while I worked alone in the kitchen. I didn't know. I was preparing the tonkotsu broth, my pride and joy. Pork bones simmered for eighteen hours. The broth had turned white and silky, rich with fat and collagen. It was perfect.
• Then the light flickered.
• Then I smelled smoke.
• I ran to the back. The wall behind the freezer was already black. Flames crawled up the electrical panel like orange spiders. The fire moved fast, too fast. It caught the grease in the exhaust hood. It caught the wooden shelves. Within seconds, my kitchen was an inferno.
• I grabbed my knife roll from the prep table. Ten years of blades, each one sharpened by hand. I slung it over my shoulder and ran for the fire extinguisher.
• I pulled the pin.
• Nothing.
• The extinguisher was empty. Wei Chen had never refilled it.
• "You cheap bastard," I whispered.
• The flames reached the stove now. They licked at my stockpot. I reached for the handles, still thinking I could save it. Save something.
• That's when I tripped.
• A bucket. A stupid, dented bucket of stock. Someone had left it in the middle of the floor. Probably Wei Chen's nephew, the one who couldn't tell a ladle from a spoon.
• My foot caught the rim.
• The world tilted.
• I hit the tile floor hard. My knife roll flew from my hands. The blades scattered across the floor, spinning like silver stars in the firelight. I tried to stand. My body wouldn't listen.
• The fire was everywhere now. It crawled up the walls. Across the ceiling. It wrapped around me like a blanket made of needles and rage.
• I could hear Wei Chen still shouting from somewhere beyond the flames. "Lin! The insurance money! Tell them it was an accident!"
• Tell them. He wanted me to lie for him. Even now.
• The last thing I saw was my favorite knife—the one my grandmother gave me. It lay on the floor, just out of reach. The blade glowed orange in the firelight.
• This is how I die, I thought. Not with honor. Tripping over a bucket in a restaurant that was never really mine.
• The flames closed in.
• Then everything went cold.
• ---------------------------
• I woke up buried in snow.
• The cold was so sharp it felt like being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles. My body—this body—was small and weak and shaking so hard my teeth chattered. I tried to move. Pain shot through my limbs like they had been beaten and left to freeze.
• But I was alive.
• How?
• I forced my eyes open. White. Endless white. Snow stretched in every direction, broken only by the jagged black shapes of mountains in the distance. The sky above was gray and heavy, like the world itself was tired.
• This was not Shanghai. This was not my kitchen. This was not even my body.
• I looked down at my hands. Thin. Pale. The fingers were too short, the nails cracked and dirty. A ragged wool dress hung from my frame like a sack. My feet were wrapped in strips of frozen cloth.
• Fear hit me harder than the cold.
• Where am I? Who am I?
• I tried to speak. My lips moved. Nothing came out. No sound. No voice. Just a weak rasp of air that died in my throat.
• I touched my neck. There was a scar. Old and thick and ugly. Someone had cut me there. Cut my voice out.
• Panic clawed at my chest. I could not breathe. Could not think. I dug my frozen fingers into the snow and tried to stand. My legs buckled. I fell face-first into the cold. The snow melted against my skin, mixing with tears I did not know I was crying.
• This is not my body. This is not my life.
• A sound cut through the wind. Footsteps. Heavy and uneven. Like someone walking with a limp.
• I lifted my head.
• A man stood over me. He was tall and broad-shouldered, wrapped in a thick fur cloak that made him look like a bear. His face was weathered and scarred, half-hidden behind a dark beard shot through with gray. One of his legs was missing below the knee. He leaned on a wooden crutch carved from a single piece of bone.
• He stared down at me with eyes the color of storm clouds. No pity. No warmth. Just exhaustion.
• "Well," he growled. "Another corpse. Just what I needed."
• He turned away.
• I reached out. My fingers caught the edge of his cloak. He stopped. Turned back. His eyes narrowed.
• "You're alive," he said. It was not a question.
• I tried to speak again. Nothing. I pointed at my throat. Shook my head. The movement made my vision swim.
• The man studied me for a long moment. His jaw tightened. Then he sighed, a deep and weary sound.
• "Fine," he muttered. "I'll drag you inside. But if you die in my inn, I'm burning your body for heat."
• He bent down. With one arm, he hauled me up like I weighed nothing. My head lolled against his shoulder. He smelled like woodsmoke and leather and something faintly like old blood.
• As he carried me through the snow, I caught a glimpse of a building ahead. A ramshackle inn with a sagging roof and a sign that creaked in the wind. The words were faded, but I could just make them out:
• FROSTPASS INN
• The man kicked open the door. Warmth hit my face like a blessing. He carried me inside and dumped me on a rough wooden bench near the fire.
• I lay there, shivering and broken, staring at the ceiling. My mind raced. My body failed. I did not know who I was anymore. I did not know where I was. I did not know if I would survive the night.
• But somewhere deep inside me, somewhere that still remembered the heat of a kitchen, the bite of a knife, the satisfaction of a perfect dish, a small voice whispered:
• You did not die in that fire. So get up. You have work to do.
• The man slammed a pot onto the stove. He turned to me with a scowl.
• "What's your name, girl?"
• I opened my mouth. Nothing.
• He shook his head. "Of course. The mute one. I forgot. Bought you off a slaver two days ago. Thought you'd die before I could get my money's worth."
• I stared at him. Bought me? Slaver? What is this place?
• He grabbed a knife from the table and pointed it at me. My heart stopped. But he just held it out, handle first.
• "Since you're not dead," he said, "you can work. Kitchen's yours. Try not to burn it down."
• I took the knife. The weight of it felt wrong in this weak, trembling hand. But the edge was sharp. The steel was good.
• Okay, I thought. Let's see what I can do.