The headmistress, her dark eyes, her composed face, held the revelation.
"Actually," she said. Her voice was careful. Measured. The tone of a woman revealing a confidence. "I am personally told to handle the case of the immortal emperor."
The words, the admission, the revelation that this kind, older woman was connected to the Emperor, was the key. The door. The opportunity.
"What?" the merchant's daughter said. Her warm eyes, wide, streamed. "Why didn't you say this before? Please help me!"
She started crying. The tears, the streaming, falling, desperate tears of a woman who had found a lifeline, who had found someone who could help, who could reach the Emperor, fell. The begging, the raw, broken, begging of a woman who needed to save her father, was genuine.
"Please," she whispered. Her voice was cracked. "I need to help my father."
