He sighed, reaching for the bottle before finding it empty. “I’m not drunk enough for this.”
I shook my head at him. “I need you clearheaded, Lei.”
“I know,” he said with a sigh. “But it doesn’t make me miss the taste.”
He spun the empty bottle against the dirt. “What is she like?” he wondered aloud. “Rea…Rea is insatiably curious. She asks more questions than a constable, and solves more cases than one too.People come to her with all sorts of problems, and she loves to help them, no matter how small the issue.”
I watched his face, the way his eyes grew soft as he spoke of his sister. He looked young then, and I was reminded of the fact that he’d been a boy not too long ago. We had all been children, once—before this war had consumed us.
“She had these pet dogs that she used to bring with her everywhere. She loved them, probably more than she loves anyone. She’d feed them before she ate her own supper. Her teachers all disapproved, of course, but against their wishes she trained them—until they could perform truly marvelous tricks. Feats even humans couldn’t manage.” He smiled at an unknown memory, his expression far away.
“You love her,” I said, for it was plain to see.
His eyes cleared. He stretched out his legs, feigning tiredness. But I waited, not letting him evade the question. At last, he replied, “Yes.”
“Why do you never speak of her?”
He rolled his jaw. “It is a weakness,” he replied. “And it can be used against me. I am not so foolish as to wear my vulnerabilities on my sleeve.” And he had once cautioned me against doing the same.
His own brother had used this weakness against him.
“Yes,” he said, and I wondered if I had accidentally spoken aloud. “But Rea is safe from him, for now.”
“Do you think your brother was the one who had you poisoned, during the Spring Festival?”
Grimly, Lei nodded. “Zihuan had my father assassinated in a similar manner.”
I hadn’t even known his father was dead. Theirs was a strained relationship, and yet he was still his father. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Ours is a family only on paper.”
I watched him toy with the empty bottle, struck by how little he had. Vilified by the official reports, treated as a demon in Anlai, and dismissed as a frivolous, empty-headed prince in Ximing. Neglected by his family, hunted by his own brother. And yet, despite it all, he cared more than I did. He still believed the world was worth saving.
Compared to him, I had so much. I thought of Xiuying, Rouha, and Plum—my family, who had been kept from me for months. I’d seen them only for a few precious moments before fleeing Chuang Ning, and now there was a very real chance I would never see them again.
“I have a sister too,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “Well, more than one.”
Lei’s eyes flickered like moonlight on water. “Did you visit them in Chuang Ning?”
“The Imperial Commander forbade me from seeing them. For over a year I didn’t see them.” I clasped my arms around myself, thinking of how much I’d sacrificed in the palace. I’d had no friends and no family in the Forbidden City—so that Sky had become my everything. And I had fostered that dependence.
“I saw them before I left the capital. Only for a few minutes, but…they’ve grown so much. I could hardly recognize Rouha and Plum.”
“You’ve grown too,” said Lei.
I returned his gaze. It was true; I wasn’t the same girl who’d fled my father’s house a year ago. I was more calloused, more scarred, more angry, more afraid. I had more to lose now.
I leaned back on my forearms, gazing up at the night sky. “When do children stop being children?” I asked.
“In war?” said Lei lazily. “Yesterday.”
At my lack of understanding, he said, “There’s no hope for children in times of war. You either grow up or become another casualty.”
I remembered Plum jumping into the ring of dragon dances, Rouha stuffing her face with mooncakes. I thought of Lei’s sister, Rea, training her many dogs. I imagined Ming Lei as a little boy, watching his mother’s beheaded corpse dragged in the dirt. I recalled myself at eleven, covering my ears late at night to shut out my father’s violent tirades. I remembered a bloated purple foot slipping free from the shroud, the last trace of my mother that I’d ever seen.
I thought of a young woman training late into the night, who’d believed it was courage and hard work that would make others recognize her.
She’d believed the world to be a fair and kind place.
