The stars wink overhead. A breeze stirs the trees. And on the horizon, a seam of light appears.
There’s a rustle of feathers next to us, and I look up to see his crane alight.
Yù’chén draws back. His shirt is shredded, revealing the black veins carrying his dark magic to his wound. It still looks terrible, but the bleeding has stopped.
“My crane will take us back,” he says. He can barely stand, so I sling his arm over my shoulders and hoist him onto the shadowcrane. I climb on behind him. The shadowcrane’s wings extend until they shroud half the starlit night. They wrap around me, and feathers smoother than silk, airy and liquid at once, slide beneath my fingers.
I glance back at my house one last time.
I hold on to Yù’chén tightly as we are borne into the skies on the wingbeat of a great, demonic crane. There must be enchantments at play, for the wind has taken on the scent of flowers and the moon brightens to a silver coin overhead. The landscape of my realm that we pass over takes on an impossibly beautiful sheen, the mountains and pines dusted with starlight and the rivers flowing like white gold.
Yù’chén has fallen asleep, leaning against me. I brush my fingers against his red cloak, noticing the tear in its bottom-left corner. The rest of it has escaped the mó’s attack, but I can’t take my eyes away from that corner.
I retrieve the rosewood box—the sewing kit he gifted me—from my storage pouch, where I’ve taken to carrying it.
I thread the needle and begin to sew. The tightness in my chest calms as I lose myself in the familiar motions. When I straighten, a red scorpion lily covers the bottom-left corner of the cloak.
I put my sewing box back into my pouch just as we breakthrough the clouds. In the distance ahead are the white stone and golden roofs, resplendent in the early morning light, of the Temple of Dawn. Wards, shimmering like sunlight on water, rise into the skies.
The shadowcrane circles, and it isn’t long before I spot Yù’chén’s gate amidst the clouds: an archway where the flowers and trees of the immortal realm look clearer and sharper. The red scorpion lilies are in full bloom; the gate yawns open at our approach.
We plunge through. The shadowcrane lands, and I help Yù’chén off. He touches her beak gently. With a bow of her head, the shadowcrane takes wing back through the gate.
Yù’chén sinks down against a tree. His breathing is labored; dark veins still pulse beneath his skin. “Leave me,” he manages with a wince. “I have to…destroy the gate.”
The sun has risen, and with it, reality comes rushing back. Given the ongoing murder investigation, I wonder if the other candidates are still allowed to train. Whether Hào’yáng will look for me this morning.
My stomach tightens as I bring my hand to my jade pendant. Here, in the clear morning light, whatever Yù’chén and I had between us—all that we shared in Xi’lín—will fade like shadows.
“Àn’ying,” I hear him call, as though he, too, has come to the same realization. “Àn’ying—”
A scream cuts through the forest.
I palm Fleet and Shadow. “I’ll be right back,” I say, and I take off, ignoring him as he calls after me.
The Celestial Gardens are silent as I tread through the brush in the direction of the Mirror Lake, where the screamcame from. I wonder if I misheard—if it was the cry of an injured bird or animal. The willows and blossoms are quiet, swaying in the breeze. Sunlight sparkles on the water. It’s too beautiful a day for death.
That’s when I stumble upon the body.
24
Even in death, Fán’xuan wears a hint of a smile. On the white sands of the Mirror Lake, his hair and robes fanning around him like snow, the first spots of color I see are his vibrant green eyes. They were once the color of willow leaves, of spring shoots; now they are as cold and still as jade. But as my gaze roams down his body, a violent shudder rips through me. He has been torn open. His heart and organs have been devoured, so there is nothing left in his chest but bones and the glistening red of his blood.
My mind blanks. A high-pitched ringing fills my ears as my world narrows to my friend, staring unseeing into skies he will never fly through again.
The sound of footfalls filters through my shock. I turn, blades raised.
It’s Yù’chén. Slowly, he raises a finger to his lips. Points.
Above the beach, within the line of green willows and flowering trees, something moves beneath the canopy. Over the sound of waves, I make out a slurping, tearing noise.
“That,” Yù’chén says quietly, “is the culprit you’re looking for.”
I stare at the hulking shape in the shadows, the sounds of its feasting growing more and more apparent. Its back is turned to us, and it’s too dim for me to make out what it is, but my gut knows; I recognize the movements, the sounds.
It’s the being from the Kingdom of Night that attacked me, killed Number Five, and likely Number One. And now…My throat tightens unbearably as I catch sight of Fán’xuan’s pale hair ruffling in the breeze steps away from me.
Whatever that thing is, I’m going to tear it to pieces.
