Yù’chén’s fingers barely skim against the sensitive parts of my skin before they move to my collarbone.
When I open my eyes, he is already stepping away. A chill replaces the heat of his body. “I can change anything you don’tlike.”
I step to the edge of the cold spring to peer at my reflection.
Yù’chén has completely changed my nightgown. It holds the original structure, hugging my body and kissing my waist before spilling down in a sheath…but he has enhanced it beautifully into a proper dress. Silver twines with the black silk like a celestial river, cascading down to my feet. My bodice glimmers and ripples like an ocean at midnight. And my hair falls in waves down my back, pinned only by a glowing red scorpion lily.
Like this, fully dressed, I feel settled in a way I haven’t since I arrived.
And I feel powerful.
“I didn’t know your magic could do this,” I say.
“It’s stronger here,” he replies.
“You have an eye for design. I thought I was the seamstress.”
His lips curve at the corners. He’s still staring at me, and he seems to realize this, for he quickly looks away. “Is there anything else you need, Àn’ying?”
I take a step toward him. Something has eased in the dynamic between us, and I feel emboldened to ask, “Can I go outside of these chambers with you?”
He hesitates, and I wonder if I’ve pushed too far. But Yù’chén says, “The Palace of the Aurora is heavily guarded. My wing in particular has limited exit and entry. I’m not exactly popular in my kingdom right now after…well, after some of the choices I made back in the Kingdom of Sky. We would need a reason to leave.”
I know exactly what choices he’s referencing. An image flashes in my mind: me, standing at the edge of the waterfall leading to the mortal realm, hand in hand with Hào’yáng as we prepare to escape. Yù’chén, stepping out from the shadows behind us, the red of his eyes burning into me.
He let me go.
“I have an idea,” Yù’chén says now, drawing my attention back to the present. He proffers his hand.
And because I have nothing more to lose by trusting him this once, I take it.
—
Caution tightens my throat as we step into his chambers and near those obsidian doors. I don’t know what might be waiting for me on the other side. By instinct, I keep flicking my wrists, grasping for my crescent blades.
Gain his trust, I repeat to myself firmly—the mantra that is at once keeping me moving and holding me together. I touch the bodice of my gown, where I’ve pocketed that shard of the porcelain teacup I broke several days ago. With it and a proper dress, I’m already in a better position than I was when I arrived.
The obsidian doors shimmer with a luster I thought to bemother-of-pearl, yet as we approach, I realize that it resembles stardust. When Yù’chén raps on the doors, the stardust ripples, revealing two silhouettes on the other side, like shadows through a screen.
Guards.
“Open the passageway,” Yù’chén demands, every bit the petulant prince of this realm. “I’m going to a moonsong revelry.”
A sly female voice responds, echoing as though she speaks to us through a long tunnel, “You and your mortal pet, halfling prince?”
“Need you even ask?” he drawls.
There’s faint laughter; he seems to have passed the test, for the doors open like drapes parting. Flowers bloom, their stems weaving into an archway: silver narcissuses, their petals like pale butterflies.
Yù’chén draws me close to him in the semblance of an embrace. “You know the rules,” he says to me, his breath grazing the shell of my ear. “Stay close to me. Don’t touch the flowers. And don’t believe anything you see or hear.”
The last time I went through a demonic passageway, it was formed ofhismagic. He’d been leading me home.
I never thought I’d miss the sight of the red scorpion lilies.
Cold brushes my shoulders when we step into the narcissus passageway, as though I step through a sheet of frost. I hear whispers and strange chittering in the distance, but when I turn my head sharply, there’s nothing—only walls of pale flowers everywhere, glowing unnaturally.
The passageway branches off, like a great underground tunnel. The walls are nearly translucent, like smoke screens filtering through light…and I have the strangest sensation we’re beingwatched. Ghostly shapes move on the other side at the corners of my eyes; when I look at them directly, they’re gone in that swirling mass of gray.
