He felt the rush of spiritual energy goinginsidehim. Pins and needles prickled up from his hands to his arms.
Yiran stared, astounded.
The small white scars on his fingertips—the harrowing mementos his grandfather had gifted him when he was a child—had lit up with a crimson glow.
21
Rui
Rui sat across from Madam Meng in a large room with shelves stacked with tins of tea. It looked unchanged since the last time she had been here, when Zizi had come to get his migraine medicine.
“The ritual will only work if you have a true connection to the boy,” said Madam Meng. “You will not be physically present in the underworld, only your mind and your sight. Pick a memory, hold it firm and clear. Then drink.”
Clutching the cup of tea in her hand, Rui latched on to the first thing that came to mind: the moment when she and Ada found out that they were progressing to the top senior class in their cohort. She sipped. The tea was fresh like morning dew on spring leaves.
Seconds ticked by, but she felt no change. Disappointed, she pushed the cup away.
“It didn’t work.”
“Giving up so soon?” Madam Meng tutted. “There is still tea in your cup, and another chance. Perhaps the memory you chose was not significant enough.”
Just as Rui was about to protest, she remembered what the old lady had said.
An offering is a sacrifice to the divine universe. More specifically, it must be a sacrifice from yourself.
In all the folktales, all the myths and legends, the sacrifice made by a mortal seeking divine intervention had to be an equivalent exchange. In this case, it wasn’t about Rui giving up an arm or leg, or even her life. This was a different kind of sacrifice. The kind that woke you up in the middle of the night, your heart mourning inarticulately for its loss.
She took the cup and drank again.
Bitterness flooded her taste buds. Caught off guard, she coughed, trying not to gag as the tea turned sour and vinegary, like needles poking the back of her throat. She shut her eyes tight, holding on to her chosen memory.
A cozy autumn day, her mother holding her hand... Rui laughing as warm apple cider dripped down her chin, and her father wiping it off...
The birthday before the one when tragedy struck.
She soaked in her emotions, reliving the memory. Gradually, she felt lighter and lighter, like she was floating in the air, detached from her physical body. At the same time, something was fading inside her, losing its color until it was nothing more than gray, empty space. There was pain. The wrenching, aching sort that felt worse than all the times she’d broken a bone in training, or even when Ten had tortured her.
Tears rimmed her eyes. But the most frightening thing was that she didn’t know why she was crying, or why she was sad.
The memory, whatever it had been, was lost forever.
She heard Madam Meng’s voice, sounding as if it was coming from very far away.
“Think of him.”
Rui didn’t have to try hard at all to focus on Zizi. How could she ever forget him? His face had been imprinted on her from the first time they’d met. Cheekbones and jaw finely sculpted, nose like the blade of a well-honed knife—he was all angles and edges except for his eyes, the startling blue softening whenever he looked at her. His spontaneous, too-loud laughter when something amused him, the off-kilter smile that showed itself at the most random moments. He was perfect in all his imperfections. She remembered the teasing look he had whenever he called her by that ridiculous nickname,Rooroo, the one he’d come up with to annoy her. It was a silly term of endearment that set her apart from all others, that told her she was special to him. What wouldn’t she give to hear him say it again?
She felt herself lurching forward, shooting through the air like a bottlecap popping off. Something was pulling her, like an impatient guide dragging her along.
Then everything went still.
Rui opened her eyes. Her stomach did a flip as she realized she wasn’t in the tearoom anymore. The sheen of the black walls of this dungeon-looking place was wickedly pretty. A narrow flight of stairs spiraled up behind her, and a set of doors like an elevator’s was set into the rock a few steps to her left. The place was dark—no, itfeltdark. But it wasn’t the absence of light that made it so. It was the deep feeling of dread that pressed down, as if it was trying to squeeze the life out of everything.
Thiswas the underworld.
Rui shuddered, trying to tamp down her growing fear. The tug she had felt earlier seemed to urge her toward the corridor. It was a hook in her chest, the line reeling her in. She didn’t know what it was, and she didn’t like the thought of being such an easy catch. But it’d become so strong she couldn’t have fought it even if she wanted to.
She moved forward, but her feet didn’t touch the ground, and when she tried to touch the wall, her translucent hand went right through it. Madam Meng said she would be an incorporeal presence; perhaps this was what she meant. Concentrating on the tug, Rui bobbed along, like a balloon tied to a string.
