I can’t die.
Then the voice whispering imminent death in my head changed, the pitch unfamiliar. Not mine.
I’m going to die.
Startling visions rushed through me, the full brunt of the spirit’s emotions breaking through my focus. In my mind, I saw an infant in my arms, soft and warm against my bare breast. A baby girl, her fist wrapped tightly around my finger. The child’s flushed cheeks were reminiscent of watercolor strokes on freshly pressed paper. She blinked dazedly at the world around her, still so new and foreign and full of potential.
But her beauty was dampened by the cruel whispers coming from the doors behind me:A girl. Not a son. What a waste.My heart clenched. I’d failed to give those people the one thing they’d asked of me.
Then the image shifted, and I was kneeling in mud, ice-cold rain pounding my back, soaking my clothes and unbound hair. I dug frantically into the heavy, wet earth, searching, searching, searching. They’d said the child was buried—here? In the flower garden? Or in the forest behind the house?
At the thought of the forest, I was suddenly there, flailing aboveground, surrounded by nothing but trees. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs burned from lack of air. The rope—myrope?—was around my neck, the ground so far below. My kicking slowed, muscles tiring as the last of my hope flickered out. How the gods had cursed me. How they all had.
The spirit’s memories melted away into reality, and I found myself returned to the forest, to my own body and mind. There was no rain. No rope around my neck.
But I was still choking.
“Mistress Kang!”
With painful effort, I squinted down and saw a light resting on the ground, illuminating the Fu talisman taped to Ren’s face. He shoved it back and met my eyes with his own wide ones. In his hand, he gripped the peach staff I’d dropped.
The peach staff.
My protection, my weapon.
Unable to speak, I waved my arm, praying Ren would understand. Miraculously, he did. He yelled, “Catch!” and, with incredible aim, tossed the staff into the air. My fingers brushed the wood—then felt it slip past my skin.
I can’t die!
Fighting against my invisible captor, I strained my arm as far as it would go and snatched the end of the staff as it tumbled downward. I swung it up and thumped the opposite end against my own throat, the iron bells clanging loudly.
A scream tore at my eardrums. The force dissipated, and my body fell.
Branches and leaves whipped my face, shoulders, legs. I crashed into Ren’s outstretched arms, knocking us both to the forest floor. My ribs ached in protest, my throat raw from being crushed. But I was alive and I could breathe—albeit in sharp, burning gasps.
“You weigh more than you appear,” Ren muttered.
“And you—are weaker—than you appear,” I rasped, patting his arm with one hand. My other still held tightly to the peach staff.
“Are you all right?” he said more gently as he helped me up. “Breathe slowly. Deeply.”
I coughed and sucked in a long, stuttered breath. Then I panted, “You were supposed to be bait, not me.”
He had the decency to look ashamed. “I—”
The woman materialized beside us, letting out a scream piercing enough to fling me back to the ground. I stumbled to my feet with a groan. Every part of me cried in pain. My lantern had been blown out by the spirit’s wail. I heard a grunt and squinted at the dimness. My eyes barely glimpsed the outline of Ren hovering three feet in the air, his hands grasping at his throat.
I half ran, half hobbled forward, staff positioned like a spear before me.
But before the wood could make contact, his body was yanked sideways, out of reach.
My arms flapped to regain my body’s equilibrium. Then I turned to find Ren’s thrashing form again. A dark aura encased him, wrapping around his limbs like vines and tightening where his bones met. I wondered what the spirit was doing—
A horrible crack hit my ears as Ren’s joints snapped out of place. The angles of his shoulders, elbows, knees, even fingers—it was all wrong.
But the worst was Ren’s scream.
It shot straight from my head to my toes, pinning me to the earth.
