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“You always make it so difficult to say thank you.”

“I am not after your gratitude. I merely ask that you steer clear of danger and leave with me in one piece.”

“Fear not, my darling Death God.” I roll up my sleeves and step forward so that we are standing side by side. “If danger comes, I may be generous enough to protect you.”

He blinks before his surprise twists into a scowl. “This is hardly the time for taunts. I will be addressed as only the Death God; otherwise, you may call me my lord, or the other titles assigned to me, such as Grand King of the Night Realm, or Esteemed Guardian of the Underworld—”

“All right, Great Guard of the Underworld—”

“You know very well that is not what I just said—”

“There is somebody coming,” I cut in, pointing ahead.

The main set of double doors creak open, and I tense, bracing for a three-headed monster, a war god who has lived through all of history, a flesh-devouring creature with scaled wings. But a little girl waddles out. She is so tiny that I don’t spot her until she’s halfway across the yard, her short legs wobbling over the grass. Her hair has been pulled into two knots atop her head, threaded with bright pink ribbons to match her dress. When she smiles at us, her entire face lights up, her large eyes glowing, her front teeth just starting to come in. And though I have always been fairly indifferent to children—I neither dislike them nor love them for the sole fact that they are younger and clumsier—I am overcome by the urge to protect this girl, to pick her up and play with her and pinch her round cheeks.

The little girl slows down before the Death God and tugs at the front of his robes. “Gege,” she says in a voice that could make the birds envious, her expression just as sweet. “Could you please help me with something?”

The Death God’s expression is entirely unmoved. “No,” he says.

She reaches into her pocket anyway, then retrieves a rectangular paper package no bigger than her palm and bound with a simple string. “I only want someone to open this for me. Please, Gege.” She tugs at the Death God’s robes again, bouncing on her heels as she does. “Please, it’s really important to me.”

“Move away,” he snaps, freeing his clothes from her grip.

The girl’s face crumples, the happy gleam in her eyes replaced swiftly by the gloss of tears.

I frown at him. “Was that necessary?”

“Very,” he says.

But the girl is already moving to me. “Jiejie,” she says in the same soft, helpless voice, holding out the package, her lower lip jutting out and trembling. “Pretty Jiejie, could you help me open this? My mother left it for me so I could—” She has not even finished her sentence when the Death God knocks the package from her hand and steps on it, grinding it into the soil with his boot.

“What are you doing?” I demand.

“Look for yourself,” he says.

An eerie hissing sound fills the air, and to my horror, a number of giant scorpions crawl out from under the paper and begin scuttling rapidly in different directions. Their stingers are a deep, deadly purple, thick with venom. The Death God snaps his fingers. They freeze. Then, in the time it takes to blink, they dissolve into dust, scattering with the rising breeze.

Recoiling, I turn to the little girl for answers, but she is gone as well. In her place stands a majestic white-feathered crane, its crown rose-colored instead of red.

The Death God grabs the bird by the neck faster than I can react. The bird gives one loud squawk and then morphs before my very eyes, its body lengthening, its wings folding inward, the feathers melting into smooth flesh. Soon, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen stands before us, like someone who has stepped out of a dream, with a face as delicate and ethereal as the moon. Long lashes, cherry lips, crescent brows. Someone who could rival that famous mortal beauty, Xishi, if she were alive. The woman’s robes hang open around her, the silk trailing just over her slender waist, jewels dripping down the center of her collarbones. She presses herself toward the Death God and sets her hand down on his shoulder.

“Do you prefer me in this form?” she asks, smiling. “It’s incredibly popular in the brothels of the Mortal Realm. I hear men used to travel miles to get a glimpse of this face. Ziyan, I believe her name was. After she left, the brothel lost over half its customers.” As she talks, her fingers splay over the Death God’s robes, sliding under the outer layer.

I am startled by the sharp, burning twist behind my rib cage, the sudden desire to slap her hand away, like how the Death God had slapped the package moments ago. It feels wrong, almost nauseating, to see them together. To see the Death God with anybody else.

But the moment doesn’t last. He’s already pulling away. “Don’t touch me,” he says icily.

She arches one brow. “Oh? Well, that is a first.” Her gaze sweeps past him, to me, and her smile widens. “Is it because—”

“You are better off in your original form,” the Death God cuts in.

She heaves a sigh, but she changes again. She remains beautiful, just not in the way women are so often expected to be. Her eyes become flashing steel, her face a composition of severe, intimidating angles, weathered by time and experience, her lips pulled back to reveal sharklike teeth. A god, unmistakable. And suddenly I realize who I am looking at. The shapeshifter. That is what the politer gods call her. The trickster, Xinji, others know her as. I have never seen her myself before, but I’ve heard plenty about how she moves through different shapes and bodies like water, how every face of hers is a mask, how she could coax a man into giving up his own heart, play his thoughts like the strings of a guqin. If all the rumors are true, she has started as many conflicts as she has ended them, not for a love of peace or bloodlust but simply to show off her own power.

“I cannot be blamed for wanting to have some fun before I leave,” she says, falling back on the grass, one arm lazily cushioning her head.

“You have had your fun now,” the Death God says, stern but not cruel. “More than most.”

She rubs her eyes and yawns. “I suppose you are right. I’ve done everything I wanted.”