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“And risk him getting caught for cheating? If they have any reason to suspect him, they could strip him of his ranking and end his career for good. Remember, there are supposed to be two tribulations. Whatever we do for the first tribulation cannot reshape his life so completely that he misses the second.” I jerk my head toward the door where we had last seen Junyi. “That’s not even to take into account the fact that he would be morally opposed to it.”

Keran scoffs. “The crown prince has no morals—”

“The crown prince might not,” I say, “but he is another person in this life, in this realm. I know it is hard for you, but you cannot keep judging him by what he did in the past iteration. He has no memories of it, no history with you, and no reason to pretend to be anything he isn’t.”

“He has the same soul,” Keran protests.

“All souls are malleable. They’re like flowers. A seed that has been planted into rich soil and watered every day and faced out into the sunlight will grow to become something wholly different from a seed planted in the dark. That is the case, even if the seeds were to be identical.”

Keran is quiet for a moment. He draws a slow line through the dust on the table with one finger, his black rings gleaming. “Do you . . . really believe that?” he asks, his voice soft, veering between tentative and contemptuous, like he resents himself for asking. “That it’s because one flower is given sunlight, and the other deprived of it? That it’s not because one is inherently ruined from the start?”

I hold his gaze. “Of course,” I tell him. “I don’t believe anything is inherently ruined.”

He exhales, a long and jagged sound. Angles his head away. “Well,” he says at last, “do not expect me to start smiling at him.”

“Considering that you never smile at anyone, my expectations are very low.” I pause to train my ears on the yard. I can hear the bubble of boiling water, the silver clink of a spoon against clay. Soon, the tea will be ready. Another memory unfolds—and with it, an idea. The crown prince had not gone to school with us, but he’d had his own private tutors. A tutor for tea-making, a tutor for calligraphy, a tutor for chess, for the guqin, for everything. That was one of the reasons he’d outpaced us all so easily. “Perhaps,” I say, “the best strategy to ensure Junyi passes his exams is just to help him study.”

Keran turns back, brows raised. “That sounds far less convenient than bribery.”

“It’s also more reliable,” I point out. “You are well-versed in mortal texts, are you not? And I am a very quick learner. Once I familiarize myself with the material, I’m certain I could help teach him. And,” I add, sensing his reluctance, “I’m sure we can provide him with more—ideal conditions.” My gaze wanders to the cobwebs sticking to the corners of the roof, the rotting floors, the uneven chairs. “Once he isn’t so preoccupied with the task of survival, he might be better able to absorb the content from his books. Perhaps that is why he took so long to pass the first stage of exams. Not a lack of intelligence, but a lack of resources.”

“Teach him,” Keran repeats in an incredulous tone, though I can tell he sees the logic in it too.

“It would also be a good excuse to keep an eye on him,” I say. “We could—”

“Sorry for the wait,” comes Junyi’s voice from the doorway. He enters, carrying a tray of tea poured into small chipped cups, with images of carps in waves fading over them. As with the chairs, there are only two cups. I imagine that is all he has. Perhaps it is for the best he has lost his memories from his past life. Misery is always felt more keenly when you have something to compare it against.

“Thank you,” I say, reaching for the tea with both hands. I take a careful sip, more out of politeness than thirst. The hot liquid is so diluted I can taste only the bare edge of bitterness beneath the water. “It is delicious.”

Keran takes his cup, too, but doesn’t drink from it.

“There is actually something we wish to discuss with you,” I tell Junyi, swishing the tea around. I have had enough time now to formulate my lie. “You see, we are traveling scholars. We have tutored students from all over the empire, from Beijing to Guilin, and watched them go on to become accomplished civil servants.”

Junyi’s eyes widen. Then he hurriedly sets the tray down on the desk, and snaps into a low bow, his long hair falling over his face. “Oh—forgive me, I hadn’t known I was in such esteemed company. But of course, you are both so well-spoken, and well-dressed, and you move with such grace . . .”

While I have not exactly made up my mind about Junyi the mortal, I much prefer his attitude now to his old one.

Smiling at him, I motion benevolently for him to rise, as a crown prince would his loyal subjects. This entire situation is terrible enough; I might as well enjoy what I can. “No need for that,” I say. “You see, we choose our students very carefully. Only those brimming with potential end up studying under us. They must have that decisive quality to them: the perfect combination of natural talent and discipline that separates the good from the best. Every dec—” I stop just in time, suppressing a wince at the near mistake, and pretend to have choked on my last sip of tea. Mortals only live a few decades in total, I remind myself. And you look like you have been around for two and a half decades, at most. “Each year,” I say, recovering, “we will select a student we believe is destined for success and prepare them for the exam. Nobody we’ve chosen has ever failed before.”

Junyi is staring up at us like we might be figments from a dream. His face is open, wondrous, flushed from emotion as much as from the heat outside, his eyes clear and shining. Such hope. Such trust. The other gods would have mocked him for it. “You don’t mean . . .” He wets his lips, his voice hoarse.

“This year,” I say, “we choose you.”

Chapter Eighteen

Junyi was born without a heartbeat.

They all blamed it on the fact that he had been born too early, an entire month ahead of when they’d expected him. His mother had been sewing a winter coat for him when her water broke. He arrived so early that she hadn’t even understood what was wrong. She’d only felt a strange, sudden tightening in her stomach, and then a tearing pain that made her gasp and drop the needle. They had no help; they could not afford it. And whatever savings they did have, his father was out spending it at that exact moment, lost in the silks and perfumes of the brothels in the city. By the time his father came stumbling home, reeking of cheap alcohol, his robes crumpled, Junyi’s mother was already holding his tiny body in the dingy, cramped room they used to store grain. His heartbeat had returned, but faintly, as if it were wrapped in cloth. His breathing was weak, unstable. He barely cried.

His father wanted to throw him out, convinced he was good as dead. It would not be the first time they had buried a child. But his mother had pleaded to keep him. She believed he would survive. She would make sure that he did. She had a name picked out for him already: Junyi. It had sprung into her mind, solid and whole, the first moment she laid eyes on him, as if gifted to her by the stars.

And she was right. He did survive, though he remained much smaller than others his age and fell sick at every turn of the season. It didn’t matter. To his mother, he was perfect. She finished sewing his coat, then embroidered his name into the collar, the thread lopsided in some places. She made candied hawthorn for him and let him lick the golden melted sugar off the spoon; it was scalding hot and burned his mouth a little, but he would grin up at her and ask for more. She took him up the hillside when he was old enough to walk and taught him to recognize different birds by the color of their feathers, the sound of their song. She told him tales by the burning lamps about the palace among the clouds, about the gods who could heal and the gods who could kill, and when his eyelids drooped and his head sank into the pillow, she stopped talking and hummed under her breath until sleep submerged him in gentle oblivion.

His father was unimpressed.

“He can’t even hold a sword,” he’d spat one day, disgusted. Those were the first words Junyi remembered him saying. “Look at those puny arms. Thin as bamboos.”

“He is lucky if he never has to hold a sword in his life,” his mother had replied calmly. “He can be a scholar.”