Page 56

Once Junyi has left, I wait for Keran to complain. About the bedding. About the shed. About the task awaiting us. About having to share the room with me.

But he merely nods toward the pallet. “It’s yours.”

“What?”

“I’ll be leaving for the night anyway,” he says, turning toward the door. To do what, he doesn’t need to specify. I wonder if he can feel the souls in the city, ready for him to arrive on their doorsteps. I wonder how many have died tonight.

“I know what you’re planning,” I say.

He pauses and glances back, his brows raised.

“Since we have no better options, we can work together for now, and I’ll do everything in my power to ensure Junyi survives his tribulations. But once Junyi ascends to the Heavens again, I’ll also do everything in my power to stop you from killing him and—” I swallow. “And from killing me.”

“I don’t want to kill him, Rujia,” he says, sounding almost diplomatic, if not for the cut of his words. “I want to crush him. I want to tear the bones from his body, and I want to watch him suffer slowly, the exact way I did. And as for you—” His voice changes, and he dips his head, his expression lost to the shadows. “You cannot imagine what I want.”

I hope he does not see me tremble.

“You can’t win,” I tell him, forcing myself to hold still. “I won’t let you.”

“But death always wins, in the end,” he says softly. There is no trace of arrogance to his voice, only resignation. “Staying alive is one of the most difficult things in the world. It requires constant, active effort from the very beginning, an alignment of the right circumstances and luck. But dying? Dying is so terribly easy. There is nothing you need to do, nothing that can be done. No matter what happens, I will be there, waiting with my palms outstretched.”

And with that, he walks away, into the night.

I am woken by birds.

Not the gentle song of phoenixes, but a loud, incessant squawking. An instant reminder of where I am, and where I’m not. My back is still stiff from sleep when I enter the house, rubbing my eyes and combing strands of straw out of my hair. Then I stop. A mountain of books and papers has been set up in the middle of the room, so tall that it takes me a moment to find Junyi and Keran behind it.

“Rujia-Jiejie,” Junyi greets quickly, smiling up at me. “Did you rest well?”

“Well enough,” I say. “How long have you been up?”

“Since dawn,” Junyi replies in the same eager tone, then glances over at Keran. “Though Si-Gege rose even before I did. He was already here when I came.”

“I went to retrieve a few resources,” Keran says. He looks considerably polished, given that he had not returned the whole night.

“He brought everything,” Junyi tells me as I browse through the books, running my fingers over the ink. The Analects of Confucius. Mencius. Great Learning. The Doctrine of the Mean. The Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Yan. Romance of the Three Kingdoms. All familiar titles; I remember seeing them in the Night Palace. “He even has model answers from past exams. And there’s this practice booklet for writing and calligraphy, and this complete collection of all the different policies—”

“Let us not get ahead of ourselves,” Keran says. He reaches up and grabs the book I’m looking over, then holds it out to Junyi. “How much of this have you memorized?”

Junyi clears his throat. “I— A few pages.”

“A few?” Keran repeats, frowning. “How many pages is that? Fifty?”

“I mean—a little less than fifty,” Junyi says, his voice growing smaller and smaller with every word.

“Twenty?”

“I would say . . . the beginning,” Junyi mumbles.

“The beginning,” Keran says flatly. “As in the first page?”

“Y-yes,” Junyi says, then flushes. “Maybe. It’s been a while since I last looked . . . I typically need a few days to refamiliarize myself with something—”

Keran flips the book open. “Start.”

“Sorry?”

“Recite everything you can remember,” Keran instructs, reclining in his seat, his dark sleeves crossed over his chest. It’s only then that I notice the broken chair has been replaced, the desk swapped out for a proper mahogany table, equipped with a wide array of new ink stones and brushes. I have the sudden, bizarre image of the Death God guiding the souls into the Yellow Springs, and immediately returning to the Mortal Realm to find a working table for today’s lessons. He may have expressed his desire to rip Junyi’s bones from his body, but at least he is responsible.