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Qiming’s expression darkens. “Why should I be revising?”

Junyi presses his lips together, as if debating whether or not to answer. “From what I’ve heard, you haven’t passed the second stage of exams either.”

There is a profound pause.

Then Qiming shoves him: a light push, at first, more to scare him than actually hurt him. But when Junyi stumbles, Qiming advances, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. The tendons in Junyi’s neck stand out as he chokes, his skin flushing from the pressure. “Do you think we’re in the same position?” Qiming spits, all the handsomeness wrung dry from his features. “You’re just some boy from a peasant family with delusional dreams of success. You’re nothing. You’re nobody. It repulses me,” he continues, giving Junyi such a violent shake that his head jerks back. “You don’t understand your place in life, so you barge in and mess up the order for everyone else and act all disappointed and pitiful when you get exactly what you deserve. Stop embarrassing yourself.”

My fists clench. It’s too much, too unfair.

When Qiming shoves him again, Junyi falls onto his knees, his palms hitting the ground.

“That’s where you belong,” Qiming says harshly. “Stay there.”

Junyi doesn’t move. It’s hard to tell whether it’s out of obedience, or out of pain. Either way, I cannot stomach it any longer. I begin to step forward, to do something—I’m not even sure what—but Keran speaks first.

“This is the most pathetic show I’ve ever watched,” he says under his breath, the disgust in his voice startling me. It seems to be more than a surface-level disgust, a simple reaction to the scene before us, but rather an emotion that coils inward, into himself, as though he is speaking to a memory. I cannot see him, but I feel him move, subtle as a passing breeze. A pebble sails across the yard and hits Qiming squarely in the back of his skull.

He yells and whirls around, but of course, his gaze lands on nothing. We’re no more visible than ghosts.

“What was that?” he demands, Junyi frozen behind him. He turns to the other men, who look equally bewildered. “Did any of you see? Where did that come from?”

They shake their heads. “We don’t know . . .”

“It looked like it came out of thin air—”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It did, though—”

“All right, shut up,” Qiming snaps at them. He glances over in our general direction one last time, then dusts his sleeves. “Let’s—let’s leave.”

They do not linger.

Once the yard is clear, Junyi lifts his head, his eyes wide and watering. His palms are bleeding, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He clasps his grazed hands together, easing himself into praying position, and stares up at the sky. “Whoever that was,” he whispers, “god or spirit or ghost . . . thank you.”

“He doesn’t even know who he’s praying to,” Keran says incredulously, his voice drifting away.

I follow after him, back toward the house. “At least he’s grateful.”

“I wasn’t doing it for him.”

Under the shade of the roof, he undoes the enchantment with a snap of his fingers. The coldness lifts, and warmth rushes over my skin like bathwater. We’re standing closer than I’d thought, his gaze lowered to mine, his profile sharply visible once more.

“Why help him, then?” I ask.

“Because I was reminded of a boy,” he says, turning his head away. “And a god, who helped him when everyone else would gladly watch him bleed. She was kind and brave, and even though it was impossible, there came moments when he wanted to be more like her.”

My heart thuds once in confusion. “Who was she?”

He meets my gaze. Hesitates.

Then, just as the invisibility enchantment had dissolved, a veil in the back of my mind lifts, my vision of the past clearing. I see a young god backed into the corner, his hands burned so severely it hurts just to look at them. The hope in his eyes when he lifts his head, his surprise at simply being spoken to.

What is your name?

It is a secret . . . But I can tell you, if you keep it a secret between us.

I draw in a tight breath. Keran. No wonder the name had sounded familiar. Somehow I had forgotten. I had gone home afterward with the feeling I’d misplaced something vital, except I didn’t know what it was. All my books were with me, and everything else was in order, and over time I’d managed to convince myself it was nothing.