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I am back inside my room that evening, pacing in restless circles.

It’s too quiet. After heading home, Junyi had gone straight to sleep, and Keran had stepped outside—to do what, or go where, he hadn’t told me. The moment should feel celebratory, or at least calm. There is nothing left for us to do except wait for the results. But ever since Junyi came out of the exam cell, I haven’t been able to shake the creeping feeling that something is wrong.

A low creak pulls me from my thoughts.

I startle and whirl around and find Keran standing in the doorway behind me. His expression is somber, the darkness of his eyes as impenetrable and unknowable as the sky behind him. Then, with a wave of his sleeve, the door snaps shut. He says nothing. The silence spreads between us, the only detectable sounds the grasshoppers chirring and the breeze running through the trees and the lanterns rattling ever so softly in distant corridors. He does not need to say anything. When he takes a step closer, I catch the gleam of silver in his hand.

My heart falters.

So it has come to this, I think, unprepared for the instant wrenching pain in my chest, not fear so much as betrayal. Maybe it had been naive of me to believe that living like mortals these past few months would truly change him. That amid the glow of the candlelights, the smoke and flames of the stove, the flow of crowds through the streets, the flowers and the festivals, the ice would thaw in his veins. That just because I can call him Keran, it will no longer matter that he is the Death God, the great terror of the world.

It was always meant to come to this.

The Death God, holding the sword, and me, at the end of it.

Except I refuse to go with him. I’ve never been greedier for life. For love. I want a thousand more mornings just to watch the sun drench the horizon in gold, a thousand more dinners of steaming, salted dishes, a thousand more walks through the bamboo forests. I want as many eternities as I can fit into one lifetime.

But if I am being honest with myself, it is not just the Mortal Realm I cannot bear to part with. It’s also him.

My mind sprints ahead as I stay rooted to the floor, my blood roaring in my eardrums. I can think of very little—except a memory. Faint as the flickering candles around the room yet burned into my mind: how his gaze had changed when I touched his sleeve at the festival. Maybe, however impossible the idea might seem, I have not been entirely naive. Maybe he also feels something for me.

I take in a deep breath. Try to steady my thudding heart. Yes, why not be honest? Why not be open about my desires? All my attempts to run from him have failed, so why not run to him instead? What is the worst that could happen if the alternative is simply letting him kill me?

So before he can even raise the sword in my direction, I move toward him on my own. “There’s something I need to tell you,” I say.

His brows furrow. “What is it?”

I look down, then touch the cool, black silk of his belt where it is fastened around his waist, hooking one finger through the fabric. My pulse beats quick at my fingertips, like rain pattering on a slanted roof. I wonder if he can sense it, as I can sense the surprise spreading through him. “Please don’t be too startled,” I murmur, “but I fear that I may like you.”

“Like?” he repeats, as if it is a completely foreign word. Perhaps it is. Too gentle, too simple, designed for those who run through life untrammeled. It would not suffice for whatever it is that burns within me every time I think of him, whether that is a loathing or yearning so heavy it makes my lungs bleed.

“Yes. Like,” I say, assessing his expression. His pupils are dilated, locked on that sole point of contact, his lashes fluttering with his next shaky exhale.

He shakes his head very slowly. “Do not lie to me—”

“Why would I be lying? I like you,” I say, firmer. “I want you—”

His gaze snaps up to mine. Terror. The last emotion I would have expected to find blazing in his face, as sharp as shattered glass. Like he can see the end of the world painted across my lips, like the barest movement might leave his soul in pieces. If I did not know better, I would think that he was the one dying. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he gets out at last.

“I do,” I promise.

“Rujia,” he begins, a warning or a curse, but I don’t give him the chance to continue. I wrap one arm around his neck and press myself forward, leaving only a few inches of distance between our lips.

I feel his breathing stop.

I feel his entire body stiffen.

“Rujia,” he says again, but his voice is unguarded, rough. His eyes wide. “If this is another scheme of yours, then—”

“I promise, it is no scheme,” I say a little resentfully. How I wish that it were, that I didn’t have to be so vulnerable, so honest, so earnest. I raise my hand to his shoulder and trace the line across his collarbone, then up to the center of his throat, riding the movement there when he swallows. I am astounded by my own courage. Even more astounded that he is not lifting the sword but letting me touch him like this. He is hardly moving, and I take advantage of his shock: Before he can kill me, I lean in and kiss him.

It is like every time we have traveled.

The world disappears. The room fades away. The rich, ripe scent of the night. The begonias quivering beyond the opened windows, petals white as snow, new leaves green as day. All of it gone. The candles, gone. The incense burner in the corner and the sweetness of its smoke, gone.

My heart, gone too.

I’d imagined that he would feel like ice, like the cold of the earth, ten, twenty feet underground, like a stone statue left alone in the darkest winter. That in kissing him, some part of me would die. Instead, I have been brought back to life. His lips are warm, soporific, soft as pouring honey.