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“I think so too,” she says, equally sincere.

Junyi points at one of the lumps. “You’ve even carved them into the shape of cranes. It’s very intricately done.”

“Yes, exactly,” Ziyan says. “You can tell, right? When I asked, Ming’er guessed that they were cows.”

Leaning away from the table, Keran whispers to me, “Her cooking is almost as impressive as Junyi’s calligraphy.”

I choke back my laughter just in time for the two mortals to turn toward us.

“You’ve seen my tutors briefly before,” Junyi tells her, “at the festival. I owe them everything.”

“It’s an honor to meet you both,” she says, striding across the room with the natural confidence of someone who could make a home out of any unfamiliar place. “Junyi would not stop gushing about how wonderful you are and how much you’ve helped him . . .” Her gaze stops on Keran, and the faintest frown pinches her forehead. “Sorry, but have we already met before? I could have sworn . . . Your face—I feel as if I’ve seen it somewhere else . . .”

Keran’s expression is still and calm as a frozen river, yet I’ve learned to recognize the shadows swimming beneath the surface. “No,” he says. “I don’t believe so.”

Her eyes stay on him a second longer, but the space between her brows smooths out. “Maybe I was confused . . .”

“Let’s eat before the food goes cold,” I suggest, patting the empty seat on my right. “Ziyan, you can come sit here.”

She smiles as she makes her way over. “I hope this doesn’t sound too abrupt,” she says, accepting the spare chopsticks I extend to her, “but you are so beautiful. Just absolutely, unbelievably gorgeous. And that color suits your complexion so well—what kind of rouge do you use? I must try it.”

I lift my head, taken aback. “I— The ordinary kind. I bought it from the market when I was passing through the other day. You’re very beautiful too,” I say, unused to this particular flow of conversation. Is this how some mortal women speak to each other? Is this what it’s like to grow up with friends? Am I doing it right?

But if I’m doing it wrong, Ziyan gives no indication of it. “Thank you,” she says brightly, setting a piece of honey-roasted pork over the rice in my bowl.

“Let’s have another toast now that Ziyan is here,” I tell the others, lifting my cup again. “To chance encounters at night festivals . . .”

“And to sneaking out,” Ziyan chimes in.

“And to fate,” Junyi says.

“To fate,” Keran echoes, his voice quiet. He tugs his sleeve lower down his wrist before joining in. “To everything that has passed, and everything that will come.”

As we bump our overflowing drinks together, laughing when they spill, and the room fills with the tap of chopsticks and creak of chairs and easy, bubbling chatter, a shot of unexpected warmth pierces my chest. Life here, I muse to myself through the sweet, slow haze of wine, staring at the orange glow of houses in the distance, listening to Ziyan recount the summer she’d spent at her uncle’s estate. Life here can be so strange and jarring. While one house celebrates, another house grieves. Nothing is eternal. Yet, because of it, everything is so precious. Maybe that was what my parents had seen. Maybe that was why they’d risked their own eternities to try to save those mortals. The other gods didn’t understand it, but I could. I really could.

“Look,” Ziyan says after dinner, pointing through the open windows at the sky. “The moon is really round tonight.”

“It is,” Junyi says softly, without looking. I do not think his gaze has left her once the entire evening. She must be the lover from his tribulation; there cannot be anybody else in the realms for him. “It’s lovely.”

Ziyan spins toward him, her eyes as luminous as the moon. “Let’s go see it, shall we?”

“You two go,” I say, sitting back. “I’m comfortable staying inside.”

Junyi hardly even pretends to protest. Ziyan has already taken his hand, tugging him with her into the front yard, the door swinging shut after them.

“What are you thinking about?” Keran asks.

I startle. “What?”

“You only fall quiet like that when you’re sad,” he says, drawing closer, his empty cup tilted in his fingers, his chin coming to rest on his other hand, ready to listen.

“I am sad,” I say, “and also happier than I’ve ever been.” I drink the last of my wine. Wipe my lips. “You’ve met Ziyan before, haven’t you?”

I can hear her tinkling, wind-chime laughter from outside, her rush of excited words to Junyi. The window frames them like a painting, their silhouettes limned by the moonlight, their hands intertwined.

“After the crown prince released me, I went to find her,” Keran says. “I remember . . . her soul was heavy. She was young, but she was already exhausted.”

My eyes widen. “She’s the same woman?”