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He nods. “The same soul.”

“No wonder . . .” I twist around to study him. “But I never really understood. How did the crown prince capture you in the first place? You were able to overpower him after your curse was lifted. Wouldn’t you—”

“He didn’t capture me,” he says, staring at the table. He shifts, breathes in. Draws his thumb over the edge of the cup. “I . . . went to him on my own.”

That makes no sense. “You did? Why?”

“He asked me to visit him in his palace. I thought—he had never treated me with quite the same scorn and revulsion as the other gods, and that was already more kindness than I deserved. I thought perhaps it was a gesture of . . . courtesy. I’d crossed paths with him in the Mortal Realm, and I’d warned him about the early death of his lover, to give him time to prepare. I had this idea that maybe he wanted to thank me, or simply to talk to me, since I doubted anyone else knew about her existence. So I arrived outside his chambers, unarmed, unthinking. Everything seemed fine. He even had a table of food prepared, as if to greet a friend. When he drew his sword, I was too surprised to react. Foolish, I know,” he says, with the mocking edge of a smile.

I shake my head hard, my heart throbbing, threatening to tear open. I had treated him the same way, I realize, with a tide of guilt so violent it feels like nausea. I’d asked him to have dinner with me, only to poison him. The cold, black rage in his eyes comes back to me; it was the betrayed look of an animal who’d followed a trail of crumbs into a trap. But when I gaze his way now, I cannot find any traces of blame. He has long forgiven me. He would forgive me for anything.

Still.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

He casts me a bemused glance. “Why? You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“You deserve to hear it,” I insist. I refill my cup to the brim and gulp that down as well, letting the rich, dark flavor scorch my throat. At last, when I find the courage to speak: “There is something else I was wondering. My parents—did you meet them too? By the time Fuhuo released me, decades had already passed in the Mortal Realm. I didn’t know if . . .”

It is the question I’ve always wanted to ask. The answer I’ve been too terrified to find out.

“I did,” Keran says slowly. Gently. “Though they lost their memories as mortals, they still fell in love and married each other. They were poor, but not lonely; they were lacking in status, but not in dignity. They lived in a small cottage in a bamboo forest. Your father went first—it was a long and harsh winter, and many fell sick and couldn’t afford the medicine to recover. Your mother died only a day later, by his side. They were buried together. Even when I collected their souls, they refused to be separated.”

I swallow, unable to separate the burn of wine from the burn of tears. “That’s more than I could have hoped for.”

Voices echo through the night outside.

They sound like drunken cheers—that’s what I think at first. It must be candidates like Junyi, dancing in the streets, giddy with relief, bragging about their results to anyone who will listen. Or maybe it is the candidates whose names were left off the roll, I decide, when it becomes clear the noise is not celebratory. It could be men screaming in frustration, cursing at the sky. But then the commotion grows even louder, harsher, more frantic, carrying the undertones of bloodshed, morphing into a confused rumble of yells and shrieks.

“What’s happening?” I ask, my neck prickling with foreboding.

Keran’s face pales. Some bleak emotion flits in and out of his eyes. “It’s faster than I thought,” he whispers, gripping his wrist.

“What—what is?”

But even if he means to explain, he does not have time to. The screams have clarified into one shrill word, repeated over and over, spreading fast through the narrow veins of the city like poison:

“Murder.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Keran and I run against the wave of fleeing bodies.

“Stay there,” I call over my shoulder to Junyi, my own voice just audible over the stampede. “Lock the doors and look after Ziyan. Do not go outside, no matter what.”

In the dark blue shadows of the night, I cannot make out the individual features of each mortal who rushes past us, but I can see the stark horror in their expressions. Many are barefoot and panting, defenseless against the cold, their cloaks forgone in their desperation to leave the inner city. Some are clinging on to whatever household weapons they can find: cleavers, pitchforks, broken branches, hairpins, even a wooden comb. A man waves a pair of chopsticks menacingly at me when I hold up a hand to stop him.

“I’m not going to attack you,” I say, alarmed. “I just want to ask—”

“Anyone can attack anyone,” he rasps with a shudder. The front of his robes is stained with what looks like soy sauce. Perhaps he had been eating dinner when the violence first erupted.

I frown. “Anyone can attack anyone? What do you mean?”

“The girl—” His veins stand out in his distress, crawling like centipedes under the thin skin of his forehead. “I saw her with my own eyes. She was out playing with her little brother and then she—and then she—”

“What?” I press.

“It was like she was possessed by an evil spirit. She stabbed him,” he whispers. “Her little brother. And she’s not the only one. Everything happened at once. Countless murders, all within seconds. I heard from someone else that the owner of the teahouse . . . She sliced her husband’s throat in front of all their customers. And then she started killing the customers, too, just hacking them into pieces with a butcher knife—” He breaks off, lurching back from me, looking ill. “I don’t know what’s going on, but nobody can be trusted. I fear . . . I fear the world is broken.”