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“You’re mistaken,” he says in a voice so cold it could be melted by frost. “Plenty mock me. They simply prefer to do it behind my back, or through those talentless displays they call plays and puppet shows.”

“Puppet shows?” I lift my eyebrows with sincere interest. “That sounds entertaining.”

He scoffs. “On the contrary, they’re perfectly derivative and dull. All I do, according to them, is go around murdering people for pleasure. And—” His jaw tightens. “They always depict me as a hideous, ill-mannered monster, with fangs and claws.”

A surprised breath of laughter springs from my tongue. “I’d no idea you would be so vain.”

“It is not about vanity. It is about truth. About accuracy.”

“Well, you’re right,” I say, studying his fingers. They are long and tapered and smooth, adorned by rings but free of the exaggerated gemstones that most gods prefer. I struggle to picture them smeared with blood, to picture them committing any violence at all. “You have no claws. None I can see, at least. And you are not wholly ill-mannered either. You did feed me dinner last night. Thank you, by the way. It was delicious.”

He blinks, the briefest surprise showing on his face. “I’m glad,” he says stiffly. “I had it stolen from the celestial kitchens.”

“You— What?”

“You need not have any reservations.” He waves an irritable hand in the air. “I assure you none of them noticed. And if they’d known it was for you, their dutiful healer, wouldn’t they be willing? Aren’t the gods meant to be generous? Benevolent?”

I should not have questioned his capacity for sarcasm. He wields it now with ease, his tone curling just slightly upward, his eyes laying out the obvious truth. Wouldn’t they be willing? Of course not, unless it were the Celestial Emperor or crown prince or one of their favored officials, in which case they could eat straight from the platters of the other gods and be applauded for it. For anybody else, to take even a spare spoon from the celestial kitchens without express approval could result in a demotion.

“See?” he says, taking my silence for resignation. He stares out the window, as if he can see the golden outline of the other realm through the blur of snow, his gaze dark with contempt. I can almost see it too: the long banquet tables of roasted meat and endless wine, the goblets flecked with light, the ornate hangings, the sweet pluck of zither music filling the rooms, and the gods gliding across the floors with satin sashes floating from their arms, their faces luminous as the moon. “It is just as I remember. The lower-ranked gods in the Celestial Realm are too weak to be of any use, and the higher-ranked gods are all the same: petty, arrogant, miserly. Selfish. Ungrateful—”

“That’s not true,” I protest, hating the trace of uncertainty in my own voice.

“Then why has nobody come to find you?” he asks. “Why has nobody attempted to rescue you yet? You have already been gone for the entire night.”

That stops me.

I tear my eyes from the window and look around at the bare, dim-lit room, the shadows cloaking the walls. This place feels haunted. This palace feels like a separate world from the one I had inhabited before. If I were still in my cottage, what would I be doing? Perhaps I would have risen early and tiptoed barefoot to the balcony to watch the sea drink in the nascent light of day, the colors of the water slowly shifting from black to soft purple to clear, glistening blue. The flowers in the garden unfurling like fists when warmed by the sun, soft and saturated with pollen. Or perhaps I would have been woken by the fast tap of knuckles at the front door, a voice from the porch, calling for help. Would they notice, then, if I was gone? Would they stop to question it, feel any concern for me, however fleeting? Or would they soon give up and turn to find somebody else? After all, I may have a reputation as the best healer, but there is no shortage of gods with healing powers. Selfish, comes the Death God’s poisonous whisper in my mind. Ungrateful.

Why has nobody come to find you?

I can taste the answer on my tongue, bite into it like the rind of a bitter melon. Such has been my life for these past few hundred years: always needed, never missed. But that is only because of my family’s history and my status—or my lack of it. Once I am made Celestial Healer, everything will change for the better.

“Perhaps they are trying,” I say, without believing it. “Or perhaps—perhaps they are busy.”

“How sad, after all you’ve done for them. They do not even care.”

This strikes something sour and raw inside me, an old hurt I had forgotten about, a wound I had thought to let heal on its own, only to find it festered instead. I glare at him with a sudden blaze of fury. “I’m sad? You live alone in this dark, miserable palace with only ghosts for company. Everybody hates you and fears you. If you were captured and taken like I was, people would celebrate.”

Now he pauses. Shifts back, just an inch, his throat pulsing, the skin between his brows tightening. “That scenario would not be possible,” he says at last. “Nobody has the power to capture me.”

I open my mouth, though I am not even sure what I intend to say, but he speaks again before I can.

“Do you have a cure ready for me?” he asks.

“I— Yes,” I say tightly. Indeed, it has consumed my every thought, and not for nothing. I have come up with the perfect cure: an extremely rare plant grown only in the most isolated mountains of the north. Few healers think to use it, but harvested in the right way, prepared with enough time, and strengthened by magic, it could work as a balm for nearly any pain. More importantly, the Death God will need to take me away from the palace to collect it, which will give me a chance to run. I will flee straight to the Celestial Palace and beg the emperor for protection. If he has truly made up his mind about promoting me to Celestial Healer, he should be able to offer me that much sanctuary. He should; he must. It is the only hope I have, the only place in the world that might be safe from the Death God’s touch. “Have you heard of the heartfrost flower?”

“I have,” he says. “I heard that it dries instantly the second it is plucked, rendering it futile as either a remedy or decoration.”

“That depends on how you pluck it,” I tell him, standing up straight, my anger banished for now. If this plan does not work, I cannot be sure how many more chances I’ll have, if any at all. “And luckily, I know the way. We only need to make a quick trip to the Hesong Mountains.”

“The Hesong Mountains?” The Death God regards me with little emotion, only the calculating look of a predator observing its prey. “You can be certain?”

“As certain as I am of anything.”

“I must warn you that I do not like it when people waste my time.”

I smile sweetly; a great feat, given how fast my blood is beating, how hard my heart is straining against me. “You are wasting just as much time standing here with me.”