"I can’t even take you home," he says, with coolly enforced casualness. "You know that, don’t you? Even if I ripped up every threshold in The Unclean Realm, the bagua will stop you. The Stone Castles can’t shelter you, either, nor can the Sabre Halls."

It is not at all something terrible that must be endured for a greater good’s sake.

“Jin-zongzhu,” comes a voice, “have you ever thought that while you may be the mantis, tonight, there is an oriole in wait behind you?”

Behind Jin Guangyao, Nie Mingjue — the sage, the keeper, the forgotten part of the tale — stands, stretches out his hand, and snaps his neck.

There are many things that Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue do not talk about.

He may not always be the most patient man, but Sui Zhou has come to be good at waiting. He has taken well to the lessons Tang Fan has taught him.

“Oh,” Qingming breathes out, his shoulders sinking deep with it, “how fortunate.”

Yes, Boya thinks, foolish and giddy and wrecked with affirmation, how fortunate.

Longing makes the world bright and the yearner blind, he knows, but even without his want soaking through and staining it, he thinks— he would be sure.

Tang Fan is looking at him — hasn't stopped looking at him once, really, in some way, since Sui Zhou stepped over the threshold and into his room — but he's looking at him, now, with a wonder so holy it's encroaching on worship. As though Sui Zhou has shot down a sun for him instead of something else infinitely less incredible.

“They'll have to make a few surgical incisions, of course.” With a single finger of each hand, Tsurumi traced two lines, one across each side of Ogata's face, from the corner of his warped jaw to the centre of his cheek. “You'll still look fetching as ever, I'm sure.”

Peter Gordon can also have a little a hand injury, as a treat.