Lan Wangji will never tell Wei Wuxian what he did after the massacre at Nightless City—what his brother would call the only mistake he ever made. Nor will he forget it himself.
“We raised a child together,” Jiang Wanyin says, voice thick with pain. “You two were sworn brothers.” He swallows hard and oh. Oh, no. Lan Xichen is not ready for this conversation. He is never going to be ready for this conversation. “And because of what he did, there is nowhere outside this room that either of us can mourn him.”
Lan Xichen has been in seclusion for half a year, healing, he thinks, from the way his world was upended that night in a temple in Yunping City. Then, Jiang Wanyin comes to visit—breaking the fragile peace he has been building, but offering, perhaps, a better healing.
The first time, though of course he doesn't know it's the first time, everything went exactly according to plan. Crowley got the baby, right on time. He took it to the nunnery, and didn't stop to talk to the man waiting outside. He observed the whole thing, and made sure no funny business happened. At the end of the night, the Antichrist went home with the Dowlings.
It takes 600 more tries to get it going exactly according to the right plan.
Everybody's got to learn the way the world really is. Billy's just teaching her.
Finney gets cat ears at the worst possible time. Something to do with cause and effect.
Brother Lucca comes as a messenger.
Afterward, there are ways for men to comfort one another.
Aumerle doesn't kill his king, but he can't save him, either.
No man has aught of what he leaves.