the heart's reasons seen clearly

The heart's reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest
will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.

As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.

So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.

The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.

“The Weighing,” Jane Hirshfield

---

On the second day of the indoctrination, they bring in Jiang-guniang. Until the slight bundle of lilac silk and dark hair is deposited in Wen Qing’s office, Wen Qing had not known that the Yunmeng Jiang had been so foolish--no, that wasn’t a strong enough word; only idiotic would suffice--as to send Jiang Yanli to Nightless City. When the blank-faced guard lays the limp body on the bed, Wen Qing allows herself one moment to picture, in vivid detail, exactly how she could use her medical skills to make the Yunmeng Jiang see the error of their ways. She doesn’t know much about Sect Leader Jiang and his wife, but she knows how Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin fuss over their sister, and it is incomprehensible that these thoughtless children allowed the sister they profess to adore to be put in such a situation. For that one moment, her anger is a wildfire.

Then she sets her rage aside, rolls her sleeves up, and gets to work.

The truth is, Wen Qing has thought of Jiang-guniang often since they were all at Cloud Recesses together. She only had the opportunity to examine Jiang-guniang once, but the experience had lingered in the back of her mind both because of the nature of the illness and how Jiang-guniang reacted to it.

At the time, Wen Qing had the opportunity only to use her needles to soothe some of the worst of Jiang-guniang’s pain and give her a surge of spiritual energy. It had helped in the moment, but it had done nothing to treat the root problem, and she would have needed to examine Jiang-guniang in more depth to learn more. Still, at night when she couldn’t sleep, she had stared at the ceiling, wondering about it.

So there is a spark of excitement in tending to Jiang-guniang--or as close to excitement as Wen Qing allows herself to feel while she is performing her duties. Of course her concern for her patient is paramount: not the hot pulse of worry she feels for her brother, but a cooler concern that enables her hands to stay steady and her mind focused. But right now, the excitement is there. Engrained duty, exhaustive training, and pride in heritage are the qualities that make Wen Qing a doctor, but it’s her intellectual curiosity that makes her an excellent one.

She tends to the pain first. Sets a tisane brewing for when the patient awakens, one that will ease the headache that accompanies an exhausted collapse. Then it’s needles, and Wen Qing, who usually inserts them with as little anxiety as she has for brushing her hair, flinches a bit as the sharp ends bite into that silken skin. Jiang-guniang’s wrists are bird-fragile, her neck as thin as a swan’s, her skin as pale as moonlight. Wen Qing has some idea of how wracked that body is with pain, and against reason, feels guilt.

Unconscious, Jiang-guniang’s face is porcelain smooth, the only evidence of her exhaustion the purple shadows under her eyes. But when those eyes flutter open, a spasm crosses her face before she sees Wen Qing’s face above hers and she wipes her expression clean. She blinks up at Wen Qing.

“Wen-daifu,” Jiang-guniang says in her wisp of a voice, the pleasure equal to the surprise. The tone makes Wen Qing spin around to check the tisane she knows is still steeping, suddenly flustered.

What she wants to ask is Why the hell are you in Qishan? but Wen Qing is not one to pry into other people’s affairs. “What happened?” she demands instead, in a voice that’s a little too severe for an exhaustion patient. But her bedside manner has always tended more towards the professional and cooly competent than warm; perhaps Jiang Yanli will not notice. Wen Qing turns back around.

“Oh, I think it was the heat,” Jiang-guniang says, trying to sit up; Wen Qing pushes her back down with a firm hand and begins to extract the needles. “That, and standing for too long--you know how I am, daifu.”

As Wen Qing had suspected. She had purposefully not investigated what Wen Chao has prepared for the scions of the other sects, but she had assumed it would start with something like making them stand for hours as they read Quintessence of the Wen. Of course Jiang-guniang collapsed; the only surprise is how far into the day she made it before her body gave out. But then, Wen Qing knows better than anyone how much even the frailest body can endure, so long as the person’s will is strong. And Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing suspects, has a formidable will hidden beneath layers of gossamer silk and reassuring smiles.

When Wen Qing turns back with the tisane in her hand, Jiang-guniang is smiling. Of course she is. This was the other reason Jiang-guniang had lingered in her mind: no matter how much she is suffering, she always smiles.

“Drink this slowly, to the dregs,” Wen Qing commands, handing Jiang-guniang the cup.

Jiang-guniang obeys, the pale elegance of her small hands incongruous around the dark earthenware of the cup.

“Have you eaten today?” It would be just like one of these Yunmeng cultivators to forget to eat.

“Yes, daifu,” Jiang-guniang answers between sips, a tiny dimple appearing just at the corner of her mouth.

“What’s funny about that?” Wen Qing can’t help but ask.

“Oh,” Jiang-guniang says with a little laugh, “I’m just usually the one asking that question.”

Of course. Jiang-guniang is the elder sister too. Wen Qing can’t imagine either of her brothers looking after themselves well. Judging by the way Jiang-guniang needs both hands to hold her cup, someone should be looking after her, as well.

“I will call for dinner soon,” Wen Qing says. “You will stay here tonight.”

Jiang-guniang’s head jerks up at that, the little silver beads dangling from her hairpin clacking at the motion. “Oh, I’m sure that’s not necessary--”

“It is necessary.” Wen Qing is a polite person, but she is not above interrupting what she knows to be nonsense. “We will need the time tonight and in the morning.”

“Time? For what?” Jiang-guniang looks alarmed now.

“For a real examination. Drink your tea.”

Jiang-guniang obeys, but her eyes look troubled. If Wen Qing were alone, she would sigh; she’s going to have to explain this, and explaining is her least favorite part of providing care. It’s so much easier when her patients just do as they’re told.

“Your condition is unique,” she says.

Jiang-guniang nods. “Yes. The doctors in Yunmeng have told me.”

Wen Qing has her doubts about the competence of Yunmeng doctors but that’s beside the point. “There are no records of a similar condition in any of the main medical texts either by cultivators or other experts.”

Wen Qing isn’t sure how to decipher the expression Jiang-guniang makes then. It’s a little bit startled--incredulous? But maybe...touched? “You’ve looked?”

Of course, Wen Qing almost says, but she supposes there’s nothing obvious about it. She is not Jiang-guniang’s doctor--or at least she wasn’t until Jiang-guniang was carried into the room this afternoon. There was no reason for her to do research. But she’s already admitted that she has. “Yes. When I treated you at Cloud Recesses I developed the working theory that your condition results from your golden core interacting with your body in an unprecedented way. You are in a great deal of pain all the time, are you not?”

She had discovered in her previous examination that it’s pain that renders Jiang-guniang so weak. Her golden core is on the small side of average in size and strength, but she draws so much on it to manage her pain that both body and core are often exhausted. If the pain could be mitigated, her golden core might be able to grow enough to combat whatever the disease is.

For the briefest moment, a furrow appears between Jiang-guniang’s eyebrows, but it instantly smooths out. Jiang-guniang takes one last swallow from her cup--the dregs, as instructed--and sets it on the table beside her. “There is pain,” she says carefully. Wen Qing is beginning to suspect that Jiang-guniang is always careful, that carefulness is as much a part of her existence as pain. “I would not describe it as a ‘great deal.’”

Wen Qing snorts. “Those who live with chronic pain never do. But I think we will discover that I am correct.”

The furrow is back. “Wen-daifu, I do not wish to monopolize your time.”

Wen Qing raises a brow. “My time belongs to my patients. Right now, you are my patient. I can learn much from your condition, and I became a healer in order to heal. Will you deny me my vocation?”

Jiang-guniang’s eyes are troubled but a smile curls the corner of her mouth. “You’re trying to make me feel like I’ll be doing you a favor instead of you doing me one.”

“Doctors don’t do favors. We do our jobs.” And it’s true. Wen Qing really would be making the same decisions were anyone else her patient. But perhaps if anyone else were her patient, she would be a little more commanding. She’s gotten dangerously close to coaxing with Jiang-guniang. “But I see that you recognize the tactic.”

The smile widens. Jiang-guniang really is very lovely. “I have little brothers, too.”

Wen Qing isn’t one for smiling. She sees little cause for it in her life. But she can’t help the slight curve of her mouth. “Of course,” she says this time. Then it’s back to business. “Because of the uniqueness of your condition, I am requesting that you allow me to perform an invasive procedure.” Before images of surgical knives can rise in Jiang-guniang’s mind, Wen Qing elaborates. “Spiritually invasive.”

Jiang-guniang’s careful control is back. “‘Spiritually invasive?’” she echoes.

“Mentally, as well.”

Jiang-guniang’s eyes widen in alarm.

No, how to explain? “I would unite my spiritual energy with yours and experience your physical and spiritual reality as you do.”

That clearly hasn’t soothed Jiang-guniang. “I don’t understand.”

Wen Qing pushes aside her own frustration with herself and tries again. “In essence, I would be experiencing your pain as my own.”

Jiang-guniang looks even more alarmed than before. “Surely that can’t be necessary.”

This again. “It is. It would allow me to learn where in your body you are experiencing what kind of pain, its intensity, what factors affect it, thus giving me invaluable data from which to determine the condition’s cause and--perhaps--its cure.” She can’t promise more. There is every chance that this particular condition is beyond her capabilities to heal. There are situations in which there is no cure and all that can be done is developing a palliative program. But she has to try.

“I can tell you those things,” Jiang-guniang says.

“No, you can’t.” At the way Jiang-guniang blinks in surprise, Wen Qing softens her voice. It still isn’t soft. She hasn’t known how to be soft since she was seven years old and this is an approximation “For one thing, we have a limited vocabulary to speak of pain. Subtle differences could be very important, but even doctors can’t always communicate those nuances through language. And living with chronic pain skews your perspective. What others might find unendurable, you have had to endure. Your tolerance is increased and so it becomes impossible for you to know how intense your own pain actually is.”

Jiang-guniang still looks like she wants to protest, so Wen Qing allows a hint of impatience back into her voice. “You said you didn’t want to waste my time. I am going to treat you as best I can. In order to do that, I need information. Now, we can either spend the next few weeks with you trying to describe what you’re feeling, me documenting when you’re feeling it, me asking you uncomfortable questions, me getting impatient with your answers, you getting exhausted by the whole experience, the both of us growing to resent each other. Or you can let me perform this procedure, which will be over in a few hours and will result in a better body of knowledge for me to work from. That is the choice.”

Jiang-guniang stares at her, and then her lips part, perhaps to speak, though Wen Qing won’t ever know, because that is the moment that A-Ning bursts through the door.

“Jiejie, will you be back in time for dinner? Oh! Oh, I’m sor--sorry, Ji--jiang-guniang.”

A-Ning blushes furiously when he notices Jiang-guniang, and Wen Qing shakes her head. He knows better than to just enter the room when she is with a patient. She wishes she could be annoyed with him, but between love and fear for him, she is always stuffed too full to feel anything else. Still, she has to chide him. “A-Ning.”

“Wen-gongzi,” Jiang-guniang says, looking very pleased to see him. “I am glad to see you so well.”

A-Ning’s concern--why does he care about everyone so much? It isn’t his place at all--overwhelms his shame, and he steps forward eagerly. “But Jiang-guniang, you aren’t well?”

The smile she gives him is reassuring in a way that Wen Qing could never be. “Oh, I just got a little overheated and your sweet sister is looking after me.”

Wen Qing blinks. Sweet? No one has ever accused her of that.

A-Ning usually looks nervous, but when he glances over his shoulder at the door, Wen Qing can see that he’s truly anxious now. He takes another few steps further into the room. “Jiang-guniang, you really shouldn’t have come to Qishan,” A-Ning whispers, eyes insistent. “Why are you here?”

That porcelain smooth expression is back on Jiang-guniang’s face, but her voice is kind as she says, “Oh, Wen-gongzi, you know I have little brothers to look after.”

A-Ning shakes his head furiously, looks back over his shoulder. There’s certainly a guard out there; A-Ning would have passed him as he came in. There’s always a guard watching Wen Qing these days. “They’ll--you’ll--they aren’t nice--they’re going to--and you’re so--you should have stayed at home, you should go home--”

It’s exactly what Wen Qing has been thinking, but it’s no use now. “A-Ning, Jiang-guniang is here now. I am going to treat her and then we’ll talk about sending her home. No, I will not be back in time for dinner. In fact, if you would bring a tray here for Jiang-guniang and me to share, I would appreciate it. We will be here all night.”

A-Ning doesn’t question that; he’s accustomed to her spending nights in her office. He bobs his head and hurries off, with one quick glance of concern at Jiang-guniang, and Wen Qing turns back to her patient.

“I apologize, Jiang-guniang. He knows better than to barge in while I’m working.”

Jiang-guniang’s smile now is warmer than before, reaching her eyes. “Do you really think you need to apologize to me? I’m Wei Wuxian’s sister.”

Wen Qing can’t stop her snort. “I don’t know you’ve survived this long. And you’ve got two of them.”

Jiang-guniang laughs. She’s got the kind of light, sweet laughter that Wen Qing finds baffling and sometimes annoying in other women, but it suits her. It’s...pleasant. “They goad each other on. They’re really terrible for each other, except that they love each other so much that I know they’ll always look out for each other.” Her mirth melts away and her expression is serious now. “You were thinking the same thing your brother was. That I shouldn’t have come here. He’s right, of course. I’m not so foolish that I don’t know that. My mother was furious with me. She tried to lock me in my room. But...my brothers.” She lifts her narrow shoulders in a helpless gesture. “Someone has to look after them. You do understand that, don’t you?”

Wen Qing hates it, but she does. She would never have sent A-Ning here alone. The difference is, of course, that she is strong and competent with her sword, and Jiang-guniang is weak and can barely unsheathe hers without exhausting herself. It isn’t the same at all.

Except that it is.

“Yes. I understand.” Her words come out terse, but Jiang-guniang’s face softens all the same. “Now are you going to let me do this or not?”

Jiang-guniang’s mouth twitches even as her eyes go serious. “This is the best way?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will defer to the wisdom of my doctor,” she says and bows her head.

Wen Qing couldn’t explain the tightness in her throat even if she tried. “Rest now,” she commands, her voice throaty, and Jiang-guniang looks bemused but obediently lies back down.

Wen Qing makes herself busy, tidying up from the day and readying the things she will need. A-Ning returns with the tray, overloaded with more food than two small women could possibly eat, so she has him sit down and eat with them.
Jiang-guniang does not eat much, which surprises Wen Qing not at all, but she does eat and Wen Qing doesn’t chastise her. The meal is brief, because Wen Qing eats as quickly as she moves and A-Ning is a teenage boy.

She has A-Ning help her move the two beds in the room to stand beside each other and has Jiang-guniang lie down again. She’s about to send A-Ning to fetch one of the other doctors--she should really have assistance, someone to pull her out if things go wrong--but he looks up at her and says, “Can I stay, jijie? Can I be the one to help?”

It’s one thing when she’s only going over paperwork or reading late into the night but she’ss not so unprofessional as to let her little brother stay while she actually treats her patients. Before Wen Qing can refuse him, Jiang-guniang speaks.

“I do not mind at all, Wen-daifu, if there isn’t any medical reason he shouldn’t be here.”

Wen Qing keeps herself from rolling her eyes; she hopes that Jiang-guniang isn’t this soft a touch with her own brothers. And...this procedure is intense. She’s only performed it once or twice before and always with older doctors around to supervise. She doesn’t trust any of the doctors here in Nightless City, and she suspects that Jiang-guniang would be more comfortable with A-Ning’s presence than that of any other Wen doctor. And she has trained A-Ning since he was a child to assist her with basic tasks. She jerks her head towards the other room. There’s a cot back there, one she often sleeps on. “Stay in there until I call you,” she tells her brother, and he nods as he hurries to the other room.

Wen Qing sets another pot of water to boil and then lights the incense that helps her focus. When she raises her head, Jiang-guniang is watching her.

“When you said ‘invasive,’ Wen-daifu, what did you really mean?”

She’d known this question was coming, but she still hasn’t sorted out how to answer it. “I will...feel your qi. It will, in essence, be my qi, and mine will be yours. This can be an intense experience. I will not hear your thoughts.” It’s easier to tell what she won’t be doing than what she is. “I may feel strong emotions, if you feel them. I won’t see your memories--not as you understand memories. But I will experience your body’s memories. I will feel the pain you have felt.”

Jiang-guniang’s eyes are so steady. “All of my pain?”

It’s an astute question. “I can choose which to focus on. If you broke a bone as a child, if you have discomfort when you menstruate, I may become aware of that, but I will keep my focus on what is related to your condition. I won’t...venture elsewhere.” Wen Qing isn’t good at comforting words. She has always counted on her patients being reassured by her manner and reputation. But, more than usual, she wants to set Jiang-guniang’s mind at ease.

The water is boiling and Wen Qing sets her special mixture to steep. It’s one she developed herself while she was still an apprentice doctor: it eases the body into a deep and restful sleep while leaving the mind open to outside influence. She uses it very rarely.

“Do you have any more questions for me, Jiang-guniang?” she asks.

"Have you done this before?"

"Yes. Several times." All with A-Ning, but that's beside the point. "It's a...twist on an established procedure." She developed this variation of a much simpler, less invasive method that the Dafan Wen have practiced for generations. Her teacher, a great-aunt, had been wary when Wen Qing had explained her idea, but between the two of them, they had worked out a process that was not too risky. She had hoped that it would help her help A-Ning. It hadn't.

“How long will it take?”

“Hours. Perhaps all night.” She can tell Jiang-guniang does not like this answer. “You will not be reliving the pain,” she reassures.

Jiang-guniang gives a dismissive shake of her head. “You will be experiencing my pain that whole time?”

Wen Qing doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or touched by the concern, and her words come out more exasperated than she would wish. “Jiang-guniang, that is not something you need to worry about.”

There’s a stubborn set to her mouth that Wen Qing hasn’t seen before. “But will your body remember this pain as its own? Will this take a physical toll on you?”

“No. I will remember the pain as anyone remembers past pain, but it will not affect my body.” Jiang-guniang still doesn’t look convinced. “I know what I am doing and I know what I can handle.” The words come out stiff from Wen Qing’s frustration: why is Jiang-guniang worrying about her?

“I did not mean to question your expertise,” Jiang-guniang says and Wen Qing knows that Jiang-guniang has interpreted her tone as offended. It isn’t that, but there’s no point in trying to explain.

“I know that. But...please. Just trust me.”

Wen Qing can’t remember ever requesting that of anyone. A-Ning just does trust her, implicitly, and when her patients are skeptical because of her age or her gender, she just lifts her chin and does her work so competently that their doubts become irrelevant. Asking someone for this...it makes her feel small and raw, a soft creature without its shell.

It’s almost worst when Jiang-guniang holds her gaze for a long moment, then nods. “Of course, Wen-daifu.”

Discomfited, Wen Qing pours the brew into two cups and gives one to Jiang-guniang, who begins sipping it right away. Then she calls to her brother.

A-Ning appears immediately and listens carefully as she gives him instructions. “It’s going to be a long night. There is no reason you can’t sleep. If something goes wrong, the bell will ring.” She gestures to the brass bell hanging just above the bed she will lay down on. A-Ning is a light sleeper, and he has woken to the sound of that bell before. It has no clapper; it only sounds when struck with spiritual energy. Wen Qing will keep a strand of her spiritual energy connected to it throughout the night, and it will alert A-Ning if something goes wrong. It’s a common warning alarm among the Dafan Wen. “If it does, you know what to do to wake me.”

“What are the odds that something will go wrong?” A-Ning asks, because he comes from a family of doctors and knows what to ask.

“Slim.” It’s true--she wouldn’t lie just to reassure Jiang-guniang.

“How long will it take?”

“Till sunrise. Dawn will wake us.”

A-Ning goes back to her office and she turns her attention back to Jiang-guniang. The other woman’s eyelids are drooping, as though she’s fighting to stay awake. Wen Qing touches her patients to treat them, not to reassure, but she finds herself pressing her fingers against Jiang-guniang’s soft hand. “Sleep,” she says, and Jiang-guniang’s eyes close. Wen Qing watches her for a moment, the rise and fall of her breathing, then she drains her own cup and lies down.

The golden core is so named because it feels like sunlight. The intensity varies from person to person--Wen Qing has experienced it like the flash of a firefly and like a conflagration. Jiang-guniang’s is a late afternoon in summer: warm, comforting. Golden.

Wen Qing knows that her own is more intense. As their qi brush against each other, a ripple goes through Jiang-guniang’s--a kind of a flinch. Wen Qing holds herself steady to give Jiang-guniang some time to grow accustomed to it. Then she slowly lets her qi flow into Jiang-guniang’s meridians.

She pictures it like this: water poured into a half-full bowl. After a moment, the water that was there already and the water that is added are indistinguishable.. Wen Qing’s qi is flowing through Jiang-guniang’s meridians but Jiang-guniang’s qi was already there and so now they are one and the same. Only a tiny part of Wen Qing’s mind is held apart, like a few drops of water left in the bottom of the pouring cup. It had taken years of meditation and practice to preserve that essence, so that she herself is not swept away. She is very good at this.

But for the first time, she is tempted to let those final drops drip into the bowl. On the prior occasions when she’d done this, the instinct to preserve herself was strong. She had felt no temptation to subsume her own qi in the other’s. But this golden afternoon sunlight….

Wen Qing is strong, and practiced, and she is a doctor. She sets the temptation aside. She has work to do.

She has to find the pain.

In the past, this has taken some time. With Jiang-guniang, it takes no time at all. The pain is right there, surrounding her qi. The boundaries between one and the other blur and it takes no effort to slide from that sunlight to what envelops it.

The pain is an ocean, boundless, and she is caught in a riptide. For an eternal moment, Wen Qing feels it all: every bit of pain Jiang-guniang has ever experienced. It’s enough to obliterate a mind, but the next heartbeat it all smooths out into a river: deep, long, but secure within its banks. Wen Qing cannot measure how long it takes her to recover, but she knows that time passes before she can enter its current It closes over her and Wen Qing begins to learn just how strong Jiang-guniang is.

Wen Qing keeps her gaze straight ahead as she walks through the courtyard outside the main hall, but she is listening. Wen Ruohan’s guards always gossip, and they barely notice her as she passes. She’s learned much by being unobtrusive. Not important things, really--the guards are too terrified of the Chief Cultivator to talk openly about crucial matters--but enough to help her navigate the world of Nightless City. It’s how she finds out when Wen Xu or Wen Chao have come home, what kinds of moods they’re in, whether that loathsome Xue Yang is around. Small things that allow her to protect her brother as best she can.

For the last week, most of the gossip has been about the indoctrination. She had heard of Lan-er-gongzi’s arrival: the Cloud Recesses defeated and its second young master dragged to Qishan on a shattered leg. She itches to treat him, but she knows better than to risk Wen Chao’s rage by trying.

The guards have chatted, too, about Jin-gongzi being the last one to surrender his sword, and she’d wondered fleetingly if that stubbornness had come from pride or strength. There’d been whispers of Wei Wuxian humiliating Wen Chao in some way, though she hadn’t overheard what exactly he’d done, only that it resulted in a harsh punishment. She hadn’t been surprised that Wei Wuxian had managed that, though she does wish he would learn to keep his mouth shut. There is no line separating his courage from his recklessness.

And apparently he has made trouble again, for as she turns a corner to head back to her office, she hears one guard mutter to the other, “...got that Wei Wuxian out in the east fields, digging trenches. Maybe some good honest work will take him down a peg.” The bitterness in the guard’s voice isn’t directed towards Wei Wuxian in particular, Wen Qing knows; the guards resent the social status of all the young masters and would be pleased to see any of them brought so low.

The other guard snorts. “Not likely. I’ve heard about that one…”

Wen Qing walks on; she doesn’t need to eavesdrop to know what the guards will have heard about Wei Wuxian, and she can’t risk being seen lingering. But when she comes to the next turning, she hesitates for only a moment before choosing the opposite direction from her office.

She’s tired--she always is after treating Wen Ruohan. His treatments require enormous reserves of spiritual energy, and the emotional drain is almost as intense. Every time, she is reminded, in ways she can’t ignore, of what the Chief Cultivator has made of himself. She must treat him, of course. She is a doctor and she treats any patient under her care, no matter how riddled with lust for power. But sometimes she thinks that it would be better to take Wen Ning and run than stay here and keep that man alive. It never goes further than a thought: always, there’s her duty, her loyalty to her clan and the one who had brought her to Nightless City to further her training. The conflict that storms inside her is exhausting.

Right now, she wants nothing more than to go back to her office and lie down on the cot. The ache in her lower back, in her shoulders is familiar though no less draining for that. But she might not have an opportunity like this again. So she goes to the east fields.

Wei Wuxian is whistling as he works. It’s a scorching afternoon and muggy on top of that, but he’s still whistling. The guards, sweating even in the shade of the trees, watch him and shout out insults, to which he raises a hand from his shovel and waves a cheery acknowledgement. They leap to their feet when Wen Qing passes, but none of them ask her where she’s going; she often takes this path to the woods to gather herbs. When she passes Wei Wuxian, he doesn’t pause in his shoveling, but she sees his eyes flicker to her. She tilts her head towards the outbuilding not far away and hopes he had time to see it before he turns his back, ignoring her.

Wen Qing turns off the road behind the outbuilding. The guards can’t see her from this angle, and there’s a waist-high stone wall on the far side. She settles herself on the grass there; to anyone passing she would seem to be taking a moment to rest in the shade of the building, her back against the wall. She sinks into meditation and stays there until, some time later, she hears footsteps on the other side of the wall. She tenses, but the explosive sigh as someone throws their body down is definitely Wei Wuxian’s. She can picture him, louche and fanning himself with his hat.

“How is my shijie?” Wei Wuxian asks, and Wen Qing snorts.

“If you were truly concerned about her, you wouldn’t have brought her here.”

Wei Wuxian makes a frustrated noise. “We tried to--no, we don’t have time for this. They’ll drag me back to work any minute. Wen-daifu, you’ve had her with you almost a week now. How is she?”

It would be a lie to say Jiang Yanli is doing fine. Wen Qing knows now, definitively, that Jiang Yanli has never been fine in her life. “Much as she always is. She recovered quickly from her collapse.”

“But you haven’t sent her back to the indoctrination.” It’s not a question. “Thank you, Wen-daifu.”

Of course Wei Wuxian thinks she’s just keeping his sister in her office to protect her. It’s what he would do. But that isn’t her way. She wouldn’t risk Wen Chao’s wrath just to protect someone who isn’t her brother. “I am treating her,” she says, voice firm. She is. If she weren’t, she would have sent Jiang Yanli back to the indoctrination already, no matter how sick it would make her to do so.

“Treating her?”

It’s odd, having this kind of conversation while no more than a few handsbreadths apart, but unable to see Wei Wuxian’s face. “For her underlying illness.”

There’s a pause in which the drone of insects is the only sound. “For the thing that keeps her weak and in pain all the time?” he finally says, and his voice is rough-edged.

So he is aware. Wen Qing had wondered; he is observant, she knows, and one of the most intelligent people she’s ever met, but he has frustrating blindspots and Jiang Yanli is very good at masking her pain. Wen Qing wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d managed to hide it from her entire family. Not the entirety of her struggle--she collapses enough, falls victim to fever enough that they know she’s chronically ill. But the pain--Wen Qing had wondered if anyone knew about that.

“Yes.”

“...and...it’s helping?”

The tentative hope in his voice, the way she can tell he’s trying to keep a grip on it, reminds her so much of how she feels about A-Ning that her throat closes for a moment. It’s that recognition that makes her say, “Slowly. It’s like...hacking away at a boulder with a toy chisel. I’m chipping away at the pain, but it would take a very long time to make a real difference.”

He’s quiet again and then he says, so quiet but fiercely, “Thank you, Wen-daifu.”

It’s too much. She’s done barely anything.

But Jiang Yanli had thanked her, too. After the procedure and then several times since then. Last night, even. Wen Qing has that girl shut up in an office far from home, sticking needles into her several times a day, forcing her to drink all kinds of foul-tasting things, but Jiang Yanli thanks her. She had listened so carefully to what Wen Qing told her, the morning after the procedure. She had nodded when Wen Qing explained that she had found the source of the pain but did not know how to cure it.

“I can mitigate it more effectively now,” Wen Qing said. “But it will take some time for it to start to make a difference.” She didn’t say explicitly that it might be months and months before the lessening of pain is even discernible, but Jiang Yanli is sharp enough that she no doubt understood the implication.

And Jiang Yanli had bowed to her and thanked her for her attention.

That made Wen Qing’s chest tighten with something that wasn’t panic or guilt or self-loathing but held traces of all three, and she had heard the roughness in her own voice when she said, “The pain you tolerate would be too much for many men.” She had thought, but not said, It would drive many to suicide. Jiang Yanli just looked away and changed the subject.

And now her brother is expressing gratitude, too. It’s more than Wen Qing can stand. “I’m a doctor,” she says sharply. “This is what I do.”

Before he can respond, a shout comes from the direction of the trees. The guards are growing impatient with Wei Wuxian’s break.

“Ah, ah, kind brothers, have mercy!” Only Wei Wuxian could whine as he shouts. “It’s so hot! Just a moment more, I beg you!”

Wei Wuxian has a gift for cajoling, but it won’t work for long on the guards. Wen Qing is about to snap at him to get back to work before he causes more trouble for himself, but he drops his voice again and says, “Wen-daifu? I should not ask you this. You’ve already done so much for us. But...can you tell me? Is there anything I can do to help Lan Zhan? I think his leg is very bad, even though he says it’s fine.”

Wen Qing should absolutely not be considering this. But she finds herself snapping, “I’ll see what I can do. Get back to work!”

She hears him whistling again as he stands and goes back to his labor.

A-Ning is in the office again when Wen Qing gets back. He’s rambling something about archery, and Jiang Yanli is listening with a smile though it can’t be interesting to her.

“A-Ning,” Wen Qing says, coming into the room. “Leave Jiang-guniang alone.”

Jiang Yanli, of course, turns that smile to Wen Qing. “Oh, Wen-daifu, I don’t mind! He was telling me about his new bow. It sounds lovely, Wen-gongzi; I’m sure it will be much more accurate at a far greater range than your old one.”

But now that A-Ning has been chastised, he stands and bobs a bow before hurrying away.

“You don’t have to let him bother you, Jiang-guniang,” Wen Qing says, going over to her cabinet.

“He doesn’t bother me. He’s such a sweet boy. So different than my brothers!” Her mouth curls in amusement, but her eyes are lit with affection for her brothers. “And it’s nice to have someone to talk to.”

Of course. Jiang Yanli is bored here, locked in this office all day. Wen Qing has left her paper and ink as well as a few books she’d thought might be worth reading. But it’s a poor substitute for company. Wen Qing has never been a conversationalist and she’s so busy.

Wen Qing opens the cabinet and takes out an envelope from one drawer, a bottle from another. “I can’t imagine he has much to say that would interest you,” she says. “His life is very...narrow.”

And there’s the pain that’s always there, the guilt that tells her that she should be providing something better for her brother. If he were a warrior, he would have much to do, much to learn here in Nightless City. Or perhaps if he were a scholar, it would be useful for him to be here. But he can’t fight and reading is more of a labor for him than it it is for others. All he can do is archery, assist Wen Qing with her more basic tasks, and cook. He’s good at cooking, and the servants in the kitchen all adore him, but it’s not the kind of life she wants for her brother. She isn’t sure what kind of life she wants for him--what kind of life he wants. It doesn’t matter how anyway--in fact, it’s probably best that he doesn’t have some dream that would only be thwarted. For now, all she can do is keep him alive and hope that one day he’ll have the security to figure it out.

“But he’s such a good boy,” Jiang Yanli says.

The words are nothing but kind, and maybe Wen Qing is oversensitive, but she’s heard this before. The condescension towards her “simple” brother, who gets patted on the head and dismissed as nothing more than sweet. A-Ning will never be all that a young master of a cultivation sect should be. Mentally, she sees him beside Jiang Yanli’s brothers: the way both of them move through the world easily, their vivid talents carefully honed but taken for granted.

But of course Jiang Yanli, with her own easily-overlooked qualities, sees more. “He has such a lovely, loyal heart. Generous and brave.”

Wen Qing presses her lips together. He is. He does. It hurts, a bit, to hear someone else say that, even as it feeds something she hadn’t realized her heart was hungry for.

“And you’ve raised him all alone,” Jiang Yanli continues, her voice so kind it makes Wen Qing want to hurl the bottle in her hand to the floor. Instead, she turns to her scales.

“I cannot claim any credit for his character,” she says, shaking out a quantity of dried herbs onto one side of the scale. “It’s his nature.”

“I don’t believe that.” Why is Jiang Yanli’s voice always so warm? “He may come by his soft heart naturally, but the fact that he’s been able to keep it? That must be because of you.”

Wen Qing can’t talk about this anymore. It’s too much. “Did you drink your tisane, Jiang-guniang?”

Jiang Yanli makes a small, amused noise, but she accepts the change in subject goodnaturedly. “I did. But Wen-daifu, I’ve told you. It’s silly for you to continue to call me that after you’ve been inside my mind. Please, I am Jiang Yanli.”

It is a kind of farce to continue to use her title after what they’ve been through together. She hadn’t read Jiang Yanli’s mind or seen her memories. The only tangible fact she had learned about the other woman from the procedure is that Jiang Yanli has a tolerance for pain beyond any Wen Qing had imagined.

The impression she had gotten, the overwhelming sense of knowing Jiang Yanli, that was just an illusion arising from bathing in her qi. It had felt like she was looking straight into Jiang Yanli’s soul, all the way to its shining golden center. (She doesn’t allow herself to think about the fact that that golden soul has seen who Wen Qing is, too. The thought is unbearable, like an ink stain on a new silk dress.) The goodness there, the love for her family, her desire to make things peaceful and lovely: they were overwhelming. But her soul isn’t flawless--no one’s is. It is wracked with pain, humming with a desire to be both known and loved for who she really is, threaded with anger tucked carefully away, studded with bits of self-pity and weariness and even bitterness that Jiang Yanli never, ever allows to show.

But just because Wen Qing has seen all that, it doesn’t mean that she knows Jiang Yanli. She knows nothing of her childhood, her dreams, her interests. She hasn’t known her long enough to judge her actions, and actions are what matter. Feelings are uncontrollable, but actions are decisions, and they determine who a person is. What does she know, really? That Jiang Yanli is strong and careful and kind. That she cares about her brothers more than she does about her own life. That’s it. That’s all. That’s almost nothing.

And even though Wen Qing can’t help but think of her as Jiang Yanli now, she needs the formality of the honorifics to keep a handle on this feeling. She needs to think of Jiang Yanli as nothing more than her patient. Of herself as nothing more than Jiang Yanli’s doctor.

But the words slip out before she can stop them. At least they’re wry--at least she retains that much of herself. “And what would you call me?”

There’s a mischievous tilt to Jiang Yanli’s voice. “Qing-jie?”

Wen Qing chokes, her hand jerking against the scales, knocking crumbs of the herbs right off the plate. She turns the choke into a cough, holds her hand steady as she knocks out some more from the envelope.

“I would prefer to remain Wen-daifu,” she says, and she thinks her voice is flat enough. “And as my patient, you should be Jiang-guniang.”

That light laugh. “All right, Wen-daifu. But you can’t stop me from thinking of you as Qing-jie.”

How does Jiang Yanli do this? No matter how hard Wen Qing tries to turn their conversations to something formal or professional, Jiang Yanli somehow nudges them in directions Wen Qing can’t anticipate.

“I spoke to your brother for a moment. Wei Wuxian.” She glances at Jiang Yanli as she crosses the room and sees the wistfulness of the other woman’s expression, the worry lines between her eyebrows.

“Is he well?”

Wen Qing thinks of his whistles, the good natured way he’d responded to the guards’ insults, the way he threw himself into the digging even on a day so hot and humid. “He is strong,” she says, because he is. It’s funny: she had always wished, in the most shameful dark corners of her heart, that A-Ning would be strong. She had thought that it would make things easier, that she wouldn’t have to worry about him as much. But given what she’s seen of Wei Wuxian, she thinks Jiang Yanli worries just as much as she does. “He was concerned about you. And about Lan-er-gongzi.”

“Yes, Wen-gongzi said that Lan-er-gongzi has a broken leg. Is it not healing well?”

So A-Ning has been listening to the guards’ gossip, too. She tries to stop him, to keep him as far away from the soldiers as she can, but it’s a losing battle. He’s curious. “Wei Wuxian seems to think it is not.”

“And that pain reliever you’re mixing? How are you going to get it to Lan-er-gongzi?”

Wen Qing spins around so fast she almost knocks her mixing bowl onto the ground. Jiang Yanli is smiling at her again, and there’s a teasing hint in that smile that makes Wen Qing’s cheeks heat. “How did you--?” She bites off the question, makes herself turn back to her bowl.

“Ah, Wen-daifu, for all you are mysterious in many ways, you are surprisingly predictable in others.”

Wen Qing doesn’t think of herself as mysterious or easy to read. She thinks of herself like an iron chest, locked tight and buried deep. In that box is her intelligence, her knowledge, her will to keep A-Ning safe and alive and happy. There’s not room for anything else in it. Those contents are precious to her, useful to others. But not interesting enough to be mysterious.

“A-Ning helps in the kitchen. He can put it in Lan-er-gongzi’s tea,” she admits because there’s no use in denying it. She bends her head over the bowl, adds another drop of liquid to get the right consistency. It won’t heal Lan-er-gongzi, but it should help with the pain.

For all she has always thought of herself primarily as a healer, lately Wen Qing feels like she never actually heals anyone. Everything is palliative care. Everything is triage.

Every moment, she’s keeping her eyes on the scales. It’s a risk, to ask A-Ning to slip this bottle into the kitchen, but it’s a small one, given how devoted to him the kitchen staff is. She’s going to take that risk, to provide care to someone who needs it. If that risk were increased by the smallest amount, though, she would let Lan-er-gongzi suffer. He’s not her patient, after all.

Jiang Yanli is her patient, and so Wen Qing will continue to treat her unless commanded otherwise. But if she didn’t know that she truly can help Jiang Yanli, in even the smallest way, she would have sent her back to the indoctrination already. Jiang Yanli is a good person, a person that Wen Qing thinks, under other circumstances, she could care about. But that potential for friendship is nothing compared to the reality of A-Ning’s safety.

And there’s always the ultimate scales, hanging in the back of her mind. On one side: what she owes her sect, her profession, her family. On the other: the knowledge that Wen Ruohan has driven himself mad with his own evil.

In her life so far, she has made the decisions she has made with clear eyes and a cool head. So far, her path has been clear in front of her, no matter how much pain it causes her, no matter how much she hates herself for some of the things she’s had to do. But when she lies in bed at night, the thought that keeps her awake is: what will she do when the weights change, when the scales alter? When they hang in absolute balance and she still has to choose?

It was inevitable, really, and anxiety about it has been gnawing at the back of Wen Qing’s mind since Jiang Yanli was brought to her, but Wen Qing is still unprepared when she comes back to her office after treating Wen Ruohan and finds Wen Chao there.

The heavy weight of pain in her shoulders is forgotten as soon as she hears Wen Chao’s voice. She takes a slow, steadying breath because there is no guard to see, and then she steps into the office.

“...have some fun, Jiang-guniang. How boring, shut up in this dusty office all day.”

There isn’t a speck of dust in Wen Qing’s office--she wouldn’t allow for it--but this slander matters little. What matters is that Wen Chao is standing over Jiang Yanli. Leering down at her. Jiang Yanli is sitting straight-backed and her hands are folded neatly in her lap, but Wen Qing recognizes the tension in her shoulders. It shows in her face, too, for all she’s keeping a pleasantly neutral expression in place. Wen Qing recognizes that, too; her own neutral expression is significantly less pleasant than Jiang Yanli’s but this tableau is so familiar to her that seeing it now is like experiencing it herself, just as she has so many times before.

Men will never know, she thinks, what it’s like. To know that a man, larger, stronger than you, with all the societal power, has you in his sights and that at any moment he might do something you can’t stop. And you: clinging to the illusion of control--if you just stay pleasant but not too pleasant, pleasant enough not to offend but not so much that you’re encouraging, perhaps this will be over soon. Perhaps he will leave. Knowing, deep in your gut, that nothing you do makes a difference either way. This man will do what he will do and you will have to live with it.

Wen Qing has been there many times. Less these days, when she’s so clearly favored by Wen Ruohan, but she still finds herself there now and then. Sometimes with Wen Ruohan himself, which is the most frightening. Wen Qing has been very careful to keep A-Ning from ever realizing her own vulnerability, and she suspects that Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng would probably believe their cosseted sister is, by virtue of her station, never in such situations. Wen Qing knows better. Jiang Yanli has spent time at Koi Tower, after all. And now there is this.

“I am very busy with my studies,” Jiang Yanli says, and she is so much better than Wen Qing at that imperturbable but agreeable tone of voice. “And with meditation and my treatments.”

It’s not a lie. Jiang Yanli has been asking for more and more of Wen Qing’s medical texts lately, her dark head always bent over them when she isn’t meditating or eating or being treated by Wen Qing or trading recipes with A-Ning. Wen Qing had thought the monotony was driving her to this, but when she said something about searching out more enjoyable reading material, Jiang Yanli smiled, that little dimple appearing at the bottom corner of her mouth, and begged her not to bother. “I never thought to study healing,” she had said. “Though now I can’t imagine why. It’s much more interesting than I thought it would be.”

Wen Qing has even seen her taking notes sometimes as she reads and had to turn away from the sudden spark of intimacy she felt, seeing Jiang Yanli reading all of her books, the ones she relies on and consults again and again. It is a foolish feeling, and only proof of how little Wen Qing shares with anyone. Still, she can’t deny the warmth she feels when Jiang Yanli asks her questions about what she’s read--insightful questions. Wen Qing had always heard that Jiang Yanli had nothing much to recommend her beyond a pleasant disposition. What a lie that was.

Or not a lie, really: evidence of the blindness of men. Because Jiang Yanli is not ravishingly beautiful or strong in cultivation, men cannot see her worth. It frustrates Wen Qing at the same time that it feels like relief. Better that they overlook her than some of the alternatives.

Like this. Like Wen Chao, looming above Jiang Yanli, his eyes roving over her body. The only thing that could drown out the sickness Wen Qing feels at the sight is the rage that surges up inside her.

“Oh, so studious, Jiang-guniang!” Wen Chao manages to make even the title sound suggestive. He picks up the book Jiang Yanli had been reading and tosses it onto a nearby table. Normally this kind of disrespect would infuriate Wen Qing, but her anger is focused in another direction now. “Why read old books when there is wine to be drunk and music to be listened to and...company to be had?”

Jiang Yanli’s mouth twitches, a tiny crack in her porcelain-smooth expression, before she opens it to speak. It is time for Wen Qing to make her presence known.

“Can I help you with something, Wen-er-gongzi?” She is grateful for her own carefully-cultivated control; her voice is even, with none of the acid she’s feeling.

He turns in a slow, arrogant motion that displays his irritation, his smile falling to a grimace. “Ah, you’re here, A-Qing?” He calls her this when she’s thwarted him in some way, his way of expressing his disdain for her. It pricks at her pride, but she’s never desired his esteem--indeed, she would think less of herself if she had it.

“Yes, Wen-er-gongzi.” She bows. “I assume you were looking for me?”

“I was not. I heard you had an especially precious patient these days. Trapping a young lady in this dark room is really too cruel of you, A-Qing. A Yunmeng lotus blossom needs sunlight to grow!”

In fact, Jiang Yanli has been spending sunny afternoons in the courtyard just outside Wen Qing’s office. It’s too small to be much use as a place of exercise, but it contains a small medicinal herb garden, and Jiang Yanli has been getting plenty of sunshine.

“Jiang-guniang’s condition is quite serious. It affects her golden core profoundly. I am currently working to determine whether it is contagious.” That last is a blatant lie, and her heart twinges when she says it. She hates to lie about her work. She has to lie for so many other reasons, but she’s always done her best never to lie as a doctor.

And Wen Chao flinches back from Jiang Yanli, his eyes cutting to her in alarm. The sight is such a satisfaction that Wen Qing has an unusually difficult time keeping her face neutral when Jiang Yanli’s gaze catches hers. Jiang Yanli’s eyes are shining for all her face remains still.

Of course, Wen Chao tries to cover his show of weakness with bravado. “Well, get back to work! My father doesn’t keep you around so you can waste time!” And then he’s gone in a storm of crimson silk, leaving a slick film of relief in Wen Qing’s mouth.

When his footsteps no longer echo down the hall, Jiang Yanli lets out a slow breath and lets her eyes fall shut. When she opens them again, she gives Wen Qing a wobbly smile that is somehow devastating. “Thank you, Wen-daifu.”

Wen Qing feels a flash of rage at the thanks--not at Jiang Yanli, but at the implication that she needs to be thanked for something any woman should do for another. That any man of integrity should do, though she’s known few enough of those.

“That won’t keep him away for long,” she says instead of acknowledging the gratitude. She crosses over to where Wen Chao had tossed aside the book and picks it up, smoothing down its cover. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he would actually...hurt you.” Wen Chao is a terrible person, but he’s not stupid. He knows the consequences of laying a finger on the daughter of a sect leader, and the Wen and the Jiang are not officially at war yet. Wen Ruohan would be furious if something happened without his say-so to alter that. Besides, Wen Chao doesn’t need to resort to forcing Jiang Yanli when there are so many maidservants and farmer’s daughters and shopgirls in Qishan. “But if he feels...rejected, he could make things very unpleasant for you here.” Or for your brothers, Wen Qing doesn’t add.

“Or for my brothers,” Jiang Yanli says, and the surprise of it almost startles Wen Qing into a smile. Jiang Yanli is so much more intelligent than anyone thinks she is.

Wen Qing holds out the text--an herb compendium. “Yes. Or them.”

Jiang Yanli takes the book, sets it in her lap, and runs her hand over the cover just as Wen Qing had just done. “I should go home. Mother was right. I’m not helping the boys at all here. I’m sure they’re worrying about me, and I hate that.”

The dismay Wen Qing feels at these words is as potent as the relief. She sets the former aside, discarding it as illogical and selfish, and holds on to the relief. “You should.” Her mind is already moving, trying to sort out the logistics. “It may take a few days to find you an appropriate escort.” Wen Chao will never let Jiang Yanli’s brothers or any of the other sect heirs leave, and they’re the only ones here that Wen Qing would entrust Jiang Yanli’s safety to. She’ll have to write to Lotus Pier and ask them to send someone. After she convinces Wen Chao to let Jiang Yanli leave.

Wen Qing thinks he’ll let her go. He has Yunmeng Jiang’s heir and first disciple; what does he need with a daughter who prefers cooking to cultivation? Surely he’ll let her go.

“In the meantime, I’ll ask A-Ning to stay here with you whenever I must leave you.” Not that A-Ning would be able to stop Wen Chao from doing anything he wanted, but Jiang Yanli will feel more secure if she isn’t alone.

“That’s very kind, Wen-daifu,” Jiang Yanli says, and it’s a sign of how rattled she is that she doesn’t protest. Usually she’s so concerned about not taking up anyone’s time that she would insist that she’s fine alone.

“You are my patient,” Wen Qing says.

“You say that, Wen-daifu, but I believe you would do the same even if I were not.”

Wen Qing keeps her gaze down so that she doesn’t have to see the light in Jiang Yanli’s eyes. She doesn’t see Jiang Yanli reach out, and she jumps, startled, when Jiang Yanli takes her hands.

“It must be hard,” Jiang Yanli says quietly, “for a woman of your integrity to stay here in Nightless City. It must be very hard.”

For a moment, Wen Qing is scared she won’t be able to keep a sob from escaping, but she manages, just. She extricates her hands from Jiang Yanli’s and turns to her desk.

“My life is no harder than anyone else’s,” she says. “Did you take your tisane?”

“Yes, Wen-daifu,” Jiang Yanli answers, her voice as gently amused as it always is when Wen Qing inelegantly changes the subject.

Wen Qing locks all of the feelings that have shaken her for the past few minutes into the iron box at the back of her mind and gets to work, writing the letter to Lotus Pier and beginning a list of other considerations. Hopefully, they will hear from the Jiang in a few days, but she needs to figure out a way to keep Wen Chao away from Jiang Yanli in the meantime.

That afternoon, Wen Qing arranges it so that she just happens to cross Wang Lingjiao’s path. Wang Lingjiao can never resist picking at Wen Qing when she sees her--she’s the kind of woman whose vanity lies side by side with a sense of inferiority, which she reacts to by putting down every woman she meets. Wen Qing finds most of Wang Lingjiao’s sneers and insinuations merely irritating, but she avoids her whenever she can because her time is precious and she’s not going to spend it listening to Wang Lingjiao attempt to insult her.

“How exhausted you look, Wen-daifu! So sallow! And the shadows under your eyes! I must remember to send you some of the cream I use--it’s been known to work wonders, which is just what you need. No woman should be seen in such a state, even if she is a doctor.”

Wang Lingjiao is not intelligent enough to figure out that Wen Qing’s appearance is her least vulnerable spot. Fortunately, Wen Qing knows exactly what Wang Lingjiao’s weakness is.

“Thank you, but Jiang-guniang is already offering generous guidance.” Before Wang Lingjiao can say something about how it clearly is inferior to hers, Wen Qing hurries to say, “She’s been restricted to my office for some time and I believe she’s growing restive. Wen-er-gongzi is very softhearted, though, and has been taking time out of his busy schedule to drop in and cheer her up.” With anyone else, Wen Qing would never be so blunt, but subtlety would be wasted on Wang Lingjiao.

Wang Lingjiao’s eyes widen, face twisting with anger. She smooths it out quickly, but Wen Qing knows her trap is sprung.

“Has he?” Wang Lingjiao isn’t very good at trying to sound unruffled. “How...kind of him. If you’ll excuse me, Wen-daifu.”

Wen Qing allows herself a little nod of satisfaction as she watches the other woman hurry away.

Finding the correct time to talk to Wen Chao about an escort for Jiang Yanli is a delicate matter. He is under the sway of his moods, and approaching him when he’s in the wrong one would guarantee a refusal.

But before she has a chance to speak to him, he leaves abruptly on an expedition that takes him and the hostages away for several days. Of course he does not inform her--she finds out only after they have already departed. Frustrated, she weighs her options. Waiting for his return--whenever that may be--will be a waste of time. She decides to send the letter to the Jiang without permission and resolves to speak to him as soon as he returns.

She is careful with the letter. Certain that the mail service is under surveillance, she hires a courier herself, a nephew of an apothecary who Wen Qing has frequented since coming to Nightless City. For four days after sending it, she sets aside all thoughts of it--the letter is out of her hands and she can do nothing further to help Jiang Yanli return home until they receive a reply.

On the fifth day, Wen Chao appears in the doorway of her office.

Wen Qing can tell by the way he’s flexing his neck that he’s angry. She had not known he had returned. She freezes in the middle of returning her needles to their holder, and her sudden stillness attracts Jiang Yanli’s attention from her book. The flash of anxiety on her face when she sees Wen Chao matches the tension in Wen Qing’s body.

Wen Chao is not given to silence, but for a moment he just looks at them, and Wen Qing can feel the tension grow like guqin strings strung too tight. Wen Chao is holding something, and from this distance, all Wen Qing can see is a piece of paper--none of the words or the seal. But she knows.

“Jiang-guniang, Jiang-guniang, why didn’t you tell me you were dissatisfied with the hospitality of the Wen sect?”

Jiang Yanli’s gaze darts to Wen Qing minnow-quick, then back to Wen Chao. The affable mask has already settled on her face. “Forgive me, Wen-er-gongzi, I have been in no way dissatisfied.”

“Is that so?” Wen Chao holds up the paper, and yes, it is Wen Qing’s letter. “Then why are you in such a hurry to leave us?”

“It is my professional opinion that Jiang-guniang’s health will be better tended to at home,” Wen Qing says, her voice unruffled by the churning in her stomach. She hopes Wang-lao’s nephew made it home safely. “As her doctor, it is one of my duties to arrange for her comfort.”

Wen Chao turns his attention to Wen Qing, which makes Wen Qing feel fractionally better. She hates the way he looks at Jiang Yanli. “Too complicated a case for the almighty Wen-daifu?”

“I am very busy with my duties for Wen-zongzhu,” she answers. “The sect physicians in Lotus Pier will be better able to care for Jiang-guniang.”

Wen Chao snorts. “You’re saying there’s something the Jiang physicians can do better? Really?”

She understands his insinuation. She has expressed frustration many times with the backwards ways of the other sects’ doctors. It doesn’t matter. Jiang Yanli will be safer at Lotus Pier. “I have prepared detailed instructions for them on how to care for Jiang-guniang. They will have more time to devote to her care as well as familiarity with her case.” She can see that he’s about to protest, so she hurries on. “My time must be saved for Wen-zongzhu.”

He can’t argue with that, but he pivots back to Jiang Yanli. “And Jiang-guniang wishes to go home, I suppose?”

Jiang Yanli manages a smile. Wen Qing is amazed she can muster it in these circumstances. “This humble maiden does miss her home,” she acknowledges. “Though I am reluctant to leave my brothers.”

Clever, for her to remind Wen Chao that he has two other hostages from the Jiang. She hadn’t been meant to come here in the first place. He loses nothing by letting her leave.

Nothing but the satisfaction of his own control over an enemy’s daughter. It’s always about power with men like him.

“Ah, yes, your brothers.” Wen Chao’s lip curls. “Why don’t we go ask them how they feel about you leaving them behind?”

The unexpectedness of this is a shock as cold as a plunge into icy water. Jiang Yanli’s mouth falls open, her eyes shooting to Wen Qing’s. Wen Qing wishes she could soothe the panicked confusion in those eyes, but all she can do is shake her head. She doesn’t know where this is going either, but it can be nowhere good.

“Wen-er-gongzi, I’m sure that isn’t necess--”

“Of course it is! If I had such a precious sister, I would want to know before she goes on a long, dangerous journey!”

And then Wen Chao grabs Jiang Yanli by the upper arm, and for one second, Wen Qing contemplates hurling her needle at him. She could do it--with just a flick of her fingers, hit him in exactly the right place to cause maximum pain, to make him let Jiang Yanli go.

But of course she doesn’t. She’s been training all her life to build up the control to stop herself in moments like these, and she just watches as Wen Chao yanks Jiang Yanli out of her seat and to her feet. Wen Qing doesn’t miss Jiang Yanli’s wince; Wen Chao probably isn’t even holding her that hard, doesn’t need to--she’s so tiny next to him--but Wen Qing knows he’ll leave an ugly bruise nonetheless. Jiang Yanli tosses one desperate glance Wen Qing’s way and then is pulled out the door.

Wen Qing can’t stop him, but she’ll be damned if she lets him hurt Jiang Yanli more.

Without hesitation, she goes after them.

If Wen Qing were the kind to panic, she would panic at the look on Jiang Yanli’s brothers’ faces when Wen Chao drags her in front of them.

The sect heirs are on the plaza at the foot of the grand stairs where Wen Chao has them spend most of their days when they’re not being punished with labor. At a glance, Wen Qing can see how much they’ve changed since last she saw them. When they had arrived, several weeks before, they had looked the part of scions of powerful families, proud in the sect colors of their silks and brocades. Now, even Lan-er-gongzi is rumpled, his usually flawless robes dingy, and the rest are in even worse shape. Wen Qing had heard the guards laughing that the hostages’ things had been taken from them when they arrived, leaving them with only what they wore. They’ve been washing their clothes in their rooms, by hand at night, and despite their carefully-groomed hair and upright postures, they look like the prisoners they are in all but name. Their faces are thinner, their clothes looser.

The anger Wen Qing feels isn’t just at the obvious mistreatment when no one should be treated so poorly. It’s just as much about the stupidity of treating these young people this way. Every sect, no matter how insignificant, has its pride, its sense of honor, and treating the heirs to the most powerful sects as peasants is only going to fan the embers of enmity to full flame. Worse, this type of treatment at the Wen’s hands will encourage alliances between clans that would otherwise have nothing to do with each other. It’s as though Wen Chao wants to give the other sects a common enemy. Wen-zongzhu, absorbed in his hunt for the Ying Iron, must be oblivious to what his fool of a son is doing. Wen-zongzhu does not yet want war with the Jin and the Nie, Wen Qing knows. Subjecting the imperious Jin heir and Nie-zongzhu’s pampered brother to this ill-treatment is not the way to ensure stability between the sects.

But at the moment it’s another of Wen Chao’s stupidities that Wen Qing is worried about. He strides to the front of the plaza, dragging Jiang Yanli along with him--she’s trying to keep up, but his height makes that difficult.

The wordless shout of anger Wei Wuxian lets out at the sight of his sister overlays Jiang Wanyin’s furious growl. It’s no surprise when both of them rush forward, but Wen Chao doesn’t even have to flick a finger for the guards to react. Before Wei-gongzi and Jiang-gongzi can make it more than a few steps, the guards have grabbed them, forcing them to their knees.

That doesn’t stop them from fighting though. They may not have their weapons, but they have their strength. Jiang Wanyin is hurling his body around, attempting to break from the restraining arms, and Wen Qing realizes that Wei Wuxian has twisted his neck that way because he’s attempting to bite the hand of one of the guards holding him.

“A-Cheng! A-Xian! Be still!”

Wen Qing had not known that Jiang Yanli could make her voice crack like a whip. Both of the struggling boys freeze, wide eyes locked on their sister’s face.

Wen Chao finally--finally--releases Jiang Yanli’s arm. Jiang Yanli takes a steadying breath, then brushes the wrinkles out of her robes. She doesn’t wince, but Wen Qing can see from the way she holds her left arm that Wen Chao has hurt her.

“Yes, yes, listen to your wise sister, gongzi, and calm down,” Wen Chao laughs. He’s enjoying himself already, and it disgusts Wen Qing.

At his mocking words, Wei Wuxian tenses to lunge forward, but Jiang Yanli catches his eye and gives a small shake of her head. The rage on his face is tinged with frustration, but he stops. Jiang Wanyin’s jaw is so set that it will ache once he finally relaxes it.

Wen Qing glances around at the others. Jin-gongzi is openly disgusted, and Luo Qingyang beside him has a hand pressed to her lips. Nie-gongzi is hiding behind his fan, as expected, and even Lan-er-gongzi’s eyes are widened in the closest thing to an expression Wen Qing has ever seen from him when he isn’t looking at Wei Wuxian. The other hostage disciples and heirs of the lesser sects are all wearing looks of horror or fear.

“Wen Chao!” Wei Wuxian shouts. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Wei-gongzi,” Wen Chao says, managing to make the title sound like an insult, “I was concerned that you and Jiang-gongzi have missed your sister. Isn’t it nice to have a visit?” Before anyone can respond, he turns back to Jiang Yanli. Her face is very pale, but she’s holding her shoulders back, her chin lifted. Wen Qing notices that her hands are hidden in the folds of her robe and wonders if this is to hide their shaking. “Jiang-guniang wishes to bid her brothers farewell before her journey home.”

The look Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin exchange is confused but dark with suspicion. “Shijie? You’re going home?”

“Don’t worry, Wei-gongzi,” Wen Chao says. “I’ll escort her myself. I’ll take good care of her and perhaps it will give us the opportunity to...get to know each other better.”

The suggestiveness in his voice isn’t lost on anyone. “You bastard,” Jiang Wanyin snarls, hurling himself forward with strength enough that it breaks one of the guard’s grip, and this time Wei Wuxian does bite the guard holding him. There’s a moment of fierce struggle and Wen Qing sucks in her breath when a fist connects with Wei Wuxian’s face. Jiang Yanli lets out a cry, starting forward till Wen Chao grabs her arm again, hauling her back; Lan-er-gongzi takes a half a step towards Wei Wuxian before jerking himself to a halt. Wei Wuxian’s head snaps back from the force of the blow, head lolling as with dizziness. Another guard takes advantage of the moment to shove Wei Wuxian down onto the ground, kneeling with a knee between Wei Wuxian’s shoulder blades to hold him down. Meanwhile, Jiang Wanyin has been struggling with his own captors, shouting insults on the top of his lungs, but they’re cut off when one of the guards grabs him by his hair and shoves his face into the ground.

Jiang Yanli is crying now, a helpless hand lifted towards her brothers, half-dangling in Wen Chao’s grip, and Wen Qing can’t stand it. She crosses to Jiang Yanli, grabbing one trembling hand in her own firm one. Jiang Yanli looks at her, gasping between sobs. “Please,” she whispers. “Please.”

But there isn’t a thing Wen Qing can do. Not one thing.

“Get them up!” Wen Chao shouts, and the guards haul Jiang Yanli’s brothers to their feet. Wei Wuxian’s lip is split and bleeding, and the skin of Jiang Wanyin’s right cheekbone is scraped raw from where it was forced against the pavement. Tears stream down his face, but Wei Wuxian’s eyes are dry, fury burning like the sun. Jiang Yanli is gripping Wen Qing’s hand so hard that it hurts,* still crying hard enough to shake her shoulders.

“Such a tantrum!” The grin on Wen Chao’s face is far more frightening than his rage would be. Wen Qing’s stomach lurches. She had not thought he would be stupid, but now that she sees how much he enjoys taunting the other heirs, she isn’t sure there’s anything he won’t do. He puts a mocking hand against his heart and says, “I will guard your sister’s safety with my life. We leave at dawn. And in the meantime, we must make sure that Jiang-guniang’s brothers are also safe. Where shall we store them? We have such fine accommodation beneath the palace. And they’ll be most safe of all with a faithful dog to guard them. A night there will surely restore their faith in our ability to care for their sister, will it not?”

Wen Qing is standing close enough to Jiang Yanli that she feels when the other woman goes tense, swallowing down her sob. For a dizzy moment, Wen Qing fears Jiang Yanli is going to physically fight for her brothers. But then she lets out a little cry, her eyes rolling back in her head as she goes limp in Wen Chao’s grip. His big hand around her arm keeps her from crumbling to the ground, and Wen Qing is there immediately to keep her from dangling. Her arms go around Jiang Yanli automatically, holding her upright.

“Jiejie!” Jiang Wanyin cries out at the same moment that Wei Wuxian yells, “Shijie!”

Wen Chao gapes down at Jiang Yanli, and in his surprise, he lets go of her arm. But Wen Qing has braced herself and doesn’t stagger under Jiang Yanli’s sudden weight. “You!” she shouts to a nearby guard. “Carry her back to my office. Gently!”

Once the guard has lifted Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing spins back to face Wen Chao. “She will not be able to travel now,” she snaps, knowing that she isn’t keeping her hatred from her eyes. “It will take her at least a week to recover from this.” She leans in closer to him, cursing her height--how she wishes she could loom over him! “Do not enter my office in that time if you do not wish for Wen-zongzhu to know how you are really treating your ‘guests’.”

When she turns to follow Jiang Yanli, she lets her gaze drift over the sect heirs for a moment. Jiang Wanyin is still calling out for his sister, his face paler than Wen Qing has ever seen it. But Wei Wuxian is staring not at his sister being carried away, but at Wen Qing, gaze intense as an imperative, like he can force her to answer his unspoken question.

She shouldn’t, but Wen Qing gives him the smallest, tightest nod before letting turning away. She hopes Wei Wuxian understands. Jiang Yanli will be fine. Wen Qing knows what a real faint looks like.

Jiang Yanli’s eyes pop open as soon as Wen Qing banishes the guards from the room. She pushes herself upright and her wince is small enough that sharper eyes might not have caught it.

“Qing-jie--” she starts, but Wen Qing already knows what she’s going to say.

“That was clever,” Wen Qing cuts her off. She begins rolling up the silk of Jiang Yanli’s sleeve. “I’ll be able to keep you here until we think of another way to get you home safely.”

Yes, a bruise is already rising on the pale of Jiang Yanli’s upper arm. In a few hours it will be livid, the garish ghost of Wen Chao’s grip. Jiang Yanli bruises easily.

“Qing-jie--”

Wen Qing turns to where her brother is hovering nearby, his face scrunched up in that heartbreaking way it always does when he wants desperately to help someone but can’t. “A-Ning, fetch the arnica.” He’ll feel better with a task, and she doesn’t want him to hear her refuse the request she knows is coming.

Jiang Yanli’s hand closes around Wen Qing’s. “Qing-jie. My brothers.”
Wen Qing forces herself to meet Jiang Yanli’s eyes. They’re red-rimmed, swelling already, her face tear-streaked and damp. The sight rends something inside Wen Qing, but she keeps her shoulders set.

“The dungeons are unpleasant,” Wen Qing says. “Cold, filthy--they won’t be fed. But their injuries were minor, and they are strong. They will look after each other. They will survive.” She hopes. She has heard tales of the great canine in the dungeons. If Wen Chao thinks to command the brothers to lock down their spiritual energy, they might not be able to fight it off. Wen Qing hopes desperately that his anger will keep him from thinking of that.

“No, you don’t understand. A-Xian--he’s terrified of dogs. Terrified. I’ve seen him almost cry when one of Jin-furen’s little lap dogs gets too close to him. If he’s shut up down there with that thing--if it’s a quarter the size the stories say--he’ll be too scared to do anything to protect himself, and A-Cheng won’t be able to do it alone.”

Wen Qing searches for a response, but A-Ning is back already, setting the pot of salve down by her hand. “Jiejie,” he says, “I’m going down to the kitchens if you don’t need me.”

Her attention arrested by this non sequitur, she watches her brother cross the room to the small chest in the corner, the one she keeps locked. He kneels down, opens it with the key he must have retrieved when he fetched the arnica--she had not known that he knew where she had hidden that key. She can’t help her own intake of breath when he takes out a familiar jar, pulls needles from his sleeve, and dips them one by one into the jar. His movements are careful, just as she trained him as he returns the jar to the chest and locks it again.

Wen Qing’s heart thuds in her throat as her brother looks up at her. He holds her gaze for a long moment. It isn’t defiant or stubborn or angry, that way someone else’s might be. It’s just steady, open. Wen Qing thinks suddenly of Jiang Yanli’s words--He may come by his soft heart naturally, but the fact that he’s been able to keep it? That must be because of you.--and wants to weep.

She shouldn’t. She should not let him risk this. She should stop this now, take the needles from him, see that the lock on the chest is changed right away.

Instead, she turns back to Jiang Yanli. “Jiang-guniang,” she says, voice as careful as A-Ning’s hands. “Your brothers will survive.”

Jiang Yanli searches her face for a long moment, then her eyes dart over to A-Ning. Wen Qing sees the long breath she lets out, the easing of tension in her shoulders. The gratitude that floods Jiang Yanli’s eyes is too much for Wen Qing to endure, and she turns her attention to unscrewing the pot of salve.

“Wen-daifu, Wen-gongzi--”

Wen Qing can’t bear to let her finish. If she has to listen to Jiang Yanli thank her again, she will scream. “Hold your sleeve in place,” she interrupts. “This will help with the bruising.”

As always, Jiang Yanli lets her get away with the change of subject. Wen Qing rubs the salve into Jiang Yanli’s upper arm, her attention behind her. She hears her brother rise and leave the room. Her focus is drawn back to Jiang Yanli when a drop of water falls on her hand; she looks up to see that tears are streaming down Jiang Yanli’s face, though her eyes are resolute.

Wen Qing is not one for prayer, but the plea she sends out to the universe is as close as she ever comes. It’s the same plea, the one she’s had inside her for years, the only one she allows herself. My brother, she usually pleads. Only this time:

Our brothers, she thinks. Our brothers.

The next morning, when the guards drag Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin out of the dungeons, Wen Qing is too numb to feel relief. She’s frozen through with the knowledge that Wen Chao has left for Lotus Pier--without Jiang Yanli, but with a contingent of soldiers.

Perhaps it is a coward’s decision, not to tell Jiang Yanli about the soldiers. Wen Qing tells herself that she doesn’t know for certain--that perhaps Wen Chao is not as foolish as she fears. That perhaps there will be no terrible news for Jiang Yanli and her brothers in a few days. That perhaps Wen Chao will go to Lotus Pier and merely gloat and throw his weight around.

She tells herself this, but she does not believe it. The lie chafes, irritating as a pebble in a shoe. Wen Qing does not believe in hiding a diagnosis from patients, no matter how dire; she has always believed that patients do better when they know the truth, that it is her duty as their doctor to help them prepare for the future. This is not a diagnosis, and it isn’t her duty. But it feels like it is.

The relief on Jiang Yanli’s face when A-Ning reports that Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin are unharmed and released from the dungeon stirs in Wen Qing a poignancy she had not expected, and that's what makes her realize: she is starting to care about Jiang Yanli beyond the way a doctor cares for the health of a patient, and that is terrifying for so many reasons.

With her undeniably growing affection grows a sense of responsibility as well, the burning feeling that it is her duty to tell Jiang Yanli of the danger her home and family might be in.

She tells herself that she doesn’t want to be Jiang Yanli’s friend, that getting to know this woman is burdensome--or worse, dangerous. And yet Wen Qing is clear-sighted enough to recognize the hunger that had been living quietly inside her.

But if Jiang Yanli is her friend--if Wen Qing is Jiang Yanli’s friend--then she owes her something. And Wen Qing has worked all her life to ensure that she doesn’t owe anyone anything. Debt, perhaps, is what frightens her most of all.

What makes it worse is that Jiang Yanli has taken to talking about her home. Not just about the beauty of the lakes, the scent of lotus blossoms in the air, the foods she most misses. Those things, Wen Qing would be able to ignore.

No. Jiang Yanli is telling her about the people.

“A-jun--no, no, he would wish for me to call him Sixth Disciple! But it is such a big title for such a little boy! I would never tell anyone else this, but Sixth Disciple is my favorite because A-Cheng is his favorite. Most of the younger disciples look up to A-Xian most of all, because he is the first disciple and so good with them. He makes them laugh, and so they love him. But A-jun admires A-Cheng most, and A-Cheng needs someone to admire him. A-Xian doesn’t care what people think of him--or, he does care, but he’s better at hiding it from everyone, even himself. But when Sixth Disciple follows A-Cheng around, it leaves A-Cheng all puffed up with happiness for hours afterwards! You should see him screw up his face, trying to keep his scowl in place! And you should A-jun try his best to scowl!”

The very brightness of Jiang Yanli’s laughter gnaws at Wen Qing’s serenity.

“Popo Liu is the one who taught me to cook, you know. When I was so little and cultivation lessons were too much for me, I would run and hide in the kitchens. Popo had her grandson make me a stool, and she stood me up beside her and taught me how to hold knives and boil congee and knead dough. You should have seen my very first dumplings--you’ve never seen anything so pathetic! But Popo made me eat one anyway, because she said I would remember better what I’d done wrong if I remembered how it tasted wrong. Her fingers are so twisted up with arthritis these days that she can’t even fold dumplings herself anymore, but she loves to sit and watch me do it. She was the first person who ever gave me something to feel proud of myself about.”

Wen Qing waits for the fancy to pass, for Jiang Yanli to return to talk of medical texts, but it’s as though, now that she has entertained the idea of going home, she can speak of nothing else.

“Everyone is so frightened of my mother’s maids, and of course they are formidable. But Jinzhu-jie is so funny in this dry way that many of the Meishan Yu have, though she almost never lets it show. And Yinzhu-jie has as big a sweet tooth as anyone I’ve ever met and is susceptible to bribes, so long as they contain enough honey. But she hates to lose! I’ve never met anyone so competitive!”

Sometimes the joy she takes in speaking of those she loves edges into wistfulness. And that’s the worst of all, because Wen Qing can’t shake the feeling that Jiang Yanli has never spoken of this to anyone else.

“Of course I always knew that I must marry out. Even if it wasn’t to--well. Daughters marry out. That is what they do. Mother spoke to me of my dowry before I had all my teeth. But I suppose I’m too swayed by my heart. All I ever wanted was to stay in Lotus Pier with my brothers. A-Cheng would run the sect and A-Xian would train the disciples and I would run the household. I’m good at that, running a household. I could be happy, doing that, at home with my brothers.”

Wen Qing does not know how to feel about Jiang Yanli delegating her as confidant. With most patients, this kind of personal chatter would drive her to distraction if she hadn’t long ago learned how to tune it out. But Wen Qing could no sooner tune Jiang Yanli out than she could stop noticing the days when the skin around Jiang Yanli’s eyes is tight with pain.

And the words fall on Wen Qing’s heart like rain on parched ground. She has never had a female friend before--never really had any friend at all unless you count her brother. Her life has been spent in the company of teachers and patients, focused on the accumulation of knowledge and the dispensing of healing. She had the vague idea that most high-born young women only spoke of love affairs and fashion. Jiang Yanli is interested in many other things, and when she does touch on those stereotypical topics, it’s with an insight into how people relate to each other and the way that affects the larger community of Lotus Pier. Jiang Yanli’s talk is conversation, not just exchange of relevant information, and Wen Qing has never experienced such a thing. Indeed, she has never even thought to want it.

She isn’t good at it; her own lack of experience is obvious. She mostly just nods or hums in acknowledgment of Jiang Yanli’s words, providing little in response. And yet it never feels as Wen Qing might have thought it would: that Jiang Yanli is mostly talking for her own pleasure, that she would talk to anyone in exactly the same way, that her audience doesn’t matter at all.

No, Jiang Yanli keeps her eyes steady on Wen Qing as she talks, filling up the silence that always reigned when Wen Qing was mixing ointments or weeding her herb garden or cleaning her needles. Jiang Yanli doesn’t talk all the time--she never interrupts Wen Qing when she’s reading or searching her reference texts. She does a great deal of reading of her own, and when a patient visits the office, she retreats to the garden and sits in the sun.

When she is telling Wen Qing stories, though, she is telling them to Wen Qing. Her eyes light up with delight if a funny anecdote makes Wen Qing’s mouth twitch, and she seems moved when Wen Qing writes up a recipe for a salve for her popo’s rheumatic hands. She asks Wen Qing questions--not invasive ones, for she’s quickly realized that nothing makes Wen Qing clam up faster. She’s never once asked about Wen Qing’s parents or her relationship with Wen-zongzhu. Instead, when she’s listing the Yunmeng foods she misses, she asks Wen Qing what her favorites are, makes careful note of them, even says she will speak to A-Ning about learning the recipe. She asks how old Wen Qing was when she started learning this or that procedure, what games Wen Qing played with her brother as a child, which areas she would like to study in the future. Things that are personal enough that they matter, but not so personal enough that they intrude. Things that no one has ever asked Wen Qing in her life.

The undeniable but undesired pleasure of being the center of Jiang Yanli’s attention is distracting. Perhaps that’s why it takes Wen Qing some time to notice the tightness in Jiang Yanli’s voice as she tells stories of her home and the way she seems less content basking in the sun. It grows on Wen Qing slowly, the realization that Jiang Yanli suspects, too.

Wen Qing is with Wen-zongzhu when the news arrives. The soldier knows his message will not be received well; his erect posture and level tone belie the nervous sweat breaking out on his forehead. He gets a backhand across the face for his service--Wen Qing will find him later to give him a salve and treat the split lip. She stands still and silent as Wen-zongzhu roars, rages, rips tapestries from the wall and hurls vases to the ground. She focuses on keeping her face absolutely blank, on keeping her mind absolutely blank, and when Wen-zongzhu’s fire burns itself out, she soothes him with needles and incense and her own firm hands. She leaves him muttering and stewing.

The walk back to her office has never seemed so short. She takes a steadying breath before she steps inside, folds her hands, smooths her face once again.
Even so, as soon as Jiang Yanli raises her head, the smile slides off her face. She leaps to her feet, the sleeves of her robes flapping like a dying bird.

“Qing-jie?”

Jiang Yanli’s voice is so small. Wen Qing swallows down acid rising in her throat and crosses to Jiang Yanli’s side.

“Jiang-guniang, please sit down.”

“Qing-jie--” Jiang Yanli’s hands are ice-cold and shaking when they fumble for Wen Qing’s. Wen Qing wants to jerk back, but she lets Jiang Yanli cling to her, ignoring the pain of her grip.

There is nothing to do but say it. “Lotus Pier has fallen. Jiang-zongzhu and Yu-furen are dead.”

She is prepared to catch Jiang Yanli by the elbow when her legs give out, but the wail that splits the air is so primal that Wen Qing fumbles, and when she manages to lower Jiang Yanli to the ground, she goes down with her.

“No! No!”

Wen Qing doesn’t comfort. She reassures, if necessary, but comfort is not a skill she has mastered. There is nothing she can say that will ease Jiang Yanli’s pain--she refuses to tell her it will be all right when she knows that it will not--but she lets Jiang Yanli cling to her, and after a time, she finds that she is clinging back.

Wen Qing closes the door to the treatment room but it doesn’t shut out the sound of sobs.

“You shouldn’t have,” she tells A-Ning. “Wen Chao--”

“W--wen Chao isn’t here.” A-Ning’s voice trembles, but he lifts his chin defiantly. “And jiejie--they need each other.”

There’s no point in arguing--what’s done is done. A-Ning had heard about Lotus Pier and he had brought Jiang Yanli’s brothers to the office, even though he knows Wen Qing would have forbidden it if she’d known what he was planning. They’re just on the other side of the door, wrapped around their sister, a tangle of sobbing siblings on the floor of Wen Qing’s office. Wen Qing doesn’t know if A-Ning told them anything in preparation or if they had simply known as soon as they saw their sister weeping in Wen Qing’s arms. She had looked away, but not before she saw Wei Wuxian’s face close off and Jiang Wanyin’s break open.

She will have to go out there soon and send Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin back. Every moment they spend in her office raises the likelihood of calling down Wen Chao’s wrath as soon as he returns.

“They’ll be punished.”

“Don’t you think they’ll think it’s worth it?” A-Ning answers. “They’re punished all the time anyway. And they need each other,” he repeats.

“We’ll be punished.” A-Ning will be punished.

A-Ning doesn’t answer, but the look he gives her makes something like shame burn in her throat. She turns away and picks up her brush. She hasn’t recorded the latest about Wen-zongzhu’s condition.

“Jiejie…”

“What, A-Ning?” Her voice comes out sharper than she meant for it to.

He’s quiet for a long moment, and the sounds of grief are still leaking through from the other room. Wen Qing’s temples throb, but she forces herself to keep writing.

“Cloud Recesses and Lotus Pier,” he says finally, voice turned up at the end as though he isn’t sure how to finish the sentence.

Wen Qing doesn’t slam her brush down on the desk but it’s a near thing. “Could we have stopped this, A-Ning? Tell me how.”

She knows the expression he has on her face, even if she doesn’t look up at him. If she does, something in her might shatter, something she can’t afford to lose.

“They’re good. The--the Lan. The Jiang. We know them, jie, and they’re good.”

So were we, she thinks. But she doesn’t say it. She doesn’t say anything at all.

Just on the other side of the door, the Jiang are mourning. Somehow, Wen Qing keeps writing, even if the characters lurch and jerk across the page.

When Wen Qing returns from tending to Wen-zongzhu, Jiang Yanli is staring down at a piece of paper; it trembles in her hands like a blossom in the rain. A-Ning is pouring tea at the table and he’s usually so careful, but now the porcelain rattles, liquid spilling. His big eyes are on Jiang Yanli. Jiang Yanli raises her eyes to meet Wen Qing’s.

“It’s from Popo Liu--a few of the servants managed to--but all of the disciples--” Her voice breaks and then she lets out a wail. “A-jun!”

The name smites Wen Qing. The sixth disciple, the little boy who tried to scowl like Jiang Wanyin. She swallows down the sick lurch of her stomach, but it does nothing to douse the acid burn rising in her throat. She has never been to Lotus Pier, but after all of Jiang Yanli’s stories, she can see it so clearly. Its generous beauty, strewn with corpses. A splatter of blood across lotus petals. A little boy still and cold.

Jiang Yanli’s grief is so raw that Wen Qing wants to scream--wants to run and never stop running. She should go to her, at least take her hand. That is what a true friend would do. But suddenly it’s too much: the way Jiang Yanli had sobbed in her arms, the redness of her eyes every day since, the muffled sound of weeping whenever Wen Qing returns from elsewhere. It’s too much.

Jerkily, Wen Qing stumbles to the other room and wrenches the door shut behind her. The corner of a table rams into her thigh as she fumbles her way over to the far wall, but the pain feels a thousand li away as she falls against a pillar. She clings to it, pressing her cheek to the smooth wood, and though her eyes are dry, they burn. She’s trembling, but her hands, pressed against wood, are still steady.

She isn’t surprised when she hears the door slide open behind her, isn’t surprised by the emotion in A-Ning’s voice when he says, “Jiejie.”

“Not now, A-Ning.” For all that her throat aches, her voice comes out as steady as her hands. Later, perhaps, she will find comfort in the knowledge that her body hasn’t completely betrayed her, that it has remembered its many years of learned control. But right now, it matters little.

“Then when, jie?” His voice trembles but his words are determined. “First Cloud Recesses, now Lotus Pier? And we’re--we’re still here with Wen-zongzhu and--”

“Wen-zongzhu did not order those attacks.”

The argument is so weak that A-Ning doesn’t bother to refute it. “There’s no way we aren’t at war with the Nie now. And even if they fall, Jin-zongzhu won’t do anything, you know he won’t. There won’t be anyone to stand against us at all.”

We. Us. She wants to snap at him, command that he never use those words again to talk about the actions of the Wen Sect. Hearing him say them as though he has any culpability--as though her sweet brother has anything to do with the horrible things Wen Xu and Wen Chao and, yes, Wen-zongzhu do--lashes at her heart. She presses her lips together and imagines that her mind is a blank sheet of paper. It’s an old trick, one she’s used so many times it comes as easily to her as breathing. This time, it doesn’t work.

“That has nothing to do with us,” she says.

“Jiejie! He’s got all those people, all those poor people! They’re dead and he won’t let them rest, and the things he makes them do, and I’ve seen them, jie, their eyes and--jiejie, you’re keeping him alive!”

She spins around, suddenly hard as jade. “I am a doctor. That is what I do.” He knows this--he knows this! She has made sure that he knows this, that he understands that she treats everyone who comes into her care, regardless of who they are or what they have done. That is the core of her character, the point of her life. She has had to compromise so many times--her whole life feels like one long string of compromises--but this she will never surrender.

A-Ning’s soft features are screwed up with stubborness. “You treat the patient in front of you. You can’t treat the patient if you’re not with them.”

Tossed in the storm of her emotions, it takes her a moment to process what he’s saying. “You think they would let us go?”

“I think it would be better to die trying to leave than to stay here and let them keep doing this. Than--than staying here and helping them do it.”

Cold sweeps through her body. He has never once spoken of his death to her. He knows not to.

“A-Ning,” she breathes.

His expression crumples, and he hurries over to her; she barely feels the warmth of his hand as he takes hers. “Jiejie. We won’t die. We can go away--far, far away.”

Wen Qing scoffs. “Can we? Where would we go?” Where could they go where Wen-zongzhu’s hordes wouldn’t hunt them down? Who would take them in? There is only Dafan, and she would never put the rest of her family in such danger.

“We’ll take the sect heirs with us--Jiang-guniang and Wei-gongzi and the others. They’ll help us figure it out. We can get their swords--I know we can--and we can just go.”

It would never work. Wen-zongzhu may have lost most of his hold on reality, but he is aware enough to know just how valuable Wen Qing is to him.

“We could at least talk to them. Find out if they have a plan. Wei-gongzi is so smart and--we can’t stay here. We can’t. We--who will we be if we stay here?”

She tries to turn away from him, but for once he keeps hold of her hand. Not hard--he is too gentle for that. But firm.

“Jiejie. You keep people alive. That’s what you do, and you’re so good at it. But how many people are going to die if we stay here and keep Wen-zongzhu alive?”

It’s like her own conscience is speaking to her. She can see it now: over the years, she has removed every bit of her sense of right and wrong beyond her most basic duty as a doctor and her determination to protect her brother. She couldn’t afford to keep it, and she could no longer hold the contradictions inside of her without being ripped apart by them. But she hadn’t thrown her conscience aside, merely given it to A-Ning, tucked it deep inside his pure heart, and done everything she could to keep it alive.

But still. Wen-zongzhu would never let them go. A-Ning would not be safe.

He takes a deep breath and looks down at her with his big, pleading eyes that haven’t changed at all since he was a little boy. She can’t help the sudden, wrenching thought that perhaps the little sixth disciple of the Jiang had eyes like that. “Jiejie. I know you’re still a good person. I know you are. But good people don’t stand by while innocent people die. What is the point of living if we buy it at the cost of so many other people?”

She rips her hand out of his. “Get out.”

“Jie--”

“Get out, A-Ning.”

She turns her face away from his sorrowful eyes as he leaves. When he has gone, she sinks to the ground. She stays there for a long time.

“Wen-daifu?” Wei Wuxian’s expression is incredulous, but an edge of excitement sharpens his voice. His eyes are swollen and he looks even skinnier and more ragged than he did the last time she saw him. “How did you get in here?”

That’s irrelevant. Wei Wuxian doesn’t need to know about all the ways she has of moving unseen through Nightless City. Though getting into his chambers, as closely guarded as they are, had taken much longer and been more difficult than she had anticipated.

But she’s here now, and they don’t have much time. “If I got you and the others out of here, where would you go?”

A series of emotions flash across his face, too lightning-quick for her to interpret. “To Baoshan Sanren.”

If Wen Qing had less control, her jaw would drop. Not at the immediacy of his answer--of course he’s been thinking about this. But--Baoshan Sanren? Her shock must show on her face, because he launches into an explanation even as he spins away from her and starts pacing.

“Lan Zhan and I met my martial uncle a while back--Xiao Xingchen, you’ve heard of him?” He doesn’t wait for her to answer, though she has: the bright moon and gentle breeze has gained great renown. “Anyway, he gave me something. Kind of like the jade token that the Lan use to get into Cloud Recesses? But this is to--to call to Baoshan Sanren. It’s impossible to find her mountain without it if you haven’t been there before. It...moves. Or something. I didn’t really have time to get him to explain it. But if you have this, Baoshan Sanren opens the way to you. Shishu gave it to me in case of emergencies--I think he felt guilty about me living on the streets after my parents died even though he wasn’t much more than a kid himself then. Anyway, I didn’t really think I’d ever need to use it. But it will definitely work.”

This is his plan? “And then what? You go to her and ask for what? Troops? Some sort of anti-Yin iron?”

Irritation flickers across his face. “No, I go to her and ask her for a place from which to launch a war against the Wen.”

That’s even more foolish! She can’t believe this boy. “You think the famously reclusive Baoshan Sanren is going to let you bring a dozen sect heirs onto her mountain and then let you go back and forth to fight a war?”

The stubborn set of his jaw is infuriating. “Yes.”

“Wei Wuxian--”

“Baoshan Sanren is righteous. She may not interact with the rest of the world herself, but you don’t really think she’d let the entire cultivation world fall apart, do you?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I think! I think that’s the point of going up onto a mountain by yourself and never seeing anyone again--you’re saying the rest of the world can go to hell for all you care!”

He shakes his head impatiently. “She’d let it crumble, maybe, collapse under its own weight, but let all the sects be wiped out by a war? By the Yin Iron? You don’t know what she lost to that. I know she’ll help us stop it. I know it.” And then a flash of humor flares in his eyes. “Besides, I am very persuasive when I want to be.”

This was a mistake. She had actually considered entrusting A-Ning’s safety to this impulsive boy and his absurd imagination?

But Wei Wuxian catches her arm as she turns to go. “Wen-daifu. Wait. Listen. Please.”

He suddenly sounds so weary, so…worn down by sorrow that her feet won’t move. She thinks of all he and his siblings have lost so recently while they languished here, impotent.

“This is not a plan that will work, Wei Wuxian,” she says as she turns back to him.

“I really think it will, but it doesn’t matter either way, not for you. You just want a safe place for your brother, don’t you? Baoshan Sanren can give you that. Will give you that. She takes in those who are good, and Wen Ning is definitely that. So even if she refuses everything else, she’ll let him stay. And nobody turns away a talented doctor. You two will be sheltered.”

It’s absurd. It’s ludicrous. “Wei Wuxian--”

“If Wen-zongzhu isn’t defeated, do you really think there will be anywhere left where people can live in peace? Can you really think of a single other place on this earth where you have a better chance of being safe from the rest of the Wen?”

Again, she begins to turn away from her, and again he catches her arm. “Wen-daifu, do you really think it’s possible to stay here? Soon or later, you’re going to have to make a choice.”

Wen Qing clenches her jaw in silence for a long moment. Then: “Be ready.” At the explosion of joy on his face, she hurries to add, “This is no sure thing. I need time to think. But...be ready. All of you.”

Wen Qing doesn’t sleep that night. Her body wants to toss and turn, but she refuses to let it, lying flat on her back on her bed, turning her thoughts over and over like the spin of a millstone.

It’s a ridiculous plan. It would be foolish to risk her brother’s safety for it. And yet somehow it feels like the best chance they’ll ever get.

She has told herself over and over through the years that someday A-Ning will have a better life. That all her compromises, all her service to a man she knows to be corrupt have been in the service of that dream. But it was never anything more than a dream. Now that she is making herself look at the future instead of the present moment, she can’t imagine a way in which A-Ning would ever have more than he has now. She used to think that once her position with Wen-zongzhu was secure, she could send A-Ning back to Dafan and let him live a quiet life there.

It might have been possible, if it weren’t for the war and the Yin Iron. Wei Wuxian is right, and she can’t ignore it: if Wen-zongzhu continues on this path, anyone who doesn’t fall to their knees will be cut down. And Wen Qing knows her family back in Dafan--Popo and the aunts and uncles and cousins--knows that they would not kowtow before Wen-zongzhu. They wouldn’t risk defying him outright on their own initiative, but sooner or later, Wen leadership will remember that they’re there and demand some show of allegiance.

She can see it so clearly. Wen Chao or Wen Xu commanding that her family prove their loyalty to Wen-zongzhu by doing something awful--wiping out a small sect, perhaps. Her family would never agree.

No. There isn’t anywhere that is safe from the worst depravities of the Wen sect. Nowhere except, perhaps, Baoshan Sanren’s celestial mountain.

And yet the thought of choosing--of this risk--chills her bones. She has gathered information carefully and made her choices with caution and prudence, not fear. But now, she’s so, so scared.

She’s been picking her way through marshy land for so long, testing each step before she takes it. So far, she has been able to find the solid ground. But if things keep changing as they are, there will be nowhere firm for her to put her feet. And she knows this: she cannot stand still. That isn’t an option anymore.

So these are her options. Stay here, keep Wen-zongzhu alive to fight a war that will kill thousands of innocent people, knowing that her loyalty buys A-Ning’s safety but also that any goodness her brother still sees in her will be ground down to dust. Or throw her and A-Ning’s life onto the mercy of a half-mythical woman who doesn’t care enough about the world to interact with it.

She’s faced many such terrible choices in her life, but somehow this is the worst of all. She is so tired. No one had ever told her how exhausting fear is.

As morning dawns, a movement at the corner of her eye grabs her attention. She shoots upright, hand already reaching for her sword. But it’s just a little piece of paper cut in the shape of a person, trundling across the floor of her room. She tosses her bedding aside and goes over to bend to it, shaking her head. “Wei Wuxian.”

The little man leaps up into her hand and makes a jaunty little bow. Holding it up to her face, she sees in the dim light that there is writing scribbled across the paperman’s body.

If you get us out, I will pledge my life to protect you both.

Wei Wuxian is still a teenage boy. One boy against all the might of the Wen sect. Trusting him with A-Ning’s life would be so, so foolish.

Good people don’t stand by while innocent people die. What is the point of living if we buy it at the cost of so many other people?

The paperman goes limp in her hand, and Wen Qing rises to stand, her decision made.

“You should be resting. We have a long night ahead,” Wen Qing says, crossing the room to light a lamp. The golden light of the setting sun is still streaming through the west-facing windows, but darkness will fall quickly enough.

Jiang Yanli looks up from the text she’s reading. In the dying light, she looks like she’s made of gold--or like the glow of her golden core has been made visible, an aureola liming the curves and angles of her face, the line of her neck, the fall of her hair. “You too, Qing-jie,” she says, and the way her mouth quirks makes Wen Qing conscious of the dark shadows underneath her own eyes.

She hasn’t slept much the past few nights, it’s true; between planning and worrying, her body has not let her rest. She can’t argue with Jiang Yanli--she should be resting. But she doesn’t head for the pallet in the other room where A-Ning is snoring.

“Well, at least come sit here,” Jiang Yanli says, setting aside the book and patting the seat beside her. “If neither of us is going to sleep, we should keep each other company.”

Wen Qing sits, straightening her skirts as she does. They’re both still wearing their usual clothes; they won’t change into their dark, sturdy traveling clothes until just before they leave this room, late tonight, when silence falls over the Scorching Sun Palace Hall.

Jiang Yanli tilts her face to catch the last of the sunlight, her eyes falling closed like a cat basking. She had been in sunlight, too, walking slowly through the herb garden, three days ago when Wen Qing told her about the planned escape.

Wen Qing had hesitated a distance down the path, unsure of how to begin, but Jiang Yanli had taken one look at her and said, face brightening like a sunrise, “We’re going? All of us?”

Wen Qing couldn’t believe this woman. She’d said nothing at all about her plans, and she knew that Jiang Yanli hadn’t spoken to either of her brothers. She hadn’t been able to keep herself from asking, “How did you know?”

“I didn’t, not for certain. But I hoped--” She had paused. Her face has grown thinner and paler since the news about Lotus Pier came, but she had attempted a smile. “Well. I hoped.”

The words were gracious and, as usual with Jiang Yanli, lacking in judgment, but they still stung. Knowing how close she had come to disappointing Jiang Yanli, how much she had resisted this choice…

She hadn’t been able to hold Jiang Yanli’s gaze and had looked away at the neat rows of plants she has tended to for years. If all went well, she would not see them again. But if all went well, perhaps there would be another garden. Someday. She is not accustomed to thinking in somedays, and the thought fits uncomfortably in her mind like a new pair of shoes not yet broken in. “We may be caught,” she had said. As we try to escape, or after. We may all be killed.

“Yes,” Jiang Yanli had said with hope in her eyes for the first time in weeks. “But I think it’s worth the risk.”

Everyone keeps saying that, or variations on it--A-Ning, Wei Wuxian, now Jiang Yanli, like none of them know how just that word, risk, makes her heart tighten in her chest. She feels like she hasn’t drawn a full breath since she made her decision and bent to pick up that paper man.

The past few days have been spent in meticulous planning, considering and rejecting options, scrutinizing possible outcomes, preparing the things they will need. Envisioning every single thing that could go wrong.

Finally, she worked out a plan she thought most likely to result in success, and since then she has gone over and over it, paying special care to A-Ning’s and Wei Wuxian’s roles. It’s not so much that she doubts their competence (though she has to continually remind herself that A-Ning is almost an adult now and, clumsy and slow though he can sometimes be, he knows when something is important and how to be careful. That, at least, she has taught him well); it’s more that she wishes that she didn’t have to leave anything to anyone else. If only she could do it all herself. She could be certain, then.

“You know, you get this look on your face when you’re anxious.”

Wen Qing’s head jerks around so she can look at Jiang Yanli. The other woman still has her head tilted back, but her eyes are open now.

“The skin around your eyes tightens,” Jiang Yanli continues. “The line of your mouth goes very straight. And you fold your hands, of course, but you do it so tightly that your knuckles go white.”

Wen Qing can’t think of a way to respond to this. It leaves her dazed, the thought that Jiang Yanli has noticed this--has bothered to notice it. No one notices these things about her except perhaps A-Ning. There’s never been anyone else to notice.

But she thinks that Jiang Yanli might also be teasing her. She’s done that before, but it still leaves Wen Qing feeling awkward and wrong-footed.

“We could all die tonight,” she finds herself snapping, followed immediately by a curl of shame.

But Jiang Yanli doesn’t flinch. Her voice remains as calm as usual. “We could. But I think if there is a way out of here, Wen-daifu could find it.”

“You haven’t even asked me what my plan is.”

She hasn’t known whether to be irritated or gratified by this. It implies, doesn’t it, that she trusts Wen Qing? However little I deserve it, Wen Qing reminds herself.

“Whatever it is, Qing-jie, we all trust it.”

The reminder makes her stomach lurch, that all the sect heirs are putting their own safety into her hands. She’s used to holding lives in her hands, accustomed to the knowledge that every decision she makes has consequences for A-Ning or her patients, and yet this feels like something new. Though others have their roles--from A-Ning’s visit to the kitchen earlier where he slipped one of her powders into the wine for tonight’s banquet to Wei Wuxian’s token that will call to Baoshan Sanren--it is Wen Qing’s plan. If it fails, the failure will be hers, but all of them (our brothers) will suffer.

If she weren’t so tired, she wouldn’t say it, but she’s so exhausted--tense and knotted up with anxiety and lack of sleep--that it comes out anyway. “Perhaps you’re all fools.” Perhaps I am.

“All of us? I don’t deny that my brothers’ actions are often...ill-considered, and even I can be irrational sometimes. But would you call Lan-er-gongzi a fool to his face? Do you think Jin-gongzi, who has been taught to always prioritize his own safety, would have agreed to this if he didn’t think it would work?” She shakes her head, and the beads in her earrings clack. “No one is more competent than Wen-daifu.”

Wen Qing has always thought of blushing as a tactic of weak, silly girls, but she can’t deny the warmth in her cheeks. “I still think counting on Baoshan Sanren is absurd.”

“Perhaps it is, though I’ve learned from experience that it’s the most harebrained of A-Xian’s ideas that have the most fantastic results. But the back-up plan is a good one.”

The back-up plan is to scatter in groups of two or three, all heading in different directions, going to ground and making their way slowly and by indirect routes to the Unclean Realm. It is the best plan they could come up with, but Wen Qing knows that if it comes to that, some of them--perhaps many of them (perhaps all of them)--will die in the days ahead.

Wen Qing doesn’t want to think of Jiang Yanli sleeping in the woods, traveling till she collapses, with no one there to take care of her but her brothers. But it’s Jiang Yanli’s choice, and Jiang Yanli has always respected Wen Qing’s.

Still, she’s a doctor before she is a friend. (Or at least learning how to be a friend. She isn’t certain she’s grasped all of the basics yet, for all Jiang Yanli’s patience.) “There’s three months’ worth of the powder I mixed for you in your bag. Don’t forget to take it every night. And if your fever spikes, tell those gremlins of yours to find you an acupuncturist and--”

It’s Jiang Yanli’s cool hand taking hers that cuts her off. It’s rougher than Wen Qing would have expected from such a lady. But then, Jiang Yanli has never hesitated to roll up her sleeves. “I know, Wen-daifu.” The teasing is back in her smile. “If it will make you feel better, I will repeat it all back to you, word for word, so you can be sure I remember all of your instructions.” She laughs, a small, breathy sound, at Wen-Qing’s glare. “You have given me excellent advice. May I give you some too?”

Wen Qing raises a skeptical brow, which Jiang Yanli takes as an invitation.

“No matter what happens,” Jiang Yanli says, eyes somehow shining and solemn at the same time, “please try to remember this. That you are not responsible for the choices of others, but only for your own. And that the choices I have seen you make are good ones.”

Wen Qing can’t control her little flinch, but Jiang Yanli’s hand just tightens around hers. “Wen Qing,” she says, and she hasn’t called her that before. “You are a good woman. Good and brave. Thank you, for everything you’ve done for us.”

“I’m not.” Wen Qing’s voice snaps in the silence of the room like a banner in the wind. She’s standing, though she doesn’t remember rising, her hand ripped from Jiang Yanli’s. “I am not good.”

These weren’t her choices. She didn’t decide these things because she weighed right against wrong and chose the right. It was A-Ning who convinced her. A-Ning, and the surety that the circumstances had forced her onto a ledge, to a place where she had to choose. Left to her own devices, she would never have made this decision. She hasn’t allowed herself to consider what that says about her character, but she knows that “good” is not the word for her. Especially not from this woman sitting beside her, who is good. Who is, impossibly, so many things that Wen Qing is finding she wants to be.

“I didn’t want to do any of this.” Her voice sounds foreign to her own ears, a cracked vessel. “I wouldn’t have done any of this--I would have just stayed here with Wen-zongzhu and--”

A swish of silk and then Jiang Yanli is standing in front of her, taking Wen Qing’s hand again. She’s so close, but Wen Qing can’t meet her eyes; instead she looks over her shoulder at the wall hanging and tries not to tremble.

“I don’t think that’s true, Qing-jie.” How is Jiang Yanli’s voice so gentle and kind? It’s intolerable. “I think you are a person who has done what she had to survive and yet has tried always to act with honor. And I think there was always going to come a time when you would have to make a decision, and I think you were always going to make the right one.”

Wen Qing’s eyes are burning, and she shakes her head, “I didn’t! A-Ning--”

“A-Ning is a good boy, and he is a good boy because you taught him to be.”

“No. No, he was always like that, even as a child, he was so sweet, everyone said, he--”

Her voice cuts off with a gasp as Jiang Yanli’s cool hands cup her face. They’re so gentle, Wen Qing could easily pull away, but instead she stares into Jiang Yanli’s eyes and tries not to break down.

“Wen Ning has been surrounded by terrible people who have given him every incentive to become as cold-hearted and cruel as they. And yet here he is, strong and kind because you taught him to be and you protected him so that he would have the space to be the person he is. And now when the time of decision has come, he’s nudged you in the right direction. That is your own choices coming back to call, and what’s more, you listened to him when he told you the right thing to do. You didn’t have to do that, Qing-jie. You don’t have to risk your life--and your brother’s life--tonight leading us out of here. You may feel like you don’t have any choice, but you do. You’ve made it. And we are so, so thankful.”

Her first, gut-driven reaction to this is indignation--how dare this woman tell Wen Qing who she is? How dare she presume to know Wen Qing like this? For all they’ve shared over the past months, it seems like a presumption. But behind the flare of anger, is something small and hungry, something craving, something vulnerable in a way she never allows herself to be. Something that wants all the things Jiang Yanli offers to her so unreservedly.

It’s too much. Jiang Yanli looking at her like that, saying those words.

Wen Qing shakes her head, a small motion. “I don’t believe that,” she says.

“Well.” Jiang Yanli removes her hands, leaving Wen Qing’s face feeling cold and exposed. But she reaches down and takes Wen Qing’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “This friend will keep reminding you, like you reminding me of how to take care of myself. Until you do believe it.”

Jiang Yanli sits down and pulls Wen Qing down beside her. “Here is some evidence that is factual and undeniable. In a few hours, you will lead us out of this place at great risk to yourself and the person you love most. Whatever words you or anyone else uses to describe you, that cannot be ignored. It is a good and brave choice, and when the next choice comes, I think you’ll make a good and brave one again. And even if you don’t, there will be more choices. Until you die, there are always more choices. What matters most is the one in front of you.”

The words are almost trite, the kind of thing that Wen Qing would resent coming from another person. But Jiang Yanli has earned her earnestness, and Wen Qing can accept the words from her. Maybe some part of her needs to hear them, and more than that, maybe Jiang Yanli needs to believe them too. Perhaps she’s speaking just as much to herself as she is to Wen Qing.

Jiang Yanli’s hand is still holding her own, strong despite its delicacy. Her skin had been cold when it first touched Wen Qing’s, but it’s warming now, slowly taking the warmth Wen Qing’s hand offers without her conscious intention. It is grounding, comforting, yet strange--for all Wen Qing is familiar with others’ bodies, with touches that would be considered far more intimate, this is touch of a kind she has little experience with. Part of her wants to jerk her own hand back, as much because of the comfort as because of the discomfort. She doesn’t.

She doesn’t know if she believes Jiang Yanli’s assessment of her or whether any of it really matters in light of the danger they are about to face. But for the moment, she smooths her mind clean and thinks only of her own hand and Jiang Yanli’s.

They sit in silence then, hand in hand, while the palace echoes with the rowdiness of drunk men and then, finally, falls back into stillness. They rise, and wake A-Ning, change their clothes and retrieve their packs, and Wen Qing opens the door.

Wen Qing is not one to hesitate, but she pauses for just a moment at the portal, and takes a deep breath. Then she steps out into the darkness beyond.

She has made her choice. Whatever the result, she will live with it.