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I don’t know how much time passed in those moments I blanked out, but I estimate that I have about half an hour left to find my bracelet and get off this island. The rain is slowing, and a faint gray light lines the clouds, but every shadow I see I expect to be another monster.

I follow the direction in which Heart points, counting my steps and the seconds that pass. I’m ten more minutes into the forest when Heart shifts suddenly.

I turn as something pale streaks through the trees.

A small gray wolf gallops toward me. I raise my blades, but there is something familiar about its bright-green eyes, how its shaggy fur is speckled with white…

“Fán’xuān?” I exclaim.

The little wolf slows to a trot and bares his teeth in what looks like a cheeky grin. Between his fangs, I catch a glimmer of gold.

My heart leaps into my throat. “Is that…? Did you…?”

Fán’xuān wags his tail at me as I kneel and extricate a rather wet but otherwise unharmed golden butterfly. It flutters its wings weakly when I smooth them out to read the number engraved on its back:

44.

I have qualified for the Third Trial.

My eyes prick as I stare at my friend. “Thank you,” I whisper. Fán’xuān thumps his tail and looks rather pleased with himself. “Any idea where Lì’líng and Tán’mù are?”

Fán’xuān cocks his head. Suddenly, his ears flatten and he emits a growl.

I raise my blades. A figure steps out from between the trees, but it’s not anyone I recognize. A man, dressed in the brocade raiment of the north. He holds a whip, and his eyes gleam as they focus on my friend.

“Fán’xuān,” he calls.

Fán’xuān shrinks back. His tail is tucked between his legs, and he lets out a sound between a bark and a whine.

“It’s his former master,” comes a voice to my left. When I look over, Tán’mù is striding toward me. She comes to a stop by my side, her two-pronged spear gripped tightly in her hand. She’s staring at the silhouette between the trees with a tightness to her eyes. “They were raised in show pens.”

She says this without emotion, but I suddenly understand. I have heard of these show pens: where yāo’jīng are captured and shipped to serve as entertainment or sold to mortal masters. I have heard of them only as horrible stories in passing: how the yāo’jīng are tortured into subservience.

As Fán’xuān whines again, something coils tight inside me. I palm Fleet and Striker; this time, I don’t even hesitate. I charge the huà’pí at a run, propelled by Fleet’s talisman so that it doesn’t even see me coming. The pen master turns to me just as Striker meets his forehead. He screams as I dig into the monster’s core, and then the illusion flickers and the huà’pí thumps to the ground, a collection of bones and decomposing skins.

I turn and walk back to Fán’xuān. The shaggy wolf glances up at me, blinking. I reach out and wrap my arms around the halfling shapeshifter, burying my face in his soft fur. When I draw back, fur has turned to a shock of messy white hair, snout and claws have turned into human face and limbs, and the boy with those bright-green eyes sits by my side. He blinks at me and looks down at my arms, as though he isn’t sure what to do.

Then he snuggles his face against my shoulder.

The rain has stopped. Some moonlight spills out from the edges of the rain clouds, filtering through the canopy of the forest.

A yip sounds through the trees. From between two pagoda bushes, a small white fox appears, looking at us expectantly. Lì’líng.

“She’s saying we all have our golden butterflies, and we have to go.” Tán’mù gives me a long-suffering look that suggests this isn’t the first time she’s had to translate for Lì’líng. “She prefers to stay in her fox form until we’re out—it makes her feel safer.”

The tightness in my chest eases as we fall into step next to one another. Fán’xuān is back in his wolf form; Lì’líng trots delicately by my side, nose in the air.

“Those huà’pí were something, huh,” Tán’mù muses. “They’re saying the Second Trial is the test of courage. Whether we can overcome our greatest fears.”

I’m not ready to talk about my parents yet, but I tell her how the huà’pí took Méi’zi’s form. Tán’mù listens without a sound. When I finish, we lapse into a companionable silence.

“Tán’mù,” I say.

“Mm?”

I count my steps, measuring my words. “We must be careful. Number One’s killer is still on the loose.”

Her dark eyes go to Lì’líng and Fán’xuān, trotting a ways ahead of us, tails in the air. “I’m always careful,” Tán’mù replies, and I feel it when her gaze slides to me. She’s silent for a few heartbeats, then between the sound of our footfalls, her voice drifts to me. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

I inhale deeply and give her the one thing I can tell her. “I was the one who found her body. The wounds she sustained…Idon’t think a candidate would have inflicted them.” I finally lift my eyes to meet hers. “Her chest was torn open, Tán’mù. Her heart and organs were eaten.”

Tán’mù’s mouth tightens. “They’re going to come after us, you know.”

By us, she means the halflings. The immortals know that halflings participate in their trials.

What they don’t know about is the presence of a fourth halfling on their temple grounds, who’s half-demon, half-mortal—a creature whose very existence is unheard of across the realms.

“Whatever killed Number One is dangerous,” I say in a low voice. “Xiù’chūn was the strongest among us, and she couldn’t beat it. Promise me you’ll watch Lì’líng and Fán’xuān while the immortals hunt down the culprit.”

“I will.” Tán’mù tips her head. “And I’ll be watching you, too. Like it or not, you’re with us now.”

Her words warm me as much as they weigh on me. I am the only person who knows of Yù’chén’s existence—and of the gate we created in the Kingdom of Sky’s wards.

My stomach tightens. Tonight, I’ll go investigate the gate—the one Yù’chén said he closed—and try to determine whether something got through from the outside…and is now hunting down the Temple of Dawn candidates.

The charm on my golden butterfly has not yet faded; its wings flutter gently as I brush my thumb along it time and time again, feeling the grooves of my number:

44.

There is something oddly comforting about it now, I think, as I cross the marble bridge with my friends. Here and there, we spot candidates trickling back into the Kingdom of Sky. Some limp; a few are wounded.

The disembodied gong clangs across the Temple of Dawn just as Lì’líng, Tán’mù, Fán’xuān, and I enter the Hall of Radiant Sun. I glance behind me as we step into the warm glow of lanterns. The marble bridge melts away into the night, shattering like ashes of stars. For a split second, I think I see the hulking shadow of a great landmass drifting in the darkened sky…before the fog swallows it whole.

—

Yù’chén is not back.

Twenty-six of us have made it. With each face that I scan that isn’t his, my chest tightens a bit more. I remember the look on his face as he gazed at the pale, lifeless form between the trees, the way his voice changed when he told me to leave.

He pulled me out of the depths of my most vulnerable moment yet. And I left him there to face his greatest fear alone.

Immortal guards move to stand in front of the entrance to the temple, declaring the end to the trial. I look for Hào’yáng, but I don’t find him, either.

“Welcome back, candidates.” Dòng’bīn’s voice is a low rumble that fills the Hall of Radiant Sun. “And congratulations on passing the Second Trial.

“The Temple of Dawn is the first front in finding those worthy of joining the Kingdom of Sky.” There’s a shuffle of suppressed excitement around us. Up until now, the immortals have given us information in dribs and drabs, but Dòng’bīn is gearing up for a speech. “First and foremost, we value physical prowess with the mortal martial arts and practitioning arts, as well as the natural state of one’s body. That was the First Trial: testing your ability to reach our temple. Yet we also value what lies beneath the strength of one’s body—and that is the strength of one’s heart. That is why the Second Trial was a test of the fortitude of your mind: a trial of courage, and your ability to withstand the depths of your own fears. Each of the remaining trials will test other aspects of what we value in our bravest and our best—qualities that, I am certain, these trials will reveal within a handful of you here.”

The candidates’ excited air takes an uneasy turn at his reminder: only a few of us will earn the elusive pill to the Kingdom of Sky.

“While we reward those who show desirable traits, we also punish those who break the rules we have set forth for this sacred temple.” Dòng’bīn’s gaze narrows. “This world was established according to the unbreakable laws of the Heavenly Order. Just as the realms must follow the Order, so, too, must all beings within the realms adhere to the laws set forth by their kingdoms, their temples, their households. And those who disrupt must be punished.”

By his side, Shī’yǎ tilts her head. Nearly imperceptibly.

“Guards, bring out the perpetrator.”

Footsteps sound from behind us. The entire hall turns to look—and I feel a crash of relief followed by dread.

A pair of immortal guards hold Yù’chén by his arms, marching him forward. His golden bracelet flashes on his left wrist; he passed the Second Trial.

Perpetrator. My breathing grows uneven; the hall seems to fade, blending into the memory of candidate Number One lying amidst the peonies and orchids and chrysanthemums with her heart and guts torn out.

And you’ve come to ask me if I killed her, ate her heart, and drank her soul like the wicked demon I am? As I sift through our conversation in my mind, I realize he’s never outright denied that he killed her. And I, fool that I am, believed him innocent.

My skin is cold, my blood turned to ice. I cannot reconcile the possibility of Yù’chén as a killer with the man who held me in the forest earlier.

I don’t look away as he passes me. Murmurs rise from the candidates around me: whispers of “murderer” and “killer.” Yù’chén keeps his eyes straight ahead, unblinking, unflinching, as the guards lead him before the dais. They force him to kneel.

Dòng’bīn takes a seat; Jǐng’xiù stands, his bamboo scepter unfurling into a scroll. “Candidate, you are to receive divine punishment for breaking rule seventeen of the Temple of Dawn’s Precepts. For the crime of theft, you are to receive ten lashes from the Thrasher of the Gods.”

Theft? Is Yù’chén not being tried for murder?

One of the guards steps forward. A whip uncoils from his palm, crackling with divine energy. I know of this whip from the legends: it’s said the Jade Emperor once used it to punish his enemies, and that one of its lashes is equal to a hundred by the hands of a mortal. Ten is nearly unthinkable. What could he have stolen to deserve this?

Yù’chén stares stoically at a spot above all our heads.

“Begin.”

The whip streaks through the air like lightning, and the first lash echoes in the temple. Yù’chén pitches forward slightly from the impact; a muscle feathers in his jaw, but after several beats, he straightens his shoulders and resumes his stony stare at the back wall.

The second lash prompts a sharp exhale of breath from him. By the fifth, his clothing has peeled from his back. By the seventh, blood spots the marble floors of the Hall of Radiant Sun.

When they finish with him, Yù’chén’s eyes are closed. A lock of his hair falls in his face, pale and sweat-slicked. Blood darkens his back, dripping from his ruined clothes and blooming on the floor like red petals. When the guards step away from him, he falls, catching himself on his hands and knees. He’s too exhausted to lift his head, but his hands twitch, as though reaching out for something, anything to hold on to—but there is nothing near him, no one there to help him stand.

I find my own hands fisted so tightly my nails dig crescents into my palms.

“Let this be a reminder,” Jǐng’xiù says gravely, looking up at the crowd of candidates gathered before the dais in silence, “of the consequences of disrupting order.”

—

Back in my chambers, I scrub my skin with my washcloth until it is raw, until the images of the huà’pí as Méi’zi and Mā and Bà fade. I focus on my true memories of my sister instead.

I wonder if she has received my gloves. I miss her so much it hurts. And there is only one person who can tell me if my message has gotten through to her.

An image flits in my mind’s eye: Yù’chén kneeling alone at the front of the Hall of Radiant Sun, blood puddling on the floor from his back, too tired to lift his head. The twitch of his hands as he searched for something to hold on to.

I swallow and splash my bathwater, as though that will disperse the image. He’ll be fine. He’s a mó, and I’ve seen how quickly he heals. And even if he isn’t fine, it’s none of my business.

I turn my thoughts away, but the one image I cannot shake is the huà’pí’s illusion as Méi’zi. Irrational as it is, I am set on edge by the possibility that anything has happened to my baby sister.

I look out at the courtyard through the slits of my shutters. There’s a subdued air to this place tonight. Half the dorms’ lanterns are extinguished. I register the numbers engraved on their doors, and I try not to think of the faces I learned to associate with those numbers. I wasn’t close to any of them, but we still lived together, passed each other in the long walkways beneath the willows, ate at the same banquet terrace. We were human, together.

Now seventeen of us are gone. Seventeen mortal practitioners who might have had families to feed and villages to protect, just like me.

Suddenly, I think of the immortals lounging on their thrones, surrounded by guards and plum wines served in porcelain cups and food brought out on silver platters. My heart clenches. I’m not here to disrupt the order; I’ve just witnessed with my own eyes what happens to those who do. I’m only here to win that pill of immortality for my mother, so things can go back to how they were. So Méi’zi can be happy.

I fasten my white dress, brushing my fingers along the new seams of seasilk. I strap on my crescent blades. Armed to the teeth, I set out.

I need to find Yù’chén—to ask him if my gloves reached Méi’zi. And then I’m going to check on the gate with my own eyes. None of this, I tell myself, am I doing because I want reassurance that he’s healing himself with his dark magic—or because I’m curious what was so important for him to steal that he’d risk his life.

The rain and mist of Péng’lái Island seem to have crept into the Temple of Dawn. Candidates are clustered in small groups by the water and by their doorsteps, their quiet murmurs drifting through the night. Across the water from my chambers, the lanterns in Yù’chén’s are extinguished, the shutters dark.

A few high-ranking candidates I recognize but who have never paid attention to me are seated at a pavilion overlooking the pond. I catch drifts of their conversation as I pass by.

“…must have gone to the Spring of Healing Essence,” a girl is saying. I recognize her as one of the girls who hung around Yù’chén during training. She’s Number Five and has the classic beauty the poets and painters of old would have rendered in song and ink. I find myself wondering if Yù’chén is close to her.

I quickly stomp the thought down. As I turn away from them, one of the other girls’ voices rings out: “Say, Xī’xī, do you know what he stole, anyway?”

“You’ll never believe it.” Number Five—Xī’xī—lowers her voice. “I heard it from one of the guards.” She pauses, and the words drift to me through the sound of rain. “He stole a sewing kit.”