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S hao Qing dreamed again . It began the same as all his others. He was a dragon. He was trapped. He was surrounded by darkness.

But suddenly, he was back in the outer wards of Zhu City. The sky was hazy, an evening pink. He was thirteen again, a scrappy errand boy for Master Cai’s herbalist shop. A paper parcel in hand, he trotted through the crowded streets of the city, each building and stall familiar. To his left was a stand of spun sugar figures on sticks. To his right, a vendor sold fans and ladies’ hairpins.

As he turned into an alleyway, a sense of dread weighed like a pit in his stomach. This moment was ominously familiar. He’d been in the middle of a delivery. He was passing by the alley where he was living with...

Shadows fell over the scene.

No, turn back! he shouted at himself.

But he couldn’t. The alleyway grew and warped around him like the dark wings of a bat. There was no escape. Shao Qing turned his head. A group of rough boys surrounded a scrawny little girl clutching a red silken pouch embroidered with a peach.

Shao Qing grew cold.

The older boy grabbed the girl by the collar, lifting her clean off the ground.

“Hand it over. And tell your brother that all he earns will belong to me, or I’ll make both of your lives miserable.”

“No!” The little girl kicked and squirmed. She gripped the pouch in her hand, her small, dirt-streaked knuckles turning white.

“What did you say?” the boy demanded.

“I said no! This is our money. Go make your own!”

The boy smirked. “I am.” He slammed the girl into the wall.

She cried out and crumpled to the ground, tears welling in her eyes. “M-my brother will g-get you for this,” she stammered.

“Will he? Oh, but where is he?” The boy made a show of looking around and his cronies laughed. He kicked her in the ribs. Then again.

Shao Qing stood frozen. His feet were rooted to the ground as the gang of boys beat his little sister like a sack of flour. Like she wasn’t a child precious to him.

Su Su, Shao Qing tried to shout, but no sound came out. I’m coming!

The red pouch never left Su Su’s grasp. She curled her small body around it, protecting it instead of herself because Shao Qing had told her to. Even when she had stopped crying, stopped moving, the boys had to wrestle it from her stiff fingers. They emptied the pouch, laughing as copper coins fell into their awaiting hands.

Shao Qing collapsed to his knees, a wrenching pain in his chest. Then, he was filled with terrible numbness.

His first thought had been to turn back, to protect himself. Not to save his sister. After all this time, he was still a coward.

I’m sorry, Su Su . I’m sorry.

Shudders racked Shao Qing’s body. He was dimly aware of wetness streaking his temples. His eyes felt hot and swollen.

“Hush. You’ll be alright,” came a sleepy murmur. Someone curled against his back and wrapped an arm around his waist. A small hand pressed over the ache in his chest.

Shao Qing inhaled slowly, opening his eyes to darkness. His lashes were wet. He was crying. He hadn’t cried in six years.

Slowly, his anguish dissipated to a dull ache. Eventually, that dissipated too until there was nothing. He felt like himself again—numb and disoriented.

The faint scent of jasmine soap and pu’er tea curled around him. Shao Qing came to his senses. He was in a room in a tea house with Zhi Lan. It was her hand against his chest. Her body tucked around his in an intimate, protective way.

It felt...comforting.

***

W ATERY MORNING LIGHT streamed in through the small window, illuminating the dingy beige room. Shao Qing studied the girl on the other side of the pillow.

Zhi Lan was still asleep, far closer than she had been when they went to bed. Her hair was halfway undone, her slender limbs tangled in the sheets. Her delicate features were at rest, not pulled into a face like she was in the habit of doing when awake.

Shao Qing was not unused to the sight of a woman in bed with him. He had spent a night in the arms of a courtesan once, though he heard from the following morning gossip that she found him unsettling.

“Unresponsive, like a boulder,” the courtesan had said, and the entire pleasure house had exploded into giggles.

Other men described pleasures of the flesh like reaching a mountain peak—of morning clouds and evening rain. Shao Qing found it awkward at best and messy at worst. It had been a night of overwhelming perfume and a stranger’s intimate touch. He had decided that it was not to his taste. It didn’t make his blood rush like petty crime did, though he couldn’t imagine why.

He and Zhi Lan had no such exchange, yet she had held him like a lover. Nothing in their previous interactions had suggested she desired him in that way. Or he had completely missed the signs.

Slowly, Shao Qing twisted a strand of her ink black hair between his fingers and tugged at it gently.

Zhi Lan’s eyes fluttered open.

“Good morning,” Shao Qing said.

“What are you doing ?” she shrieked, sitting up. She patted the front of her clothing, as if making sure they were still there.

Shao Qing stared. An unexpected reaction. “Are you in love with me?”

“Excuse me?” Zhi Lan sputtered. “I barely know you!”

Shao Qing propped himself up on his elbows. “Then you desire my body.”

Zhi Lan yanked the pillow from under him and threw it at his head.

He batted it away. “A simple no would suffice.”

“Since when do men take no for an answer?” Zhi Lan said darkly, climbing over his legs to reach the edge of the bed.

“Then were you cold?” Shao Qing asked.

“I confess I do not understand this line of questioning.” Zhi Lan bent down to pull on her shoes, then she tightened her belt and ran her fingers through her hair. Her pins had fallen off in her excitement, leaving her hair running loose down her back. She patted her head in a panic.

Shao Qing retrieved the two wooden hairpins from the bed and offered them to her. He noticed the tip of one was carved into the shape of an orchid.

Zhi Lan snatched them from his hand and hurriedly twisted up her hair.

“You were holding me last night,” Shao Qing said slowly. “Why?”

She stood from the bed and busied herself with tidying the room, straightening her clothes, and rummaging through the things in her bag. “You slept fitfully. I thought you needed comfort,” she mumbled, so quickly he barely caught it. There was a flush to her cheeks that hadn’t been there before. She went to the basin of water that someone must’ve delivered when they were both asleep and splashed her face with more violence than necessary.

Shao Qing considered her explanation. He had slept fitfully because of his dream. Yet she still had no obligation to comfort him, unless he was disturbing her sleep. He nodded slowly. He must have been bothering her, then.

“This changes nothing, so don’t get any ideas,” Zhi Lan said after emerging from the basin, her face dripping and pulled into a scowl. She dried herself with a hand towel. “We’re going to Yun City today and we’re going to get my master’s painting. Then you’re taking me back immediately. Got it?”

Shao Qing nodded.

“Good.” She flung the damp towel at him. “Now get dressed.”