The woods still held the scent of secrets.

  Zhao Wei returned from the crimson-lit thicket like a spirit born from dusk, her cloak torn, her eyes darker than before. Jian Yu, leaning against a crooked wooden post near their temporary camp, looked up from his ridiculous attempt at balancing three dried fish on a stick.

  “I was starting to think the trees swallowed you,” he said. “Or you joined a traveling sect of cryptic loners.”

  “I considered it,” Zhao Wei replied without stopping. “But they failed the entrance exam. Too cheerful.”

  Jian Yu snorted and dropped the fish, which promptly rolled into the dirt. “Wonderful. Now I’ve sacrificed both food and pride.”

  “You had pride?” she asked, deadpan.

  He clutched his chest. “You wound me.”

  She moved past him toward the half-lit shrine at the camp’s edge. The runes etched in the stone floor glowed faintly, flickering like they couldn’t decide whether to cooperate. Zhao Wei knelt beside the circle and placed her hand on the sigil’s center, murmuring a chant beneath her breath.

  Jian Yu watched her with narrowed eyes. “You know, if you keep mumbling like that in the dark, someone might mistake you for a demon.”

  “Only if they’re observant,” she muttered.

  The runes flared to life, then hissed and dimmed.

  “No good,” Zhao Wei said. “The enchantment is reacting to interference.”

  “You think it’s Feng Ren?”

  “No,” she said slowly, standing. “Something older.”

  A pause.

  Then Jian Yu blurted, “...Please don’t say curses.”

  Zhao Wei smirked. “Curses.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “I knew it.”

  He flailed dramatically, then tripped over a root, stumbled into a log, and landed with a soft grunt beside his failed dinner. Zhao Wei didn’t laugh, her kind of humor ran dry and quiet but her shoulders twitched slightly.

  He squinted up at her from the ground. “You’re enjoying this.”

  “A little.”

  Zhao Wei reached down and offered him a hand, which he took with exaggerated suspicion.

  “Careful,” he muttered. “You might develop a personality.”

  “You might develop depth,” she replied smoothly.

  “Tch. Rude.”

  But his grin was real, if a little crooked.

  As they reset the wards and strung fresh paper talismans around the perimeter, a breeze swept through, soft, warm, unnatural. It rustled the pages of a half-burnt journal tucked into Zhao Wei’s bag. She noticed immediately, eyes narrowing.

  “Someone’s scrying.”

  Jian Yu blinked. “Can they see me picking my nose just now?”

  Zhao Wei didn’t answer. She was already moving, swift as a blade unsheathed.

  “Pack what you can. We're not staying the night.”

  “What, no campfire ghost stories?”

  She didn’t look back.

  “We are the ghost story.”

  Meanwhile…

  In the Cloudborne Citadel, a room lined with hanging scrolls and silent servants echoed with the click of a fan snapping shut. Feng Ren leaned forward in his chair, eyes fixed on the image sketched onto the parchment before him.

  A girl with blood in her hair. Not paint. Not shadow. But blood.

  “Zhao Wei,” he whispered. “No spirit bond, no records, and yet…”

  A cough behind him. “Shall I send an informant, my lord?”

  “No,” Feng Ren murmured, fingers stroking the paper like it might whisper secrets back. “We’ll wait. She’ll come to us. The fire always finds its way back to the wind.”

  He smiled then, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Besides… I want to see how long she can pretend to be a child.”

  Later that night, back in the woods…

  Jian Yu had tried, gods, he had tried to be the serious companion. But between the cursed runes, almost stepping on a serpent spirit’s tail, and Zhao Wei threatening to knock him unconscious for humming during her incantation, his patience had worn thin.

  They found refuge in an abandoned tea house built into the side of a hill. Dust covered the walls. A single lantern swayed outside.

  Zhao Wei paced once, then sat cross-legged in the center of the room. “We leave before sunrise.”

  “Sure,” Jian Yu muttered. “Let me just sleep in this elegant rat sanctuary.”

  A rustle sounded from behind the rice-paper wall.

  They both froze.

  Then, a rat the size of a small melon waddled out, paused, sniffed the air… and casually dragged off one of Jian Yu’s fish.

  He looked at Zhao Wei, horrified. “Tell me we’re not being watched by rodents of unusual size.”

  Zhao Wei shrugged. “Better than sect assassins.”

  The rat paused. Looked back.

  Zhao Wei met its beady eyes and said, “I will kill you.”

  The rat dropped the fish and scurried away.

  Jian Yu blinked. “Did you just threaten a rat into obedience?”

  “It worked.”

  And for the first time since dusk fell, she smirked. Just a little.