"How long do you think he'll take?" Li Jiya asked as they jogged on. She glanced toward the device Chang-li still held.

  Chang-li grunted as he concentrated on the weave he was forming in his other hand. He was concerned for Joshi, but they didn’t have time to wait. The lux sounded more and more discordant with every passing minute. They had to find Mai Wen, defeat her, and force the Prism to let them summon the emperor. "I don't think it took me very long. When I went in before, Joshi was still fighting with Feng when I came out. He said it had only been a handful of minutes."

  Li Jiya had her head cocked to the side. "I think I can hear fighting," she said. “We’re almost there.”

  Chang-li didn't answer as he focused on the weave he was trying. Throwing themselves into a fight against Mai Wen and her associates without preparation was foolhardy. If she killed them, the tower was doomed.

  The technique Noren had demonstrated just before Chang-li entered the tower had given him insight into a path he’d already been walking down. He had been practicing with blue weaves for some time and was starting to get a feel for the slippery illusion magic. He’d love to have a chance to talk to Hiroko about it. Hiroko was the only person he'd ever known who seemed to have an innate sense for what blue lux could do. Even the Morning Mist Scrolls tended to treat it as a deception weapon and nothing else.

  Chang-li been puzzling over one of the scrolls’ techniques ever since deciphering it. It was called Mirror Twin. With the right weave, combining blue and green with red and yellow, you could create a duplicate of yourself that would fight alongside you.

  The weave was far too advanced for Chang-li. The scroll didn't actually teach the technique, merely mentioned it as a lux embodiment technique, which could be introduced to cultivators at lower stages in simpler form. One of those simpler forms was Mirage Blade, which duplicated your weapon instead of yourself.

  Now that Chang-li had a bit of an understanding of how Noren had created a hallucinatory blade, he was trying to replicate it himself. He folded the blue and the green together, then enhanced it with orange. A blade appeared in his hand, a duplicate of the one in his left. "There!" he cried triumphantly.

  Li Jiya looked at him. "Congratulations. You've conjured a blade. That's a trick I learned before I reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement. Who cares? You already had a sword."

  "This isn't a blade," Chang-li said. "It's a technique. I’m calling it Mirage Blade.”

  "Of course it is." Li Jiya stopped and stared at him impatiently. “You're wasting time. We need to go find Mai Wen before she does something to Xue Lan. If we don't hurry, everything could collapse around our ears.” She remained close, probably because she didn't know how to find Mai Wen on her own. Only Chang-li had any ability to sense the direction of other people in here.

  "Here," Chang-li said. "Parry this." He waited until Li Jiya, with a sigh, had summoned her own crescent moonblade, then swung his illusionary sword. She caught it on hers. Chang-li dismissed it just before it hit and tried to reform it, but he lost control and the strands broke down. Chang-li bit back a cry of disappointment. He was so close, but they had no time.

  Li Jiya laughed. "Yes, summoning a weapon in the middle of a swing is a lot harder than doing it before you start," she said. "What other basic techniques would you like to rediscover here, Chang-li?"

  “Again.” Chang-li reformed his sword. “We go again.”

  “This is a waste of time,” Li Jiya complained, but she readied herself.

  Chang-li listened to the lux as he practiced, tensing with every change. He forced himself to try the technique again and again. Li Jiya parried him easily. The Peak of Spiritual Refinement had hardened her, making her will tighter and more controlled, speeding her movements and strengthening her weave. On his third attempt, she swung her own blade as he swung his, breaking through his technique and bringing her weapon whistling down on him. She stopped the blade an inch from his neck. Chang-li stared, heart racing, trying and failing to speak.

  Li Jiya took a step back and raised her weapon. She sighed. “You’re right. I don’t know that we have any chance against Mai Wen, not like this.”

  Chang-li formed the Mirage Blade again. “We have to try.”

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  When Joshi reappeared a few minutes later, Chang-li let his technique dissipate with a feeling of relief. His friend looked about. "How long was I gone?"

  "Maybe twenty minutes?” Chang-li guessed. "How long did it seem?"

  "I don't know. Days?" Joshi ran a hand over his bald head. He looked much better than he had when Chang-li had last seen him, stronger, more decisive.

  "You are all right now?"

  "What? Oh, yes. I have mastered the Binding Chains technique. And then I learned another thing or two that I'm not certain will come in handy here, but were good to discover nonetheless."

  "Are we done wasting time yet?" Li Jiya said impatiently. "Where are they, Chang-li? We need to find Mai Wen and Xue Lan before something terrible happens."

  "Agreed." Chang-li cycled lux. He pointed. “That way.”

  They hurried forward. The mist around them began to thin. Now they were running on ghostly green grass, light tinted, sloping upward.

  "Another memory?" Li Jiya wondered.

  Chang-li didn't think so. He was getting no sense of the prism's presence this time. They were growing very near to the discordance. "I'm not sure what we're about to find, but be prepared." He drew his sword, keeping his right hand free for a technique. He wouldn’t lead with Mirage Blade. Save that for a time when surprise might mean the difference between life and death.

  They raced up the hill. At the top, they found a flagged stone floor, the boundary marked with a raised row of blocks a little more than shin height. In the center stood Mai Wen and Xue Lan. Li Jiya gasped. She leapt over the low wall and ran forward.

  "Wait!" Chang-li shouted as Mai Wen turned on them, smiling. His blood ran cold as she began to speak.

  "I thought you'd be coming, Li Jiya," she said. "Good. Once you're in hand too, I can report to my mistress that my task is done. She will reward me for this day's work."

  "You do realize she's left you to die,” Joshi said.

  Mai Wen's gaze didn't even flicker. "My mistress has sent me to strike the first blow. When she has ascended to godhood, I will be remembered."

  Chang-li felt an imperceptible lightening of his heart. Mai Wen was no innocent. Whatever she was doing here, he could face her with an unburdened heart.

  Xue Lan stepped forward, trident in hand, and pointed it toward Li Jiya, who had stopped several feet from her.

  "Come no further," she said, her voice sounding dead. Chang-li focused his lux senses on her. It was like she was a void in the lux; the colors swirled around her, chiming plaintively, but she was cut off, surrounded by an immense shell that connected into her core, leading from her to Mai Wen. Chang-li realized with horror that Mai Wen had used a technique to take control of the other cultivator. Could she do that to him? He cycled furiously, ready to resist the slightest touch of her will.

  "What has she done to you?" Li Jiya exclaimed and turned on Mai Wen. "What have you done?"

  Mai Wen held a ball of lux in her hand. She tossed it to her other hand and smoothed her hair back behind her head. "I have done everything in the service of my mistress. She allows me to stomp you any way I choose, and I thought this was the most amusing. Stop her, Xue Lan."

  The Azure Flame Cultivator strode forward, raising her trident. Li Jiya backed away. "Xue Lan, it's me. I—"

  Chang-li saw and sensed no signs of any other Azure Flame or Golden Locks cultivators. He tried to catch Joshi’s eye, to work out their best plan. With Li Jiy distracted, they were in trouble. “Where are your allies?” he asked, trying to buy some time for Li Jiya to bring herself to her senses.

  "I have no further need of them," Mai Wen said. "They won't be interfering. So, shall we let the girls play, and I'll take care of the two of you?"

  Her will pulsed outward. He felt it like a physical blow. It knocked him back a step and nearly dropped him to his knees.

  Then Joshi was there, punching at the back of Mai Wen's head, his lux creature bobbing and weaving around her, pulsing indigo and blue. She dodged away.

  Chang-li got his feet back under him and tossed out a smoke version of the Firepot, filling the air with more golden smoke, hoping to distract her for a moment.

  With his lux senses active, he felt as Mai Wen passed through the cloud left by his technique. He was ready when she sprang out. He parried her knife with his sword, but the force of her blow pushed him back, his feet sliding on the tiles of the floor. She was so much stronger and faster, and he and Joshi weren't coordinating well at all. Joshi was all the way across from him, and Xue Lan had just driven Li Jiya in between them.

  Joshi wove a technique in his hands and threw it out. It lashed out from him like a whip, coiling around Mai Wen's left wrist. She struggled, but the technique held. Joshi pulled himself forward toward her, by wrapping his technique around his waist like a blue and orange rope. Mai Wen slashed at the cord with her right-hand dagger. Chang-li took the opportunity to get in a swing of his own sword, but even with her left hand entangled, she threw a quick technique that snared his sword and knocked him off balance.

  She pulsed her will out again. Both Joshi and Chang-li were knocked back. Joshi kept a hold on his technique and, standing under the force of her will, pushed forward.

  "Li Jiya!" Chang-li called desperately. "We need you!"

  "But I have to save Xue Lan.” Li Jiya was meeting her friend’s blows half-heartedly, letting the ensorcelled cultivator push her about the dueling area.

  "Think what you told me," Chang-li insisted. "You've come so far. Will you let this stand in your way now?"

  There was a long moment of pause, broken only but Li Jiya's answer, when it came, was grim. "No." Then she went on the attack.

  Mai Wen laughed. She brought her dagger down against Joshi's technique again, severing it, and then she vanished. Her voice rang in Chang-li's ears.

  "This will be worth watching. You should help. I'm sure your friend will thank you for helping her kill her lover."

  Chang-li backed up, looking frantically around for where the next attack might come.