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There were some kind of carvings on the medallion. Jiang Cheng brought it closer to his face, trying to make them out. The fog had started to thicken as soon as he picked it up, which was probably a bad sign. He saw the shadow of someone approaching, and thinking it was one of his own juniors, shouted, “Stay back!”
But of course it was Wei Wuxian, and of course he didn’t listen.
“What’s that?” he said, grabbing for the medallion without waiting for an answer. Jiang Cheng held onto it as Wei Wuxian tugged. The fog went from heavy to blinding. He couldn’t see a thing but grey-white everywhere. “Shit!” he heard Wei Wuxian shout, and then, “Kids, stay back and stay together!”
Jiang Cheng stretched his senses for any sign of incoming threat, but there was nothing but fog thick enough to choke on. It filled his nostrils, dense and faintly sweet, and pressed in on his eyes. He held tightly to the medallion; the tension from Wei Wuxian’s pulling was the only proof his senses had that he wasn’t entirely alone.
“Jiang Cheng, hold on!” came Wei Wuxian’s voice. It sounded far away.
“What the fuck do you think I’m doing?” Then the ground was tipping, lurching. He reached out with his free hand for something to hold onto, but nothing met his fingers except the cold edge of the medallion he was already gripping. Where was Wei Wuxian? What was happening to Jin Ling and the others?
Then light assailed him as the fog abruptly cleared. Somehow he was still standing, and his flailing hands finally found Wei Wuxian’s arm. In the fog they had felt impossibly distant, but Wei Wuxian was right beside him, reaching out just as frantically. For a second they gripped each other’s arms; then Jiang Cheng shoved away.
They were no longer in the forest. They stood in a narrow lane between two buildings, with bright sunlight overhead. In the air was a new smell, different from the sharp cool bite of the forest: something warm and heavy and familiar as his own breath.
“Lotus Pier,” said Wei Wuxian, looking over his shoulder. Jiang Cheng turned. Through the opening of the alley he could see the busy market running straight down to the pier. Dock workers loading and unloading, captains arguing with merchants, children running with hands full of sweets.
“You’re home,” said Wei Wuxian brightly, and Jiang Cheng shook his head, frightened and sick. It was Lotus Pier, unmistakably, but it was all wrong. He knew it was wrong before he knew why, and then he began to notice the details. The shape of a roof here, the arrangement of huts there. It wasn’t the Lotus Pier he’d grown up in, nor the one he’d rebuilt over backbreaking months.
“Wait. Something’s wrong,” said Wei Wuxian.
“I know that!” Jiang Cheng snapped, before seeing that Wei Wuxian was staring not at the buildings, but down at the dock. He was looking at a man who was standing with arms folded, scowling at a merchant’s increasingly desperate explanations and gesticulations. The man wore pale green robes edged with violet, fine but not ornate, and a simple guan in his hair. Below it was Jiang Cheng’s face.
“Well this is interesting,” said Wei Wuxian, turning to him with the grin that spelled trouble or opportunity, the one that used to fill Jiang Cheng’s stomach with equal dread and excitement. “Shall we get a closer look?”
They moved toward the entrance of the alley. Jiang Cheng’s foot struck something hard and metallic; he bent to pick it up. “I think this is,” he began, when Wei Wuxian’s hand clamped hard around his arm.
From the pier came a chorus of voices: “Jiang zongzhu!” Unthinking he looked around, but it wasn’t directed at him. Nobody was looking at him. There was a commotion of excitement at the head of the market, and Wei Wuxian was staring in that direction, looking like he’d been punched in the chest.
There, followed by a small array of Jiang sect disciples — there, with robes of rich purple layered on shoulders with a proud, unfamiliar set — there, bending a smile toward a child that jumped up with reaching fingers, was Jiang Yanli.
It couldn’t be anyone else. There was no possible way he could mistake anyone else for her. She was beautiful, and older, with lines of care on her face that he hadn’t seen before. He couldn’t look away. He watched her without moving until his eyes started to sting, as if he’d been looking into the sun.
Wei Wuxian at his side was just as unmoving, until she moved far enough down the pier that they couldn’t see her face. Then he gave Jiang Cheng’s arm a tug. “Let’s see if we can get closer.”
Jiang Cheng took a moment to adjust the folds of his robes, then nodded. They crept out of the alley, moving toward the busy scene on the pier. They weren’t the only ones who wanted to be closer to her; as she moved toward the water, stopping to speak now and again with a merchant or official, the crowd turned toward her. Small children ran up to touch her robes, and she stopped to say a word or two to every one. A girl hovered shyly nearby until finally darting up to place something in her hand. Jiang Yanli looked at it and smiled and spoke, and the girl scurried away, blushing and beaming. Older men and women stood at a respectful distance and bowed, and she smiled at them too.
Jiang Cheng followed Wei Wuxian through side streets, keeping out of sight as much as possible while getting ever nearer to her. He didn’t have a plan for when they got close; he only knew he needed to be close. Every time she spoke to someone else he felt an aching pull of resentment. He needed to hear her voice. Nothing else mattered. If it was the last moment of his life, he needed to get close enough to hear her speak to him.
The nearer they got the harder it was to move stealthily. He waited behind Wei Wuxian in the mouth of a doorway while one surge of people moved by. She was getting farther and farther down the pier. Finally the group passed, and they were just about to move nearer when something cold struck him.
Instinctively he tried to take up Zidian, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t even turn his head. Wei Wuxian, a little in front of him, had just been turning to say something and was also arrested in movement. Jiang Cheng heard a rustle behind him and saw Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen. Then someone behind him spoke in a coolly arrogant voice he hadn’t heard in more than ten years.
“Who are you, and what are you doing with my brother’s face?”
They were back in the throne room at Lotus Pier, just the five of them. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. The other Jiang Cheng, thin and plainly-dressed and looking sourly at him. The other Wei Wuxian, wearing his old habitual black edged with Jiang purple, lounging to the side of the throne and looking at him with an expression that was stranger and more unsettling than the other Jiang Cheng’s tart look. And there on the throne, with the little frown that always used to show between her brows when their parents fought, was Jiang Yanli.
He didn’t know what to call her. She wasn’t his jiejie, but how could he call her anything else? Out loud he had settled for Jiang zongzhu, as strange as it felt to call someone else that. The first time he had glanced inadvertently at the other Jiang Cheng while saying it, but caught him looking back with a little curl of the lip. He had tried not to look much at him after that.
They’d told the truth, mostly. He’d said that he was Jiang Cheng, but a different Jiang Cheng, from a different Lotus Pier. The other Wei Wuxian had been skeptical, asking needling, paranoid questions until Jiang Cheng had lost his temper. Then, inexplicably, he’d broken into a grin and said, “Never mind; you’re Jiang Cheng all right,” and clapped him on the shoulder.
Wei Wuxian had introduced himself as Mo Xuanyu, with a sharp look to Jiang Cheng, as if he was going to argue. It was strange seeing them side by side. He’d gotten used to this Wei Wuxian, and it was jarring to see his old expressions on his old face. The Wei Wuxian who took them up to the throne room — using side roads as much as possible to avoid being noticed — was a person Jiang Cheng hadn’t seen since well before his death. He was cocky and good-humored, with none of the shadows that had gathered around Wei Wuxian’s face in the last years of his first life. Jiang Cheng couldn’t stop looking at him, until Jiang Yanli arrived.
“That’s really all we know,” said Wei Wuxian at Jiang Cheng’s side. He’d done most of the answering of questions. He’d explained about the night hunt, the fog and the metal medallion. They’d established that it was the same year they’d left, although the history was clearly different in several respects.
The other Wei Wuxian turned his sharp gaze on Jiang Cheng. “You said you knew right away you weren’t home. How?”
“It’s just not the same,” Jiang Cheng said, irritated. “The buildings look different.”
The trio from this Lotus Pier shared a glance. “They had to be rebuilt,” said Wei Wuxian. “I’m guessing they didn’t, in your — recollection.”
“Of course they did! I rebuilt them myself.” He’d done it alone — all the sect and the survivors of Yunmeng eager and willing to help, but all looking to him, alone, for leadership. The nights he’d stayed up planning and re-planning, choosing between fortification and commerce, finding ways to make every coin stretch to its limit; he’d done it alone. By the looks of things the three of them here had been together through it all, and Jiang Cheng had never in his life been so sick with envy.
“I see.” The other Jiang Cheng spoke for the first time. He met Jiang Cheng’s eyes with undisguised hostility, which Jiang Cheng shot right back. Jiang Cheng was sure all five of them had realized the same thing, although nobody mentioned it: the other Jiang Cheng had no golden core, and he himself did. “So the Wen did attack your Lotus Pier.”
Jiang Cheng just nodded, his arms folded.
“And you are zongzhu now.”
“That’s right.”
“And Wei Wuxian…”
Jiang Cheng glanced sideways at Wei Wuxian, who said quickly, “He died.”
There was a frown on Jiang Yanli’s face as she looked from one to the other of them. “I don’t think we need to go into the details of what is different between your history and ours. What we need to do is find how you can return to your own place, as I’m sure you’re anxious to do.”
Her face was still sweet and warm and kind, even with the lines laid on it by time and the burdens of leadership. Jiang Cheng looked at her, and said nothing.
It was decided that they would remain at Lotus Pier in hiding, while they consulted scholars to find out exactly what had brought them there and how they could return. More precisely, Jiang Cheng was in hiding. Mo Xuanyu seemed to be an unknown person, in Yunmeng at least, so Wei Wuxian was free to go out into town. That was for the best. If Jiang Cheng had to be cooped up here, at least he didn’t have to endure a bored and restless Wei Wuxian.
Jiang Yanli visited him often. It was always one of the three bringing them their meals, and despite how busy she must be, half the time it was Jiang Yanli. She would linger a little while, ask about their comfort, share a funny, trivial story if she had one. Jiang Cheng thirsted for her visits, for every minute he could get with her, and although Wei Wuxian kept back and said little if he was there when she came, his face would fall if he learned she’d come while he was out.
When the other two visited it was less pleasant. The other Wei Wuxian didn’t seem to want to look at Jiang Cheng; when Jiang Cheng was alone he’d drop the food off as quickly as possible with a perfunctory question about his comfort. The other Jiang Cheng was the opposite: he’d linger while they ate, and the quality of his silence soured the food.
“What are you staring at?” Jiang Cheng burst out one morning, sick of seeing his own eyes turned on him with clear distaste.
The other Jiang Cheng’s lip curled. “Nothing worth seeing,” he said, and left, letting the door bang behind him.
“What the hell is his problem?” Jiang Cheng shouted.
“Just ignore it,” said Wei Wuxian. “He’s not doing us any harm.”
“He’s not staring daggers at you. What did I ever do to him?”
“Well, it’s a strange situation for him.”
“Oh, I see. It’s strange for him but it’s all fine and normal for me. It’s not enough that he has them? You’re going to take his side too?”
“I didn’t mean that! It’s just different for him. He’s been through… a lot.”
Jiang Cheng sent his bowl crashing to the floor. “Don’t act like I won’t know what you mean if you don’t say it. Are you going to give him that new little core of yours?”
Wei Wuxian laughed, a little forced. “I couldn’t if I wanted to. All the Wens here died after the Sunshot Campaign.”
Jiang Cheng couldn’t find anything to say to that. Maybe that was why this Wei Wuxian was still alive and strong and at his brother’s side. Maybe he’d never been offered the choice between the Wen remnants and his own family. Or maybe it was that he couldn’t leave a Jiang Cheng who was weak.
That afternoon the other Wei Wuxian came with the news that they’d heard back from one of the scholars. “She said the medallion that brought you here should allow you to return. It may be enough for you simply to both take hold of it, if that’s all you did to get here. If not, there are other things she can try. Do you still have it?”
“The medallion!” Wei Wuxian cried. “We must have dropped it in the alley when we first arrived. I forgot all about it when I saw — Do you think it will still be there?”
“If it’s out of the way enough, maybe,” said the other Wei Wuxian, dubious. “If not, maybe we can find it by asking around.”
Jiang Cheng said nothing. Wei Wuxian was fired with the possibility and wanted to go look immediately. Of course he was eager to get back to that husband of his. The other Wei Wuxian agreed it was best not to lose any time, and the two of them prepared to go look together with an entirely unnecessary amount of commotion.
Jiang Cheng was left with nothing to do but pace the room and brood until dinnertime. He desperately wanted to see his sister’s face, but it was his own that came through the door in the evening. Jiang Cheng hated every line of it. This time the other Jiang Cheng pointedly refused to look at him, laying out the dishes with meticulous care and not a single glance in Jiang Cheng’s direction.
He couldn’t stand it. “I know what you’re thinking,” he spat when his other self turned his back to go.
The other Jiang Cheng turned back around slowly and gave him a long, disdainful look. “I doubt it.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” he insisted, “and you’re a fucking idiot. You think it’s not fair that I have a core and you don’t. You think your life has been hard. You think the worst possible thing has happened to you.” He knew it was true, because he remembered thinking that. He’d lain in bed for days like a fool, believing that nothing could be worse than losing every hope of cultivation. “You hate seeing me because I have something that you don’t, and I —” he choked on the words. “You have no fucking idea.”
The other Jiang Cheng’s face grew more and more contemptuous as he talked. “You’re wrong,” he said icily. “I don’t want a single thing you have. Not at the price you paid.”
It took the wind out of him. How did he know? They’d been careful not to say anything about what had happened in their version of history. He stood speechless while the other one took a step toward him.
“I should really thank you for coming here. You’re right that I thought that way at first. But I’d a thousand times rather be what I am than what you are. You’ve made me grateful. At least I’m not a coward who let my brother die.”
Jiang Cheng hit him in the face. Only after his other self went crashing back into the corner of the room did he remember he was attacking a coreless man.
The other Jiang Cheng shook himself, touched his cheek where a red welt was rising, and grinned sneeringly up at him. “Hit me if you want. I’ve taken worse. Do you know what the Wens did to me when they brought me back here? Of course you don’t, because you let them take him instead. Don’t make me angry, or I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you, and then you’ll have to know everything that Wei Wuxian suffered before he died.”
Jiang Cheng’s hands were shaking. He was beginning to understand what his other self believed, assumed had happened. He couldn’t speak. He watched his shadow get up off the ground.
“You deserve it. You deserve to have to know. I can see in your eyes that you know exactly what I’m talking about. It wasn’t that you weren’t there. It wasn’t that you didn’t see the soldiers coming. You saw them, and you knew they were about to capture him, and you let them.”
He came so close Jiang Cheng could feel his breath as he hissed. “Did you think about drawing them off? You must have. We can’t be so different. You thought about it, but you decided no, let them take him instead. And they did. If you’ve been comforting yourself that they must have killed him quickly, let me assure you that’s not true. They —”
There was a clatter of noise outside and they both jumped. The other Jiang Cheng went to the door. Standing outside were both Wei Wuxians, their different faces identically stricken.
Nobody moved for a long minute. Then the other Wei Wuxian said hoarsely, “Jiang Cheng —”
“Shut up,” said the other Jiang Cheng, and tried to leave. His brother caught his arm.
“Is it true?” he asked. Then he shook his head. “No. No. You went back to recover your parents’ bodies. That’s how they caught you.”
“Yes,” the other Jiang Cheng answered mockingly. “That’s how they caught me. Now let me go.”
“No.” Wei Wuxian shifted his grip and held his brother’s shoulders with both hands. “Tell me the truth.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Of course it’s my business!” he shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What difference would it have made?” said the other Jiang Cheng. “What’s done is done. Just forget it.”
“Jiang Cheng! You’re telling me… all this time. It should have been me. It should have been me.”
The other Jiang Cheng shook his head, and looked back pointedly at Jiang Cheng. “No. It’s better this way.” He took his brother’s hands off his shoulders and walked away.
The other Wei Wuxian stood frozen staring after him for a minute. Then with a vague, undirected apology, he ran after his brother.
Jiang Cheng didn’t look at his own brother, who hadn’t moved from his spot since the door opened. He turned to go back inside.
“Jiang Cheng.”
“You want to have that whole conversation again?” he spat, not turning around. “Forget it.” He made a fuss of rearranging the dishes that his other self had already laid out. When he couldn’t stand the curiosity anymore, he turned around. Wei Wuxian was gone.
He didn’t come back. Jiang Cheng spent the night seething, taking turns cursing Wei Wuxian, their counterparts, and himself. They should have left here right away. He should never have been so foolish. At first morning light he got up, put a cloth over his face, and went to look for his brother.
But the Wei Wuxian he found was the one with the face from their youth. They met coming around a corner and Wei Wuxian drew his sword, then realized who it was. “Jiang zongzhu,” he said.
Jiang Cheng understood perfectly well why he called him that instead of his name, and he hated it. His anger was so near the surface that he could feel Zidian crackling and restless on his arm. He swallowed it down and said, “I’m looking for my — for Mo Xuanyu.”
“I haven’t seen him,” said Wei Wuxian. Before Jiang Cheng could move on he said, “Listen — don’t mind what my brother said. You made the right choice. It’s what he would have wanted. If anyone can say that, I can, right? He’d have wanted it this way, so just let it go.”
Jiang Cheng drew on him before he knew what he was doing. Wei Wuxian countered automatically. For the first time in long, long years Sandu met Suibian, and in Wei Wuxian’s eyes Jiang Cheng saw a gleam of surprised, hungry delight that matched his own. He didn’t have to think; he moved into the pattern of their youthful sparring, and Wei Wuxian matched him.
Jiang Cheng had spent all his disciple years fighting Wei Wuxian, which meant he had spent all those years fighting someone better. It had been simply a fact of his life: he was always coming from below, working desperately to hold his ground and find any advantage he could seize. In the first few passes he took a defensive stance, trying as he always had to avoid being immediately, embarrassingly crushed. As always, Wei Wuxian bore down on him, forcing him backward into more and more defensive moves. The years fell away; he could have been seventeen again.
Backed against one of the halls of Lotus Pier, his arm moved automatically into a parry he’d learned about five years ago. It caught Wei Wuxian unaware and he failed to block for the natural follow-through. As Jiang Cheng swept Sandu forward, it was Wei Wuxian who had to move into a defensive posture. He did it with a surprised, pleased smile that flooded Jiang Cheng with irritation. He remembered that he had lived and trained for a decade and a half since he last sparred with Wei Wuxian, and that in his present world there was nobody who could go into a fight with him certain of winning. He pressed forward, fast and aggressive, and watched Wei Wuxian’s smile shift to a frown of concentration.
Before, out of habit, they’d both been using the moves and responses they’d learned at Jiang Fengmian’s teaching. Now Jiang Cheng employed his full range, techniques he’d learned elsewhere and ones he’d developed himself, and Wei Wuxian, too, made unfamiliar moves. The advantage shifted from Jiang Cheng to Wei Wuxian and back again. Every time Jiang Cheng had dreamed of beating Wei Wuxian in his youth, it was for this: that next time they fought, they could meet as equals.
Now it was Wei Wuxian who was backed against the side of a building. With a little twist of a smile, he did something that sent a surge of qi straight from his core ahead of Suibian’s thrust. Jiang Cheng countered it automatically with his own.
The next thing he knew his face was against the boards of the pier, a ringing in his ears and a feeling like his gut had been punched hollow. He lifted his head. Wei Wuxian was also lying flat and looking sick. He watched Wei Wuxian lay a hand over his lower dantian, frown, and then look suspiciously at Jiang Cheng.
He considered trying to get away before Wei Wuxian could ask any questions, but his head was still ringing and his limbs barely cooperative. Slowly he pushed himself up to sit and waited for the ground to stop tilting.
Wei Wuxian got to his feet first and came toward him, hand outstretched. At first Jiang Cheng thought he was going to help him up, but he was reaching toward Jiang Cheng’s stomach. He twisted away.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “It’s the same core. That’s what you wanted to know, right? It’s the same one. So just leave it. I’m tired.”
Wei Wuxian dropped back to the ground next to him. “What do you mean the same core? How?”
Jiang Cheng was tired. The same number of years had passed for them both, but he felt so much older than this Wei Wuxian. “Your Jiang Cheng made a lot of assumptions. I lost mine the same way he did. I didn’t ask for this one.”
Wei Wuxian’s mouth twitched, the way it always did when he was working out a problem. “You have mine. You have your Wei Wuxian’s. He found a way to give you his?”
Jiang Cheng rested his throbbing head in his hand. Wei Wuxian scrambled up to his knees and grabbed at Jiang Cheng’s arm. “How? How did he do it?”
Jiang Cheng shoved him off. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted. “Can you try thinking about anyone but yourself? Didn’t you hear him yesterday? He’s proud of what he did. Just let him have it.”
“No. No. I see it now; this is why you’re here. You showed me what happened and now you’re going to show me how to fix it.” Suddenly Suibian was at his throat. “You will tell me. I’ll lock you up somewhere and force it out of you if I have to.”
Jiang Cheng met his frantic, determined stare. “You really can’t stand it, can you? You can’t stand to accept even one thing from him.”
“Not this. This is too much.”
“And that’s your decision to make,” he spat.
“Are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to make you?”
“It doesn’t matter if I tell you. There’s only one person who could do it, and she’s dead.”
Suibian’s tip faltered, then rose again. “There has to be something else. It was done once, it can be done again. There has to be a way.”
A bitter laugh pushed its way out of Jiang Cheng’s throat. “You’ll find one, won’t you? You won’t let me or anyone else stop you. Never mind what it costs.”
“That’s right,” said Wei Wuxian. “If you’re trying to scare me it won’t work. I can guess what you mean: that’s how he died, isn’t it? You think I’m not willing to die for him?”
Jiang Cheng laughed harder. With Suibian still a hair’s breadth from his throat, he laughed until the tears ran down his face. He laughed until Wei Wuxian put the sword away and grabbed him by the shoulders and shook.
“I mean it!” Wei Wuxian shouted.
“I know you do,” said Jiang Cheng. “That’s what’s so funny. You’ll try to die for him and he’ll try to die for you, and you’ll probably win. Because you always win.” He took a deep breath to quiet the angry, horrible laughter. “That wasn’t what I meant, but even if it was — even if all you lose is your life — do you think that’s worth it to him?”
“It’s worth it to me.”
Jiang Cheng realized suddenly that whatever complaints he had about his brother’s new face — and he had many — it was a long time since he’d seen that particular look of grim surrender. It was almost enough to make him grateful to his horrible brother-in-law.
“Fine,” he spat. “Fine. I’m done arguing with you. Do what you want. Tear yourself to pieces, and tell yourself you’re doing it for him, when it’s really just that you can’t stand the burden you’re about to throw back on his shoulders.”
Wei Wuxian’s face twisted with anger, and his hand went to Jiang Cheng’s throat.
“A-Xian!”
They sprang to their feet in guilty unison as Jiang Yanli came toward them down the walk. Jiang Cheng scrambled to find the face covering that had dropped during the fight, and put it back on.
She looked from one to the other of them with a small, disappointed frown, so familiar it made Jiang Cheng’s heart cry out. But she was not his sister, and she didn’t try to coax or badger him into making up with this Wei Wuxian.
“You’re supposed to be at the archery field,” she said to Wei Wuxian.
“Shijie, I have to tell you —”
“Tell me later,” she said. “I need you there now.”
Wei Wuxian gave Jiang Cheng a troubled look, but bowed sharply and left under Jiang Yanli’s unwavering gaze. Once he was out of sight she sighed.
“Walk with me a little,” she said to Jiang Cheng.
He fell into place beside her. He’d covered his face again, even though they were in a part of Lotus Pier that was rarely frequented at this time of day — in his home as well as here. They walked several paces and turned a corner before she spoke.
“Your Wei Wuxian is in our archives doing research. I had his dinner and breakfast sent there.”
“Well, he could have bothered to let me know—” he started, and then realized what name she had said. “Wait.”
She stopped and smiled. “I know my brothers. I spoke with him a little, earlier today. I am not your sister, but I’m sure she’d tell you the same thing I’ll tell my own brothers: go and make it up with him. You care about each other too much to keep fighting like this.”
The words were so light, and everything she didn’t know so heavy. He could only stare at her, his chest crushed with the weight of the things that had happened since his sister had last brought the three of them together.
Her smile turned sad as she watched his face. She motioned him aside, to a small path by a pool screened on three sides by walls. She sat on a bench and motioned him to sit beside her. He did, numbly, and she reached up and uncovered his face.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?”
He nodded.
“How long has it been?”
“Fourteen years.”
“Oh. So young.”
All the ways she was least like his sister showed in the strong sunlight as she looked down into the pool. The fine lines worry and command had drawn around her eyes, the way her face at rest was sterner and less soft. So different, and yet so much like her he couldn’t take his eyes away, even while it wrung his heart.
“And you’ve been alone at Lotus Pier all that time.”
The word alone cracked him down the middle, and he began to cry uncontrollably. She pulled him into her arms and he clung to her, sobbing into her shoulder. She let him cry for a long time, and when he finally lifted his head, he saw that there were tears on her face too.
“I wish there was some way…” she began. He cut her off, because he couldn’t bear to hear her finish the thought.
“We’re going back. I have things to do. I have my nephew to look after.”
“Your nephew?”
“She married Jin Zixuan. They had a son.”
Her smile was half nostalgic and half amused. “Ah. And he must be nearly grown up now. What’s he like?”
Jiang Cheng shrugged. “Not bad. Plenty of skills, too much courage. No patience. Nasty temper.”
Her smile broadened. “You raised him, then.”
He shrugged again. “Mostly. A couple more years and I think he’ll do alright.”
“I’m sure he will. Thank you. I’ll say it for her, since she can’t: thank you for looking after him.”
The tears were starting to roll down his face again. Suddenly it was all too much, and he wanted to be gone. He wanted to go home.
He rubbed the tears away aggressively. “Look. Your Wei Wuxian. Don’t let him do anything stupid.”
She laughed. “That’s hardly possible.”
He laughed too, a sharp, surprised sound. She laid a hand on his arm. “But I know what you mean. We’ll be fine.”
“Good,” he said gruffly. It wasn’t any of his business anyway.
“And your Wei Wuxian,” she began. He shook his shoulders as if to shake off the words.
“Don’t. A lot has happened that — there’s a lot you don’t know about.”
“I’m sure. But I know he still loves you.”
He stared down at his hands, jaw clenched. “It’s not that easy.”
“I didn’t say it was easy.” She patted his wrist, comforting and reproving at the same time. “Nobody’s going to make you fix things with him. If you want it done, you’ll have to do it yourself.”
“Who says I want it done?”
She laughed and stood up. “The new archive is that way. He should still be there.”
He stood up too, but didn’t go. He didn’t think he was going to see her again, and he couldn’t make his feet move. She smiled up at him and patted his cheek.
“She’d be proud of you,” she said softly.
He reached down and hugged her again fiercely. She hugged him back, squeezing tight, letting him drop more tears onto the silk at her shoulder. He took a long, shaking breath with her arms around his ribs. Then he made himself turn away, and not look back.
Wei Wuxian was in the archives just as she’d said, frowning at the piles of research material all around him. He looked up and opened his mouth at Jiang Cheng’s approach, but the words seemed to get stuck. For a second it all hung between them, all the secrets laid out plain to see and hopelessly tangled.
Wei Wuxian swallowed, smiled, and motioned at the scroll on his knee. “I’m looking for a way to let you stay,” he said.
“What.”
“To let you stay here, while I go back.”
“I heard what you said. I meant What, as in, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Is it?”
“Of course it is!” he exploded. “I have a whole sect to look after! I have Jin Ling!”
“I could take care of them,” Wei Wuxian said quietly. “We’d find a way. I’d promise —”
“And you think I’d just abandon them?”
“I know you don’t want to leave.”
“Who says I don’t?”
“You didn’t say anything about the medallion.”
Jiang Cheng’s hand went to his chest, where he’d been keeping it tucked away since they’d first caught sight of Jiang Yanli. Wei Wuxian smiled, triumphant.
“How did you know?” Jiang Cheng was trying not to sound sheepish, and it came out sullen.
“I didn’t even guess until we went back to the alley we first came to. Then I remembered you picking something up. Then I wondered.”
Jiang Cheng pulled the medallion out and turned it over in his hand. “Do you think it’ll really work?”
“Yan laoshi says it should. We’ve been talking while I do research, it’s really interesting. When we get home I want to study it more — well, anyway, when I get home.”
“Why are you still talking like that? We’re both going.”
“I know you want to stay,” Wei Wuxian insisted. “I understand. You want your family back.”
“And what the hell do you think you are?” Jiang Cheng shouted. They stared at each other through a long silence. Wei Wuxian’s lips twitched. Jiang Cheng had a terrible feeling that one or both of them was about to cry, and he’d had enough crying for one morning.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he said, striding forward and plunking the medallion down on the low table beside Wei Wuxian. “Anyway, the other one would hate it if I stayed.”
Wei Wuxian blinked hard several times, then grinned. “You never know, you might become friends. You have a lot in common.”
“Ugh,” said Jiang Cheng, and then, “Shut up,” and then, “Hurry up, then. Who knows what trouble the kids have gotten into.”
“Hopefully none,” Wei Wuxian said, standing up, “Yan laoshi said it shouldn’t have been as much time over there. Oh dear, I’m leaving her with a mess.” He looked down at the scattered scrolls and diagrams, and then shrugged cheerfully. “I’m sure I’d put them away wrong and she’d have to do it over anyway.”
Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes and picked up the medallion, holding it out. Wei Wuxian met his eyes, grinned brilliantly, and took it.
The first thing he saw was Jin Ling’s face against a background of mist. “Jiujiu? He’s awake!” his nephew shouted, much too close to his ear.
“Ow!” said Jiang Cheng, and cuffed the side of his nephew’s head. He turned his head and saw Wei Wuxian on the ground next to him, starting to sit up while Lan Sizhui bent over him anxiously.
They were still in the forest, the mist clearing rapidly. It looked to be nearly dusk. He was wearing the same robes he’d had for the night hunt, not the inconspicuous ones he’d worn to prowl around the other Lotus Pier.
“How long were we out?” asked Wei Wuxian.
“Hours and hours,” said Jin Ling. “We sent some of the others for help. What happened?”
Their eyes met. For a moment Jiang Cheng had thought maybe it all had been a dream, his own only, but Wei Wuxian’s tight, short smile told him otherwise. He wasn’t sure whether to be glad or sorry, but something in his chest loosened.
“Something to do with this,” Wei Wuxian said, pointing to the medallion on the ground between them. “Don’t anyone touch it.” He pulled a cloth out of his sleeve and wrapped it up deftly. “I can take it? For research?” he asked Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. “Help yourself.” Wei Wuxian grinned.
“Help an old man up,” he said, holding out a hand to Lan Sizhui. The boy helped him up, and Wei Wuxian pulled him into a tight hug.
“What is it?” asked Lan Sizhui.
Wei Wuxian rumpled his hair. “Nothing. I’m just glad you’re here.”
Jin Ling didn’t offer to help his uncle up, but he frowned at him once he was standing. “You’re sure you’re alright? You were just lying there for a long time.”
“I’m fine,” said Jiang Cheng. “Stop fussing.” That worried frown was just like his mother’s. He stretched out his limbs and then took his nephew by the scruff of his neck, shaking him a little for no particular reason. “It’s late,” he said, “and we’re closest to Yunmeng. Everyone should come back to Lotus Pier for the night.” He was anxious to get home and make sure things were fine, even if it had only been a short time here.
Wei Wuxian met his eyes. “If they went for help, I expect Lan Zhan will be here soon.”
“Bring him too, what do I care?” Jiang Cheng shouted. “Are you coming or not?”
Wei Wuxian grinned. “Yeah. I’m coming.”