Chapter Twenty-Three

Sunlight had never felt so gentle on my face. It was like my mother cupping my cheeks in her hands and saying, You are my whole world . My toes sank into sand as soft as silk, a warm bath of it molding to the shape of my feet.

We were standing on a shore, the waters around us spanning all the way to the horizon, clear with shifting sunbeams. The waves

captured the gentle light, sparkling far out to the horizon. I could make out glimpses of colorful fish and bright coral beneath

the surface, swaying dreamily in the waves.

Over my shoulder, parasol trees cast the island in shade, the shifting leaves carrying the scent of fruit and salt. Cottony

cloud formations dotted the pale blue sky and gathered around a mountain peak in the hazy distance.

All the aches I'd felt from travel, and thirst, and worry had melted away, leaving my body warm and pliable as clay, yet somehow

lighter than it had ever been before. I looked down at my clean hands, no dirt or blood beneath my nails. I wore robes of

white silk that fluttered in the breeze, rippling behind me.

I turned to Wenshu and Yufei, who looked like ghostly versions of themselves, their scratched and sunburned faces once again smooth, hair clean and untangled.

"Wow," Wenshu said, eyes wide as he turned to look out across the sparkling sea, then up at the mountains that faded into

lavender high above us. "You were right, Zilan."

"About what?" I said, my own voice an ethereal echo.

"Penglai Island is real," he said.

I shoved his shoulder. "You never thought it was real?"

He shrugged. "You have to admit, all this"—he gestured to the bright island before us—"Is a bit unlikely."

Yufei was already wandering off toward the tree line, pulling a pear from a low-hanging branch.

"Can we live here?" she said as I approached, her mouth full of fruit, juice dripping down her neck.

It would have been easy to say yes. Something about this place seemed to block out all of my fears. My life before I'd come

here was only a series of facts as if read from someone else's story, meaning little to me: I was an orphan. I could never

see my aunt and uncle again. My cousins and I were dead. The royal alchemists had died because of me. All of these things

were truths, unchanging and inconsequential as the pull of the tides. They carried no innate meaning.

"Let's look around first," I said to Yufei, because I couldn't bring myself to say no when I didn't want to leave either.

I sat down at the pebbled edge of a river that wound through the trees. Here, the water ran so smoothly that it was almost

like a shimmering pane of glass, reflecting back all of the sky.

My reflection looked so much younger than I felt inside, though I couldn't pinpoint exactly why. Perhaps the island had stripped the anger from my eyes, polished the scrapes and scratches away.

Wenshu sat beside me and took a pear from Yufei, leaning against me as he cataloged the clouds and the shapes of the mountain.

"I suppose alchemy isn't all bad," he said quietly, "if it can create a place like this."

"And food like this," Yufei added. "Do you think there's animals here? What do you think a Penglai bird would taste like?"

"I doubt you can kill anything in a place like this," I said. "I think that's the point. Nothing and no one here can suffer."

"Animals don't suffer when I kill them," Yufei said. "I make it quick."

"There's enough fruit here to last a lifetime, so maybe work your way through that first," Wenshu said, shoving another pear

in her face.

I turned back to the water, which flowed downhill toward the sea but didn't ripple over rocks and plants like a normal river.

Instead, it seemed to wave like a piece of silk in the wind, emanating a soft haze of light. I reached a hand down toward

the clear water, and when my fingers broke the surface, the world flashed away.

I squinted through the searing sunlight, and when my vision cleared, Wenshu and Yufei were gone.

In their place, a group of people sat around the river, staring into its muddy surface.

I tried to step forward, to ask them what was going on, but it was as if I had become part of the whispering river, the shifting leaves, the twisted roots. I was everywhere—a bird looking down over them, blades of grass swaying beneath them, nothing and everything all at once. I had no body, no voice to call out.

Footsteps descended the incline, and the Sandstone Alchemist appeared around the bend.

His face looked much younger than the man I'd seen, the brightness of the island casting him in vibrant color, compared to

the pale and sun-starved man I'd met underground. He met the gazes of the others, then looked up at the mountain from where

he'd come and shook his head.

"If anyone finds out about this—"

"They won't," said a woman's voice. And I recognized the lilt to her words before I even noticed her face. It was the Silver

Alchemist, unchanged by time, kneeling before the river.

To her left, a young Taizong stood with his arms crossed, hovering close to the Silver Alchemist. I remembered how she'd appeared

in his memories, how she'd given him the ring that he'd used to bring down his brothers and become emperor. My gaze dropped

to his hands, but he wasn't wearing a single ring yet.

Another man straddled a low tree branch beside them, hidden in the shadows. I was sure I'd seen him before, but couldn't place

where until he spoke.

"He can't keep his mouth shut, you know he can't," the man said, rolling his eyes.

The Arcane Alchemist , I thought. His face was plain and unmemorable, so this must have been before he'd done the transformation that gave him

his beauty. But he still had the same sharp, pompous voice.

Two women and two men sat nearby the first four alchemists in the clearing, their posture stiff, gazes darting around as if afraid to look anyone else in the eye. There was some great difference between the four alchemists I had met and the four I hadn't, though I didn't yet understand what it was. As the trees shivered in the breeze and sunlight lanced through them, I recognized the two nameless ghosts I had met in the Silver Alchemist's house.

"I don't see how you can be so unbothered," one of the strangers said, a pale young man who looked about as enthused as a

soggy sheet, watching his reflection in the rushing current.

"And I don't see how you're so morose," the Arcane Alchemist said. "You're the one who wanted to know where alchemy came from."

Where alchemy came from? I glanced up at the mountain peak, where the Sandstone Alchemist had descended from. My father's scrolls had alluded to the

source of alchemy hidden on Penglai Island, the reason alchemy had flourished in China and not the rest of the world.

It seemed they had found it.

The stranger shook his head, as if disagreeing with his own reflection. "I didn't think—"

"What were you expecting?" Taizong said, and even now, when he was young, he had the voice of an emperor, the Son of Heaven.

His low words shook the ground, the flare of anger in his eyes like a comet scorching into the earth. "Alchemy is the greatest

power this world has ever seen. You thought that would come at no cost?"

"How can we possibly use alchemy anymore?" the Sandstone Alchemist said at last. "Knowing the cost, I can't—"

But Taizong kept speaking, ignoring him entirely. "We need this power in my kingdom," he said.

" Your kingdom?" the ghost woman said. "You're not even the Crown Prince. What makes you think China will be yours?"

Taizong jerked a hand up at the mountain. "With this kind of power—"

"We could destroy anything," another one of the strangers said, a young woman with dark, haunted eyes. "Without meaning to, we could shatter the whole world."

"And then we could build a new one," Taizong said, waving his hand dismissively.

The Silver Alchemist slammed a fist into the tree trunk, and the whole world shivered, knocking half the alchemists off their

feet, though I couldn't feel the vibrations in the ground at all. She looked up with a grin, showing her empty palm.

"Only one earthstone," she said. "Alchemical power is amplified here, so close to the source. Imagine what kind of transformations

we could do."

"I don't want to imagine it," the woman at the back said. "We should never have come here."

The Silver Alchemist and Taizong shared a knowing look.

"Fine," Taizong said after a long moment. "It would be a waste of breath to argue further. Your mind is made up."

The Silver Alchemist looked between the nameless alchemists, her gaze settling on the Sandstone Alchemist. "What about you?"

she said.

He shifted from foot to foot. "Does it matter?" he said. "The rule of three. You don't need me."

Need him for what? I thought, at the same time one of the strangers voiced the thought aloud, though it went unanswered.

"Unlucky number four," the Silver Alchemist said, shrugging.

The Sandstone Alchemist grimaced, looking between Taizong, the Arcane Alchemist, and the Silver Alchemist with a pained expression.

He let out a sigh, then stepped across the shallow end of the river, standing on the side with the four nameless alchemists.

"How disappointing," the Silver Alchemist said.

But the Sandstone Alchemist didn't respond. Instead, he reached into his sleeve, pulled out a keenly sharpened blade, suddenly the brightest point in the dark gray plane, and sliced a clean line across the closest woman's throat.

I wanted to draw back, to cover my own throat reflexively, but I was the soil drinking her blood, the blade at her throat,

the unforgiving coldness of the sky above, and I could do nothing at all.

The woman clutched the wound, falling to her knees. One of the strangers reached for her, but blood was already rushing through

her fingers. She fell forward, landing face-first in the river, clouds of red spilling into its clear waters.

The three other strangers stared in disbelief, looking between the dead woman and the Sandstone Alchemist.

" Why? " one of them said, taking an unsteady step back.

But the Sandstone Alchemist didn't answer. His hands trembled as he cuffed blood spatter from his face, then dropped his blade

and turned away.

"Finally," Taizong said, rolling his shoulders and drawing his sword.

The other three tried to flee, but each of the alchemists grabbed one and hauled them back to the river.

Taizong smashed one of the young men's heads against a rock until his face crushed inward and he fell limp, gurgling in the shallow waters. The Arcane Alchemist stabbed the other man in the stomach, stepping back in surprise when the man continued to fight, yanking the knife from his own abdomen. He took a wide swing at the Arcane Alchemist, who only laughed and kneed him in the stomach. When he folded forward, the Arcane Alchemist held him facedown in the river until he fell still. The Silver Alchemist forced the last woman to the ground and pressed her knee into her throat, leaning harder and harder until the woman's face turned blue.

When she stopped struggling, the Silver Alchemist rolled her body into the river, and the world fell quiet once more. The

four remaining alchemists looked to each other, the river between them now rushing red.

"We shouldn't have done this," the Sandstone Alchemist said quietly, still staring out to the sea.

Taizong scoffed. "Spare me your judgment. You're just the same as us."

"It wasn't supposed to be this way," the Sandstone Alchemist said, his voice distant, the words so soft that the song of the

wind nearly overpowered them.

"If you understood alchemy, you would have known that this was inevitable," Taizong said, jaw clenched.

The Sandstone Alchemist's expression slid into a frown. "I understand alchemy."

Taizong shook his head, taking a thundering step closer. "You think of alchemy as pretty lights and party tricks and sparkles,

but that is not alchemy's heart. Alchemy is for destroying the world and rebuilding it all over again. It's dirty, and cruel,

and unfair."

The Sandstone Alchemist looked like he wanted to argue, but his gaze drifted to the top of the mountain, his eyes glossing

over once more. What had he seen there?

"What did you think we would find on Penglai Island?" the Silver Alchemist said, crossing her arms. "You want the power of

alchemy, but you don't want to pay for it? You just want to look away while other people pay the cost for you?"

" They were my friends! " the Sandstone Alchemist shouted, whirling around. For the first time, he sounded as enraged as when I'd met him in the desert.

"They were our friends!" the Silver Alchemist said, tears cutting through the bloodstains on her face. "That's the only reason this works.

It's not a sacrifice without love."

"You love alchemy more than you ever loved them," the Sandstone Alchemist said.

"And, apparently, so do you," the Arcane Alchemist said, nodding to the river.

The Sandstone Alchemist shook his head. "That's not why I did this."

The river began to glow, changing from a murky red brown to a color like liquid sunlight.

"It's now or never," Taizong said, pulling a clear stone from his pocket. The Silver Alchemist and Arcane Alchemist did the

same, and the three of them stepped down into the golden river, turning back to look at the Sandstone Alchemist.

"Are you coming?" the Arcane Alchemist said.

After a moment, the Sandstone Alchemist nodded and stepped into the water.

It hadn't seemed that deep before, but the alchemists quickly sank down to their chests, their faces blurred from the brightness

of the river.

The Silver Alchemist held her hand above the water, ribbons of starry gold wrapping gently around her wrists, spinning in

comet tails across her thin fingers. The stone in her hand glowed pure white, the color slowly fading into red zircon, the

ring that I had cut off her hand.

Taizong's ring glowed scarlet, while the Arcane Alchemist's ring glowed pearly white. A silver haze enveloped the four corpses,

dragging them under the surface. They rose again as glowing bones that floated toward the sea.

"What is he doing?" the Arcane Alchemist whispered to Taizong, frowning at the Sandstone Alchemist.

He was standing in the water, staring at his reflection in the brilliant gold, unmoving.

"Well?" said Taizong, his booming voice jolting the Sandstone Alchemist out of his reverie. "What power are you going to ask

it for?"

"I don't know," the Sandstone Alchemist whispered.

"Didn't you think about it beforehand?" the Silver Alchemist said.

"I did," the Sandstone Alchemist said, "but now I'm not so sure." The river beneath him rippled, his tears diamond bright

as they fell from his face into the golden glow of the river.

"Are you actually crying ?" the Arcane Alchemist said, reeling back.

The Sandstone Alchemist didn't answer. His next tear turned black as it hit the water, the darkness spreading fast as the

current carried it downstream. The other alchemists scrambled out as the river rapidly turned the color of a starless night.

"What did you do ?" the Silver Alchemist said. "Are you trying to ruin this place?"

"No," the Sandstone Alchemist said. "I'm keeping it safe from people like you."

The world began to tremble, the ocean churning in the distance. Then the black waters rose and wrapped around the other alchemists,

dragging them back out to sea. They screamed and clawed at the grass, but the unrelenting pull of water was too strong, and

eventually the ocean silenced their cries.

The Sandstone Alchemist took a deep breath, and when he exhaled, he was standing on a shore of pale sand and cloudy skies, a port city murmuring behind him, lanterns lighting one by one as darkness fell. He was no longer standing on Penglai Island, but somewhere real and sharp and imperfect, nothing at all like the impossible beauty of Penglai. He looked out across the horizon as if searching for something, but there was nothing but an unbroken expanse of sea.

I reeled back, my hands wet and freezing cold, Wenshu and Yufei each gripping one of my arms as they pulled me back from the

river.

"What's wrong?" Yufei said, her grip bruising around my wrist.

I turned away, sinking my fingers into the soft soil to ground myself.

I understood, all at once, why the Sandstone Alchemist had tried so hard to keep me away from Penglai.

He understood as well as I did that powerful alchemy could rend the world in half if it fell into the wrong hands, as it had

with the Empress. Of course he hadn't trusted someone like me with that kind of power.

But if he'd gone so far to hide Penglai away, why had he kept any sort of instructions for how to return? The fact that they

were written down meant they were intended for someone else. Perhaps it was in case he ever changed his mind?

"I think I figured out where all these rings came from," I said at last, turning back to the river where the bodies had fallen.

I dipped my fingers into the river once more, feeling for latent alchemical energy, but could sense nothing but cool, clean

water. The other four alchemists had gained incredible, inexhaustible powers from this island by sacrificing their friends.

What kind of sacrifice could I give in order to bring back a dozen souls?

I pulled away from my siblings, looking between the three rings we'd stolen, then up at the mountain peak where the Sandstone Alchemist had descended from.

The source of alchemy.

Surely, if there was anything in the world that could bring back all the long-lost dead, it was up there.

I hesitated a moment before rising to my feet. The Sandstone Alchemist had used his sacrifice to keep this place hidden away.

Surely that meant this place was awful, that this sort of alchemy wasn't meant to be used.

But so many people were waiting for me, trapped in the river of souls. I could hardly turn back now.

I rose unsteadily to my feet, pointing at the mountain. "I need to go up there," I said.

Slowly, we trekked into the forest. The leaves felt like silk brushing past my face, the hum of insects like distant bells.

Each pebble glimmered, a marvel in and of itself, every flower and grain of sand and cloud overhead perfectly shaped, as if

crafted by the hands of the gods.

At last, we reached a small cave, cool with shade, where the stream disappeared into darkness. I stepped under the blanket

of shadows, emerging in a small stone room where the water swirled in a small pool on the ground.

On its surface bobbed a transparent sphere, like a planet made out of the thinnest, most delicate glass. Inside it, storm

clouds of every color swirled, the same as inside all of the other alchemists' rings. The air rang like the faint echo of

a gong, my bones buzzing from the force of it. My rings felt warm, and my soul tag burned. The Silver Alchemist had said alchemical

power was heightened on Penglai Island, but this was the only place I could truly sense it.

Here, at the source of alchemy.

"Zilan?" Wenshu said, his shadow eclipsing the doorway, casting the room in darkness.

Just beyond him, at the opening of the cave, I caught a glimpse of a figure standing on the golden sands, far below.

Who else is with us? I thought. But when he moved from the doorway, the figure was gone.

I shook my head and knelt down at the water's edge as Wenshu and Yufei lingered uneasily behind me. Whatever the Sandstone

Alchemist had seen, it had changed his mind about alchemy. Once I learned its source, I could never unsee it.

I took a deep breath and sank my hands into the water.