Chapter Twenty-Five

Once again, I stood on the golden shore. The sunlight tried to strip away all the pain I felt, but I clung to it like it was

driftwood in a nauseous sea. I replayed the faces of those I loved, imagined their names written in the immaculate sky.

I ascended the mountain, brushing away silky leaves and soft sugar sand until I sat in the cave once more. Its waters flowed

silently downhill, through the river where the other alchemists had died, into the vast expanse of sea.

The other four alchemists had made a sacrifice to this water and harnessed the island's amplified power for their own purposes,

then forged it into rings that seemed like miracles, but were only an equivalent exchange. Now it was my turn.

I sank my hands below the surface.

What will you give me? the water whispered, the sound humming through my bones.

The river didn't wait for my answer. Alchemy could only be controlled with clear intentions. If you didn't make an offering,

it took what it wanted.

The water rose over the edge of the pool, filling the cave with cool, shallow water that soaked my skirt. The glass sphere bobbed on the surface, but remained in the center like a buoy.

What will you give me? it said again.

Have I not given you all of me already? I thought.

Weeks in the Borderless Sea, snake bites and sunburns and a whisper of a dream chased across a country. Days of my finite

life spiraling away, blood under my fingernails, my friend lost. But alchemy did not take prepayments or letters of credit

like the rich.

I closed my eyes and imagined the rest of my life, the gates of Chang'an rebuilt, standing side by side with Hong as he was

crowned emperor, his perfect voice promising a future better than anything his mother could have imagined.

I was sitting in the palace garden while Yufei waded into the pond, splashing clear water at Wenshu, who was trying to read

his scroll. Ducks bobbed in the water, and sunlight filled the pond with diamonds. Hong appeared behind me with a head of

cabbage under each arm, tearing off pieces for Durian.

The Moon Alchemist held my hand and guided it up to the night sky, helping me wrap my hand around the perfect full moon. I

clutched it close to my chest, and its bright light cast the courtyard in white as the River Alchemist and Paper Alchemist

watched in awe.

Auntie So and Uncle Fan were sitting in the shade of the courtyard while Yufei served them tea and suspiciously half-eaten

cakes, their cheeks flushed red from health.

The western ward of Chang'an roared with the bright lights of a carnival, bread passed out for free, and no one had to beg

for scraps when it was over.

And because there was no life gold in this perfect future, I began to age. My hair turned gray, my skin growing thin and translucent. But through it all, there was always Hong, standing beside me, believing in me.

This , I thought, is what I'll give you.

I breathed the alchemy into my bones, and when I opened my eyes, a perfect diamond had appeared in my palms.

My own stone of Penglai Island, like the rings of the other four alchemists. Sure enough, the gem swirled with light, like

a raging blizzard of alchemical potential trapped inside.

I'm going to save them all , I'd once said as I set off from Chang'an with my brother. Now I let that determination swell inside me, writing it across

the sky of Penglai Island the same way I wrote the names of the dead in the river plane, desire pulling forth the stone's

power.

The walls of the cave fell away like ashes, and the sky opened up in all directions, a brilliant violet light somewhere between

a day's beginning and a night's end. The dawn breathed above me, pulsing with the beat of my heart.

Then the sky unspooled, and I could see the faces of those I loved in the same perfect clarity that I used to see their names,

and that was how I knew my sacrifice had been accepted.

The Paper Alchemist and River Alchemist were caught in the waters of the river plane, tossed along the current. They crashed

into a shore that was no longer dark skies and black dirt but golden sand, the firm and imperfect earth of the real world.

Then there were Hong and Gao'an, walking hand in hand through the forest, hesitating where the darkness ended and the world

unfolded into the main hall of the palace, bright with blood. They shared a glance, then took off running toward it.

Then Zheng Sili, hopping down from a tree, looking highly inconvenienced but otherwise fine, as the darkness around the river faded away. He turned toward the horizon, where Chang'an was only a speck of gold in the distance.

Then at last, there were Wenshu and Yufei, sitting up in bed under the moonlight, their clothes suddenly too large for them,

wearing the faces I had known all my life. Wenshu gasped and clapped a hand over his mouth when he saw Yufei's face, pointing

her toward a mirror. She tripped over her long dress and crawled toward it, tentatively running her fingertips over her cheek,

ghosting over the face of Fan Yufei, her eyes that were no longer blazing gold but warm pools of brown.

Once, I had promised to bring back the entire house of Li, my parents, everyone who had died for me.

But I was only one person, and I could already feel my sacrifice wearing thin. I was not arrogant enough to think that my

life was worth every life in the world. That dream was just another one that would die, tossed into the current. Another type

of suffering I would have to endure like everyone else.

"Scarlet," said a voice behind me.

The name no longer felt like mine, but I turned all the same.

There, at last, was the Moon Alchemist.

She was just as I remembered her—beautiful and terrifying like an endless sea, her long braid like the end of a dagger, her

eyes full of autumn light. Once, I'd thought I'd never see that light again.

"I told you to be careful," she said, crossing her arms. "This wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

"I'm sorry," I said, even though I wasn't, since my choices had brought her back to me.

"You're not," she said, her eyes cold.

I sighed. "No, I guess not."

I looked down at my hands, now only a whisper of color, a slant of light. "You should go quickly," I said.

The Moon Alchemist shook her head. "I already told you I didn't want to go back. I'm glad, though, that I got one last conversation with you, to tell you how foolish you are."

I laughed. "I'm glad too," I said. "Though sorry to disappoint you."

She frowned. "Disappoint me?"

"I'm sure there was a better way to go about all of this," I said, staring at my rippling reflection. "I'm sure you would

have done it differently. You always knew the answer."

When she didn't respond, I looked up. She was frowning at me like I was a problem she couldn't solve. "How would you have

fixed everything?" I said.

She shook her head and sat down beside me, staring out across the sky. "Not everything can be fixed," she said.

I laughed. "I'm not sure if that's supposed to make me feel better or worse."

"Not everything is about you," the Moon Alchemist said. "Some things just are."

I moved closer to her. "I've missed you," I said quietly.

I knew she wouldn't answer, so I turned away and placed all three of the rings in a bowl, along with the diamond I'd just

forged. With the quick touch of a couple firestones, the bowl began to heat up, and the stones melted into a silvery soup.

"What do you think all the power in the world tastes like?" I said, trying to sound casual, but the Moon Alchemist didn't

laugh.

"Like gold, I bet," she said at last.

"So, awful?"

"Like you would know," the Moon Alchemist said, a smile at the corner of her mouth.

"I know exactly what it's made of, and none of it is food," I said, smiling even though I tasted tears.

Before I could stop myself, I pressed the bowl to my lips and tipped my head back, the liquid burning down my throat. I did it partially to make sure the rings would never find their way back to the outside world—Penglai's only keys were locked inside—and partially to give myself the strength for what came next.

My father's note fell from my pocket, and I didn't have to unfold it to recall the words that were now etched across my soul.

I once thought that the greatest act of love was to traverse the lines drawn by fate himself, to hold on tight even as death

pulled us apart.

But that is its own kind of selfishness.

I will do something even greater for them.

I will give them a world where suffering makes us stronger but does not destroy us, where pain can be overcome. Because if

things continue as they have, then this world will not be worthy of them and all of their light.

I will find the source of alchemy, and I will destroy it.

"I can't imagine a world without alchemy," I whispered as the stones settled warmly in my stomach. I tried to imagine it was

Auntie So's congee, that she was here with me.

"It was a better world," the Moon Alchemist said, taking my hand. "A less exciting one, but a better one."

"What would you have been, if not an alchemist?" I said.

She looked to the sky, considering her answer. "Perhaps a very strict mother, or a very angry librarian," she said at last.

"And you?"

"No one," I said. "Isn't that funny? I was born to be an alchemist. My father only came to China because of alchemy. I was

saved once because of alchemy. It was my greatest dream."

The Moon Alchemist hummed, a sound I knew so well that it brought a smile to my lips. It meant don't you dare interrupt me, I am selecting my next words of wisdom .

"Alchemy was always just a tool for you to help others," she said at last. "Alchemists want to rebuild the world around them so badly that they would give anything. In that sense, you are the only true alchemist there ever was."

She placed a hand on my head, brushing down my hair.

"Stop stalling," she said. "You know what comes next."

I nodded, leaning forward and picking up the glass sphere from the water, setting it in my lap. Up close, it looked like an

entire universe of lights, colors never before perceived by human eyes, lifetimes and landscapes and dreams.

I held it steady with one hand, then pulled out Durian's last egg from my pocket. The Silver Alchemist's ghost hadn't been

able to break it, so I could safely say it was one of the strongest materials I'd ever encountered. Wenshu had said that Durian

was evil, and surely his eggs were proof of that—toxic fumes and flesh-eating sludge, and now, the ability to destroy alchemy

forever. Did that mean that what I was about to do was evil?

I closed my fist around the cold metal.

You cannot create good without also creating evil , I thought. Likewise, you cannot create evil without also creating good. Durian's first two eggs had been weapons—undoubtedly

evil. But maybe this third one was the good that balanced them out.

Maybe this was a mistake, like so many other mistakes I'd made ever since I became an alchemist. It would help the world,

but it would hurt people in the process.

I took a deep breath and decided that this would be my last mistake.

This time not made out of ignorance, or guilt, or regret, but out of a great love for this world and all the people in it.

I swallowed, my hands shaking. "What comes after the river plane?" I said.

The Moon Alchemist shifted closer to me, setting a warm hand on my back. "The end," she said.

The words should have terrified me, but a strange calmness settled through my bones. Everything had an endpoint. I had always

known that. It was only the rich who had gorged themselves on life gold who had been foolish enough to believe otherwise.

"That sounds... perfect," I said at last.

I raised my arm, my palm sweaty, and brought the egg down on the glass sphere.

I only heard the crisp sound of shattering glass before a blaze of white washed away my vision. The island was breaking apart,

blasted away by star fire. All the agony of the world rushed through me, igniting my blood, singing through my bones.

And for one breathless moment, I was sitting on a hill back in Guangzhou, my brother to my right and my sister to my left,

a thousand stars above us.

"What if we went to Chang'an as scholars?" I said.

Wenshu laughed, the sound sharp, echoing across the valley. " Us? " he said. But I knew, even then, that his words weren't truly doubtful. He just needed one of us to say it first, to believe.

"What's so funny?" Yufei said. "I hear the food is good there."

"I hear the streets are paved in gold," I said.

"They can't be. They would get dirty too fast," Wenshu said, crossing his arms. "I suppose we'll just have to see for ourselves

one day."

"One day?" I said.

Wenshu nodded, and Yufei bit the other half of my rice ball out of my hand. In that one beautiful summer night, our dream

was whole and unbroken, untouched by the cruelty of the world. Perhaps that new sapling of hope was the greatest currency

an alchemist could offer to the hungry jaws of alchemy. Nothing more than the whispered beginnings of a dream.