Chapter Four

For a while, there was no pull at all, just the quiet murmurs of the forest, the cracked dirt beneath my bare feet, and the

Moon Alchemist's name bright across the sky.

Please , I thought, tears burning at my eyes, cold as ice in the darkness. I need you.

All at once, the terrain shifted.

The wet dirt along the river turned to sharp rocks and grayed pine needles, spiny fish bones and white chrysanthemums with

snapped stems—funeral flowers, soft beneath my feet.

The river expanded on both sides, opening up with a great sigh, wrapping around my ankles with coldness so biting that I stumbled

to the side and tripped over pointed rocks. When I clambered back onto the riverbank, my footprints were oily crimson.

This was not what the Moon Alchemist's river should have looked like. She was long dead, and it should have been a weak stream

at best, not a rushing river of grease and blood. Something was very wrong.

I walked along the sharp riverbank, an impenetrable line of red pines on one side, the glassy river on the other, repeating the Moon Alchemist's name in my mind. But I couldn't sense her presence at all. If she had ever been here, she was long gone.

I drew to a stop, the blood on my feet running into the river, red swirling into the frigid water.

A hand closed around my throat.

Before I could react, I was face-first in the freezing water.

My cheek scraped against the sharp riverbed, my mouth flooded with ice, my open eyes searing with cold. I saw flashes of the

red dirt walls of the western ward of Chang'an, the moon-bright surface of the alchemy compound, barrels of gold and trays

full of blood.

This was the Moon Alchemist's river , I thought, but whoever is here can't be the Moon Alchemist. She would never hurt me.

I reached behind me, grabbing at silk robes, but couldn't break free from the grip that forced me down harder. I tasted the

spice of qi, liquid gold on my lips.

I clawed at my assailant's face and wrenched myself back until I could gasp down a sharp breath of air. I tried to turn around,

but their grip was firm, nails sharp against my throat. Another hand clasped my hair and shoved me back under water.

I tasted mud, my next breath knife-sharp as I choked on a mouthful of silt. The qi scalded my skin, a thousand tiny teeth

devouring me. Open your eyes , it whispered.

I didn't like taking orders from disembodied sources of alchemy, but the sensation of cold water knifing up my nose was already

fading away. My fingers traced over smooth wood, my feet pressed to solid ground, the smell of parchment and hot beeswax.

I opened my eyes.

I was back in the royal library, and the Moon Alchemist was standing over me, arms crossed. Her shadow contorted against the packed shelves full of scrolls behind her. We were in one of the study rooms in the royal library in Chang'an. I knew for a fact that this room had been destroyed by pearl monsters, that this could only be a memory.

"Think, Zilan," the Moon Alchemist said, jamming a finger into the scroll before me, the characters for dragon's eye . "We've talked about this before."

I shook my head—even if this was a memory, the Zilan from back then hadn't known the answer, and I certainly didn't know it

now.

"That's not an acceptable answer for a royal alchemist," she said. "Should I go looking for that boy with a mustache? I bet

he'd know."

"No," I said, closing my eyes, trying to push away all other thoughts. "I just need a minute. I need..." I trailed off,

because my hands were sinking into the paper, the table turning to porridge beneath my palms. I realized too late that it

was mud, and when I opened my mouth to speak, river water rushed down my throat.

I reeled back, my head smashing against someone's chin. Their grip on my hair loosened for only a moment before they pushed

me back down again, the slap of cold water stinging my open eyes.

" Well? " the Moon Alchemist said.

The study was filling with water, a shallow pool of silt staining my skirts, but the Moon Alchemist seemed not to notice.

"Don't tell me you've never heard of the dragon kings," she said.

I picked up the teacup and emptied the rest of it into my mouth, but the tea only tasted like mud. Somewhere far away, I sensed the someone forcing me deeper into the water, the edges of the memory wavering, but I took a deep breath and tried with all my might to cling to it.

The dragon kings of the four seas were legendary weather gods who no one had believed in since the rise of alchemy. Auntie

So had talked about them on occasion, but only as lost dreams from another world.

"The dragon kings are lords of the seas ," I said carefully, "so the dragon's eye refers to a waterstone?"

The Moon Alchemist nodded. "Solve the problem like an alchemist," she said. "Find a theory and test it."

A sharp pain clamped at my throat. Water spilled past my lips and splattered over the parchment, but the Moon Alchemist didn't

acknowledge it, so I gripped the edge of the table and kept talking, pressing my eyes closed.

"There's a golden fruit called dragon's eye," I said hesitantly, slowly recalling the words I'd once said in this other life,

before everything had gone wrong. "Is gold—"

The Moon Alchemist shook her head. "Too obvious. Try again." When I didn't answer immediately, she sighed. "Dragons are pure

yang energy, which means heat, light, courage."

I pinched at the fabric of my dress, desperately wanting not to disappoint her. The water had risen over my knees, sticks

floating past me.

Most stones had either yin or yang energy, a power that was soft and dark or sharp and bright. Everything in the universe

fell somewhere on that spectrum, but for alchemy stones, the strength of that energy mattered. Jade could have yin energy

if its color was light and clear, but yang energy if its shade was dark. Both could be wielded by a skilled alchemist, but

you needed to know what you were dealing with, how much power you held in your hands.

"If it's pure yang energy," I said slowly, the water spilling onto my lap, splashing onto the edge of the table, "it's potent and volatile. A waterstone that can be wielded for both destruction and creation, white like a dragon's eye."

The Moon Alchemist went very still, her eyes sharp and bright. "Such as?"

The hand on my neck ripped me from the water, slamming me back against crooked roots and jagged stones. I was staring up at

the endless dark, the shadowed figure leaning over me dripping murky water onto my face.

I coughed, trying to sit up but feeling like a rotten piece of driftwood. A hand pressed down on my throat, the touch gentle

now, almost reverent, but the threat of violence still clear.

" This isn't your river! " I said, shoving the hand away. "Leave the Moon Alchemist alone!"

The hood cast my assailant's face in shadows, but I could clearly see the two golden stars of their eyes.

Of course it was the Empress. I didn't know what she'd done to the Moon Alchemist's qi, but somehow she had bound her here

against her will. The Empress never freed her alchemists, even in death. Once she chose you, you belonged to her forever.

The Empress was probably keeping her around just to torture me, or maybe as a backup plan in case I wouldn't make her life

gold.

I surged up and tried to grab her throat, scratch her eyes, anything at all. But her hand seized me, holding my wrist an inch

from her face. The moonlight through the trees fell in strips across us both, as if slicing us into ribbons of alternating

light and darkness.

As the moonlight fell over the Empress's hand, I stilled.

The hand closed tight around my wrist did not belong to the Empress.

It was too large, the knuckles too pronounced, veins too bright, nails too short. It looked more like the hand of an alchemist, nails split and knuckles bruised. I tried to peer past the shadows of the hood, but could see only darkness and gold.

I seized the sleeve, trying to yank the figure closer to me, but the person reared back, and I was left with nothing but a

thin gold thread that had snagged on my ring.

The sight pulled me back to that morning, when I'd repaired the threads in Wenshu's sleeve.

Quit manhandling me , he'd said, while I pulled out three waterstones from underneath Durian. It was a stone with great healing properties, but

also destructive ones, depending on your intentions. It was full of yang energy, bright white.

The dragon's white eye.

" Opal ," I whispered.

The Moon Alchemist smiled. Her arms uncrossed, and in that moment I was certain she saw something more than a poor girl from

the south who had stumbled her way into the palace through luck alone. She saw the Scarlet Alchemist, the girl who was supposed

to save the kingdom.

"Well done," she said. "Now get back to work."

I opened my eyes.

This time, I was lying on my back on the cold floor of our room at the inn, staring up at the cracked ceiling. I clutched

my throat as I choked down a sharp breath of hot desert air, melting away the stinging coldness.

I know what the first line means , I thought, regretting that I'd used up my last three opals on something as silly as patching up a coat. But opal was not

a difficult stone to find. I might not have a map to Penglai, but at least I was one step closer to uncovering what the Sandstone

Alchemist somehow thought was even more valuable.

When the memory of drowning began to fade, I rose to my elbows and looked over to Wenshu, who had fallen asleep.

"Gēgē," I said, giving his shoulder a sharp shake, "guess what?"

But he didn't stir. I grabbed his arm and rolled him onto his back. "Get up, we have to—"

My hands froze. Wenshu's eyes were open, the whites of his eyes swallowed by black, the night sky of the river plane.

He breathed shallowly, all his muscles slack. I'd only seen one person like this before—the prince's youngest sister, whose

soul I'd failed to rescue from the river plane, leaving her body an empty husk.

I wound back and slapped him hard across the face.

When that didn't work, I ground my knuckles hard into his sternum, but still, he didn't respond. Durian had hopped down from

the windowsill and was pecking at his fingers, probably hoping for more food.

"Not again," I mumbled, cracking my neck and standing up.

I should have been grateful this was happening now, rather than when we were crossing the desert, when I would have had to

drag him the rest of the way. Or worse, when we were with the Sandstone Alchemist, who surely would have smelled our weakness

and used it against us.

At times, Wenshu's soul simply blinked out of existence, leaving behind a hollow shell of a body. It began as moments in the

palace when his spoon would freeze a few inches from his mouth, eyes clouding over before he blinked and continued eating

like nothing happened. But then he started collapsing at random, the spells lasting for a few minutes.

I'd done the same, back when my own soul had been bound with the soul tag that said the wrong name. The Moon Alchemist had said it was because my soul was on too long of a tether, able to wander too far away.

Wenshu's soul tag was correct, for unlike me, he had only ever had one name. Even if my handwriting was messy, the fact that

he was here meant that alchemy understood my intentions. But the body wasn't his, and surely that had consequences. I worried

that one day, his soul would break free from the cage of the prince's body and never come back.

But not today.

"Get your butt out of the soul plane, you lazy jerk," I said, yanking off Wenshu's right sock. "We have way too much to do

for you to abandon me now."

I gathered three firestones and ignited them in my palm, holding the flames up to the sole of his foot.

His knee jolted back. He let out a startled sound and sat upright, scrambling back against the wall.

"What are you doing ?" he said, the darkness draining from his eyes, replaced by their normal deep brown.

"Waking you up," I said, blowing out the flame in my palm.

"Yes, how dare I get a moment of rest while you make out with your ugly boyfriend inside my brain?" he said, examining the

sole of his foot and grimacing. "And stop burning me! It's not sterile!"

"I wasn't in your brain, and we weren't making out," I said, biting back harsher words. I didn't want to argue with Wenshu

right now, but I hated it when he spoke so dismissively of Hong, whose infinite patience and understanding made me feel rotten

in comparison.

Surely, if I'd resurrected Hong and left Wenshu to wait for me by the river, he would not have been nearly as kind about it as Hong. I knew that my brother resented Hong for putting me in danger when he was alive, but what right did he have to begrudge him now after his death?

"I figured out what the first part of the transformation is supposed to be," I said before he could complain any more about

Hong. "But we'll have to go somewhere else for opal. I doubt we'll find it here."

"You figured it out inside my head?" Wenshu said, raising an eyebrow. "Even when I'm asleep, I'm solving problems for you."

He sat up and stretched, glancing toward the sun through the windows.

"You can go back to sleep," I said.

He shook his head. "Postal couriers will open soon," he said. "I need to write to Yufei. If the Empress has returned, she

definitely wants her body back."

"You don't think my wards will keep her out of the palace?" I said.

Wenshu shook his head. "I think Yufei will go out on a midnight snack run unless she knows her life is on the line."

To that, I had no argument. I sat back as Wenshu unfurled the paper, knowing he wouldn't talk to me while writing at the same

time. He was so proud of his precise penmanship.

Durian waddled closer to me, pecking at my leg. I tried to scoop him up, but he dodged my hands and waddled away, quacking.

Beneath the blankets, something gold shimmered. I crawled forward and pulled the covers back.

Three golden eggs sat beside the pillow.

I picked one up, turning it over in my palm. It was oddly heavy, like it was made with solid gold.

"Gēgē?" I said, holding one up to the light.

"A little busy," he said, swirling ink powder together with water from his satchel.

"I think Durian laid eggs," I said.

Wenshu frowned, turning around. "I thought Durian was a boy?" he said, jamming his brush at Durian accusingly.

"So did I," I said, setting Durian down and turning the egg over in my hands. I shook it gently, but I couldn't hear anything

inside.

"So your demon duck laid golden eggs," Wenshu said, picking up another one and holding it up to his candle. "Great. What do

you think is inside? Dynamite?"

"He's not a demon," I said, frowning.

"He's not a he ," Wenshu said, glaring at me before turning back to the egg. "I wonder if we can sell these."

"No! What if more alchemy ducks are inside?"

"They're not fertilized eggs," Wenshu said slowly. "That duck lives in your bag. Where do you think it found a boyfriend?"

"I know that!" I said, snatching the egg from him. "I'm just saying, Durian isn't a regular duck. Stranger things have happened

because of alchemy."

It was probably a good idea to get rid of the eggs, one way or another. Durian was born from alchemy, life created where there

was none. You cannot create good without also creating evil was alchemy's principal rule. And yet, I'd created a seemingly normal duck that hadn't shown a single sign of evil...

yet. There was no way these eggs could be a good thing.

I thought of the prince, how he would have insisted we keep the eggs on the slim chance that there were baby ducks inside.

I imagined him tethered to the tree, the distant look in his eyes.

"Let's keep them," I said. "Maybe we can eat them or something?" I added, even though I had no intention of trying that, but

maybe it would convince Wenshu not to sell them.

"You want to eat something that came out of a demon duck?" Wenshu said, raising an eyebrow. "Whatever you want, Zilan. Just remember there won't be anyone around who can resurrect you."

He turned back to his letter, so I wrapped two of the eggs in my extra undershirt and set them beside my bag. There wasn't

any more fabric to spare, so I slipped the third into the hidden pocket of my skirt, the kind Auntie So had taught me and

Yufei to sew into our clothes in case we were robbed. It was hard to see the pocket among the folds of fabric unless you knew

it was there.

Durian hopped down from my arms, burrowing into my bag.

"Don't let it poop on the Sandstone Alchemist's papers," Wenshu said without looking up.

I rolled my eyes, dragging the bag closer to me by the strap, and pulled the papers out, Durian seated comfortably on top

of them. I set him down on the bed and unfurled the paper with the transformation, running my fingers over the line that was

no longer a mystery.

But what good does that do me if I don't even know what the transformation does? I thought, leaning against the wall and thunking my head back, glaring accusingly at the cracks in the ceiling.

I'd tried to prove to the Sandstone Alchemist that I wasn't an ignorant child, and yet I'd crawled from his home half alive

with a bunch of useless scrap paper to show for it.

You two could never find Penglai Island with only a map , he'd said. And he was probably right. What had we even achieved besides accidentally killing an entire palace full of alchemists

and servants, all to defeat an empress who apparently didn't see death as an obstacle? His taunt echoed again and again in

my mind, his jagged words cutting deeper each time because I knew they were true.

But the more I replayed his words, the less sense they made.

The Sandstone Alchemist had spoken a dialect that resembled Chang'an's, but it had still been a struggle for me to make sense

of, the rising and falling tones flipped and weaker than I was accustomed to.

I'd thought he'd emphasized you two , as if saying people like us could never find Penglai unassisted. Maybe because we were children, or poor, or because he

hated my father.

But perhaps the emphasis hadn't been intentional.

You two could never find Penglai Island with only a map .

I sat up straight, flattening the paper.

I already knew of one place that you couldn't find with a map: the river of souls. No map in the world could bring you there—it

was intention, a soul tag, and alchemy that opened the door.

"This is it," I whispered. When Wenshu didn't respond, I grabbed an orange from my bag and threw it at his head. "This is

it, Gēgē!" I said. "This is how we get to Penglai Island."

"With a poem?" he said, rubbing his head where the orange had struck him. "Where is that supposed to take us?"

"Everywhere," I said. "Anywhere, it doesn't matter. It's not a place you walk to. It's a place you unlock."

I ran my fingers across the dried ink, the words that would bring all of the dead back to me.

"This is what we use to open the door."