Page 109 of The Immortal’s Mark

“Time for what?”

“The festival.”

I glance at him. His face is doing that thing it does when he’s trying not to want something—jaw tight, eyes careful, the mask of duty slipping just enough to show the person underneath.

“You want to… enjoy the festival?”

“Is that not what married merchants do?”

“How would you know? You’ve never been a married merchant.”

“I am improvising.”

My chest does something inconvenient. I ignore it. “Fine. Improvise away.”

We drift into the crowd.

He buys me candied hawthorn without asking.

Just appears beside me with it—three berries on a stick, red and glossy and ridiculous. The kind of thing children beg their parents for. The kind of thing I haven’t eaten in a century because there was never anyone to buy it for me.

I take it. Don’t say thank you. Too dangerous.

The sweetness bursts on my tongue. Tart underneath, sharp and unexpected, cutting through the sugar. Like most good things.

“You’ve had this before,” he observes.

“Three hundred years ago. Different dynasty.” I take another bite. Watch the firelight play across his face. “The recipe hasn’t changed.”

“Some things don’t.”

I don’t know what to say to that. So I don’t say anything. Just walk beside him through the lanterns, the hawthorn sweet and sour on my tongue, his hand warm at the small of my back making the shiver reach places—

Nope.

I’m officially banning myself from feeling things.

A performer stalks past on stilts, painted like a demon. Children scatter, shrieking. One bumps into my leg and doesn’t even notice, too busy fleeing.

A woman sells paper fans with dragons painted on them.

“We should get one for Tianlong,” I say.

Ren looks at the tiny painted dragon. Looks at me. His mouth twitches.

We laugh. Actually laugh. The kind of laugh that comes out before you can stop it, the kind that makes people glance over and smile because they think they’re seeing something real.

They’re not wrong.

That’s the problem.

The lantern vendor is ancient, all gnarled hands and knowing eyes. She sells us a paper lantern—red, for good fortune—and explains the ritual like we’re foreigners.

“Write your wish on the paper. Light the candle. Release it over the water.” She peers at Ren with the particular assessment of someone who has seen enough people to read them at a glance. “First time at a festival?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You’re holding your wife’s hand like she might disappear.”