Page 129 of The Immortal’s Mark

Six weeks ago, I didn’t know he could laugh like that. Six weeks ago, I didn’t know a lot of things.

Tomorrow, we go back to a world where emperors don’t laugh.

The fire has burned down to coals. Dumpling has recovered enough to demand chin scratches from Ren, who provides them with the solemn focus he probably applies to matters of state. Tianlong has retreated into what he calls “contemplative silence” and what I call “sulking because nobody appreciates his commentary.”

I should be sleeping. We leave at dawn. Instead, I’m sitting with my back against a tree, watching Ren scratch my cat’s chin and write in the poetry book I bought him four weeks ago in a market that feels like another lifetime.

He writes every night now. Sometimes he shows me. Sometimes he doesn’t. I never ask. That feels important, somehow. That he has something that’s his, something the empire doesn’t touch.

Tonight, he closes the book and looks at me.

“The court will have questions,” I say, because someone has to break the silence. “About where you’ve been. About why you’re traveling with an assassin who tried to kill you.”

“I have answers.”

“Do those answers include the part where we’ve been sharing a bed for three weeks?”

He doesn’t flinch. Of course he doesn’t. “That information seems unlikely to improve the council’s reception.”

“Chancellor Feng might actually have an apoplexy.”

“I confess I am not entirely opposed to this outcome.”

I almost smile. Almost. “So what are you going to tell them?”

He sets the book aside. Moves closer. Not rushing—he never rushes—but deliberate. Intentional. Everything he does is intentional.

“The truth,” he says. “Edited for relevance.”

“And what truth is that?”

“That you are necessary.”

Something catches in my chest. “Necessary.”

“To the investigation. To the empire’s security.” He pauses. The firelight catches his eyes, and I see him decide something. “To me.”

Eight hundred years. Six hundred and forty-four deaths. I have been a lot of things to a lot of people. A weapon. A convenience. A ghost they couldn’t shake. Nobody has ever called me necessary before. Not like that. Not like it’s a confession.

I don’t know what to do with it. So I do what I always do.

“If you think flattery is going to get you the last rice cake,” I say, “you’re wrong.”

“I have no interest in the rice cake.”

“Liar. You’ve been eyeing it for an hour.”

“I have been eyeing you eating it. There is a difference.”

I stare at him. He stares back. Somewhere in the darkness, Dumpling burps with the confidence of a creature who has never once questioned his place in the universe.

“That,” Tianlong observes dryly, “was almost romantic. The belch truly elevated the moment.”

“Nobody asked you,” we say together.

We go to bed. The same bedroll. The same tangle of limbs we’ve been pretending is practical instead of necessary. His arm around my waist, my back against his chest, his breath slow and steady against my hair.

I cannot sleep.