Page 81 of The Immortal’s Mark

I don’t know what I mean by everything. I know exactly what I mean by everything. I refuse to think about what I mean by everything.

“Yes.”

He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the jasmine, the white flowers catching moonlight like small stars fallen to earth. His hands rest on his knees, perfectly still, perfectly controlled.

“This is either going to solve the conspiracy,” I say, “or be a complete disaster.”

“Perhaps both.”

I turn. He’s still watching the flowers, but there’s something at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Close. Closer than he usually allows himself, closer than the Stoic Emperor mask permits.

“Perhaps both,” I agree.

The silence settles. Comfortable. Terrifying. The kind of silence that means something, the kind you don’t fill because filling it would break whatever fragile thing is building between the words.

His shoulder is right there. Warm. Present. The fabric of his robe dark against the moon-pale stone.

Not touching mine.

Not quite.

Three days.

Three days to prepare. Three days of logistics and disguises and cover stories that will need to hold under the scrutiny of city guards, innkeepers, merchants, and the occasional curious magistrate. Three days of Tianlong practicing his small form—eight inches of iridescent dragon, coiled with wounded dignity on Ren’s desk, radiating disapproval at a frequency I can almost hear.

“This is undignified,” he announces, for the fourteenth time this morning.

“You’ve mentioned,” Ren says, not looking up from the travel permits he’s forging in his own hand. The Emperor of the Jade Throne, forging documents. The absurdity of it would make me laugh if I weren’t so busy not thinking about what comes after the forgery.

“I have ended dynasties.”

“You’ve also mentioned that.”

“Burned cities. Turned back invasions. I am Tianlong, Heavenly Dragon, Fire of the—”

“You’re currently the size of my forearm.”

Tianlong’s tiny wings flare. It’s meant to be intimidating. It’s adorable. I will take this observation to my grave, which—given my situation—might be repeatedly.

Three days of Dumpling stalking the study, golden eyes tracking the miniature dragon like he’s calculating strike trajectories. He’s positioned himself on a stack of correspondence that Ren definitely needs to read—the cat has a commitment to inconvenience.

“The cat won’t hurt you, Tianlong.”

“He is circling, little dawn.”

“He’s just curious.”

“He is not curious, he is tactical.”

Dumpling’s tail twitches. Slow. Deliberate. The kind of movement that precedes pouncing.

I pick him up before anyone gets incinerated.

Three days of packing what a merchant’s wife would pack—roughspun cloth instead of silk, practical shoes instead of embroidered slippers, a cooking kit and bedroll instead of the army of servants that normally travels with nobility. My knives are hidden: one in my boot, one at the small of my back, two in a false panel of the travel bag. Old habits.

Three days of practicing the accent of the Southern provinces until it sits naturally in my mouth, dropping the crisp court consonants for the rolling vowels of Jiangzhou. “We’re from Linwei, two days north of the coast. You’re a silk merchant—no, you’d never pass as a silk merchant, your hands are wrong. Tea merchant. Family business. Three generations.”

Ren practices his lines with the same focus he applies to everything—complete, meticulous, slightly terrifying in its intensity. Somewhere between “haggling” lessons and “walking like someone who hasn’t commanded armies” practice, I realize I’m enjoying myself.