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It was an ill-fated thing to claim that a heart is safe. Hearts are rebellious. The moment they feel trapped, they will strain against their bindings.

Don’t talk to strangers, Mom had said, over and over. And don’t trust the ghosts, especially not during the Ghost Festival.

And now that she knew the truth, who would she decide to be?

You don’t know, Bebo, what you’ll do,” my mother says, a sudden anger simmering under her words. “You don’t know how to choose until you’re right there, on the precipice, giving away your everything for something that may be real or may be a shadow, a ghost you’re chasing.”

“So many precious places to discover. Come on, Lil’sis. Let’s go see them together.”

“I finally know how it ends.”

The prince always said I belonged to him. I had thought this word protected me and kept me safe, but now I understood. Belonging meant he could place me wherever he liked, whether in his bed or in this dank tower. Belonging is not love. It never was.

It is Chun’s fault he has become a thief. But please let him have the chance to make it right. Give him the chance to become a great man.

“I almost murdered a girl yesterday.”

“Promise me, Lin,” she said, “that wherever we end up stationed, we’ll stay alive long enough to find each other again, to be friends always.”

Together, her voice sparkling like diamond dust, his smooth as clove smoke, they ensorcelled the audience as they had ensorcelled each other.

“All the storytellers get it wrong.”

Takeo never saw the fox again. But sometimes, on warm evenings when he was outside, he could almost imagine he was being watched.