IT WAS SURPRISINGLY DIFFICULT to get everyone to use her new name.
The empress held a formal court two days after their return, during which Kirin was reintegrated into the palace circles and guests from the city, The Day the Sky Opened was awarded a cuff for valor, and Night Shine was announced. Kirin and Second Consort Love-Eyes had crafted her introduction together, and it was lovely, embellished, with the slightest hint of threat. She had been Nothing but was reborn Night Shine, still the friend of the prince, and now hero of the empire.
Shine hated it. She hadn’t changed as much as she’d expected, either. The attention was like sand caught in her slippers, rubbing her raw and impossible to shake free. Especially with the witches’ net itching against her skin. It made the small hairs all over her body stand up sometimes, and she had to wiggle to make it stop. Wiggle! That was hardly intimidating.
They’d put her in vibrant red and cold pale green for the court, which was an excellent contrast, powdered her cheeks and painted her lips and eyes black like Kirin’s, and darkened her hair uniformly black. She fit beside the prince in his imperial black and white as never before. Because she was tense, she drank too much of the wine and lost herself a little bit, fumbling through the lords and ladies, witches, priests, warriors, and richer city families, baring her teeth and struggling not to get too hot. She fluctuated hot-hot and cold-cold, in a pattern of waves she couldn’t balance. Especially not without annoying the great demon of the palace.
A few courtiers tried to touch her!
Sky stayed far away from her and Kirin both, rigid at the side of the room, his cuff clenching his wrist like a manacle.
Finally two peacock-painted serving girls pulled Shine aside. One fanned her with the sleeve of her robe while the other fed her fluffy bread and promised it would help with the wine. Their round copper cheeks were painted in rainbow wings that seemed to flap gently when they blinked or smiled, and Shine told them they were perfect butterflies—and she’d worn a magical dress once made of butterflies and sunrise silk, so she should know!
The girls helped Shine slip out behind a pillar, where Whisper awaited, hands folded and wearing a demure tailor’s robe, sleeveless but embroidered with the skill of her career. “I thought you would sneak away, Nothing,” she said, then winced. “I’m sorry. Night Shine.”
“Shine is enough,” Shine whispered, throwing her arms around Whisper.
“Shine,” Whisper repeated. “Shine, Shine, Shine. I like it.”
They clasped hands and dashed down the corridor, hurrying to avoid anyone in the first circle who might drag them back to the court. Whisper knew where to get a stack of tiny, rose-shaped dumplings filled with hot cherry preserves and bowls of spiked cream. Shine tugged her through a smoke way, and they emerged with dusty hems into the Lily Garden of the fifth circle. Its central pond glinted under a half-moon, and Shine rushed to say hello to the little dragon-lily spirit.
It hid from her beneath the spreading, heart-shaped lily pad and refused to come out, flicking its tongue angrily when she claimed to be its old friend.
With a frustrated growl, Shine plopped down against the edge of the pond between tall, furling-lily pots. Whisper joined her, more delicately, and they shared their feast. Whisper had heard the official story and a few unsanctioned bits of gossip, but she asked, “What do you think is the most important thing, Shine?”
Shine licked cherry gore from the corner of her mouth and said in a rush, “I think I will fall in love with the Sorceress Who Eats Girls!”
“What!” Whisper hissed, her version of a shriek.
“I know.” Shine laughed and looked up at the starry sky, streaked with glowing thin clouds and that happy, delightful moon. “She wants me, and I have to return to her, so that together we can teach the Fifth Mountain to live without stolen hearts. I miss her—I miss… something.…” Shine trailed off, feeling dreamy.
Whisper shook her head in wonder, eyes wide. “Tell me everything about her.”
And Shine did tell her quite a bit, but not everything. As she spoke, she pinched off pieces of cherry pastry and coaxed the dragon-lily spirit over. It blinked its blister-pink eyes at her suspiciously, but finally took a rolled-up ball of dough.
Shine promised to come back every day with treats for it.
The next day she met with the pair of witches again, to renew the binding net. Shine bared her teeth at them and refused to answer their invasive questions, but at least Immli had returned to his Silver Rain crescent, taking Lord All-in-the-Water with him. This surprised Shine, as the lord commander should have been in the palace for Kirin’s investiture.
The ritual would be in ten nights, when the moon was full.
Shine’s days, in the meantime, were spent with Kirin, attending meetings, luncheons, tea services, and occasionally a nightcap. At his side, Shine mostly remained silent as Kirin discussed their adventures, only sometimes offering a more vivid description of a part of the Fifth Mountain. It was a performance, to show as many important people as possible that they mattered enough for a private explanation. That Prince Kirin Dark-Smile was home, and more than worthy of the Moon. He was mature, worldly, clever, and beautiful—everything a people could hope for in a future emperor. And, of course, pure.
Kirin thanked her, when they were alone, for being willing to play the game. And he confided to her that his father suspected more had happened during the summer, that Kirin was hiding secrets. They could not slip in the slightest, even around his family. Especially around his family.
But it was her pleasure to behave like a dangerous pet on the prince’s leash, she said, distracting the court from the weirder questions of the summer and gaps in the prince’s story. She liked the game, liked knowing it was a game.
It made her smiles dark, Kirin said, and he liked that.
Between them they developed a signal: if Kirin wore a single red earring, he felt like a man today; two, he was shifting in and out of man uncomfortably; three he felt good in between; four, he was a woman; five, he hated his body. If there were six or more earrings curling up his ear, he was wild. Depending, Shine secretly called him Kirin Bright Smile and Kirin Full of Potential, Neither Kirin, the Prince Who Is Also a Maiden, Kirin Consumed, and Kirin the Wild. He was always Kirin, somehow.
Shine had never felt more a part of him, and free to enjoy it. That was the consequence of choice, she thought, even if her old self hadn’t realized choice was missing.
The prince was the only person never to mistakenly call her by her old name.
That is, other than Sky, who did not have the opportunity, because Shine rarely saw him. When she did, he was firmly on duty guarding Kirin’s back and made no time to chat.
The great demon, it turned out, was unwilling to teach her its way of giving and taking and giving and taking. You are annoying enough, it said.
And the dragon-lily spirit never warmed to her, though she brought it pieces of her breakfast every day. She told it a story that once upon a time a tiny flower spirit had learned to make a family of flowers until it became a great spirit, and then when its volcano died, it became a great demon, eventually being reborn in a tiny garden guarded by a mighty, curious dragon lily. So maybe there was an impressive future ahead of it.
The dragon-lily spirit dived into the pond, then peeked only its eyes up to stare at her with extreme suspicion.