“We have to get up?” Wei Wuxian prompts him. Lan Wangji nods. “Jiang Wanyin said the Wen Clan will be brought in to the conference.” In his arms, Wei Wuxian stiffens. He shakes himself out of Lan Wangji’s hold, sitting upright and brushing his hair back from his face. Incongruous with his love-kissed body and the golden light shining over his skin, his eyes sharpen. A glint, dark as obsidian, replaces the dreamy clouds of a moment before. Lan Wangji mourns the simple happiness, even as he leans in to look at those eyes. “We should go,” Wei Wuxian says. His voice is soft rain, the promise of an oncoming storm. Hanguang-Jun shocks the Four Great Clans by standing beside the Yiling Patriarch and performing a ritual to prove that Wei Wuxian remains on the righteous path. If only every problem could be solved by so simple an act.

“It’s impossible,” Wen Qing said, her voice flat and eyes icy. “Literally impossible. It would kill you both.” “But –” “If you don’t care about your own life, at least care about his,” she said, and Wei Wuxian fell silent; she’d hit him right where it hurt the most, and he turned and stormed away. Wen Qing waited, watching as Wen Ning ran after him, distressed by his distress, and when he was finally out of earshot, she said, “You may regret that, one day.” Behind her there was a rusty bark of laughter, if that horrible twisted sound, low and grating and rasping at the throat until it bled, could be called a laugh. “I won’t,” Jiang Cheng said. “Thank you for lying to him.”