Was the elixir not complete? Had the emperor left it unfinished, missing some vital step only he could perform upon its gifting? My power surged forth, seeking the force that had ensnared my father. I was careless of discovery, of the Celestial soldiers who might be on their way to us, of everything except halting my father’s ascent. What did the laws of heaven matter at a time like this? As my energy flowed, fatigue locked my limbs, my power already tapped by the events of today.

“Don’t let go.” Each word was uttered in a disjointed rhythm.

Silver light streamed from my fingers, enveloping him in a gleaming shield. It was not enough, the enchantment that dragged him away strengthening. His eyes rounded like marbles, his hair streaming wildly across his face. I clasped his hand harder, numbed from the strain.

“This pull … it’s coming from inside me,” he said breathlessly.

Of course. This was not some force that had swooped in from the heavens but flowing through his veins, from the elixir consumed. I chided myself for thinking it would be a simple matter of my father drinking it and us returning to the skies to reunite with my mother. I should have learned by now that things were never that easy.

Closing my eyes, I reached for my magic again, casting it down his throat this time, after the trail of the elixir that glistened like a shimmering serpent. A thudding filled my ears—his heart, beating much too fast, pumping the elixir through his blood. Gold threaded through the crimson, brighter than any mortal’s blood—suffused with that honeyed fragrance, grown sickly sweet like fruit on the cusp of spoil. My power rushed through his veins, prying him free of the elixir’s hold. A painstaking effort, like trying to untangle a folded cobweb. Choked sounds wrung from my father’s throat, still I pushed on. Was I hurting him? Undoubtedly, in the way he flinched, yet I dared not stop. A moment’s pause and he would be ripped from my grasp, hurtling toward the Celestial Kingdom and into utmost peril. Fatigue sank into my bones, an ache crawling from the base of my spine to my neck, until I could barely stand.

Clamping my jaws, I quelled the instinctive urge to halt my power, streaming forth untamed, burning the taint of the elixir away—until at last, the pull on my father eased. The blazing gold that ran through his veins dissolved into pinpricks of light, his blood now shining as that of any other immortal’s. The scent of peaches faded, leaving only that of wood and earth.

My father’s body shuddered as it descended, his feet sinking to the ground. Still, I would not let go.

“Do you want to bring anything?” I asked.

He shook his head. “All I have longed for is in the realm above.”