A small rabbit bounded between my feet, its fur gleaming like the purest white jade. Crouching down, I gathered it into my arms. As I stroked its head gently, the rabbit nestled closer, its long ears lying against its body.

I carried it as I walked toward my home, restored from the devastation wreaked upon it. The roof shone silver bright, the cracked tiles replaced. Gone were the scorch marks on the stone walls, and the broken mother-of-pearl columns were whole once more, rising proudly from the earth. If only the other wounds inflicted then were as easily mended.

The doors swung open, my parents appearing. My mother had discarded her habitual white robes for one in a brilliant rose, tied around her waist with a lilac sash. A red peony was tucked into the coils of her hair, just as she always wore it. As they came toward me, their warm smiles chipped away at the lump in my chest.

My father nodded at the rabbit in my arms, burrowing its nose in the crook of my elbow. “I thought your mother needed some company after you left.”

“I was replaced by a rabbit?” I was affronted, and yet an urge to laugh gripped me. A precious lightness, a thawing of the cold that clung to my core.

My mother smiled. “The rabbit is more peaceful.”

I could not disagree. “What is her name?”

“We call her Yutu.” My mother traced the characters in the air: 玉兔.

“Jade Rabbit. It suits her well.” The rabbit’s ruby-red eyes fixed upon me as I stroked her head again. When I set her down, she bounded once around my mother, before leaping into the forest.

As I entered the Pure Light Palace, I discovered new touches—a wooden side table in the corridor, silk carpets in vivid hues to replace those charred by flame. Scroll paintings of horses and soldiers hung from the walls, alongside porcelain vases crammed with stalks of fresh osmanthus. Had my father cut those for my mother?

My father strode beside me, the Jade Dragon Bow slung across his back with a soldier’s caution. Its power brushed my consciousness, more a gentle greeting than the eager tug of old. It did not fly into my grasp, content where it lay. And despite the pang in my chest, I had no regrets.

“Father, have your powers returned?” I asked.

His fingers flexed wide, then closed again. “A little. I can draw the bow easier, but it’s like climbing a steep hill.” A crooked smile spread across his lips. “While there’s not much need to use it here, it’s a comfort to have it again.”