“Father, are you ill?” When he did not reply, I imagined the numerous ailments that could end a mortal’s life. Taking his hand, I channeled my magic sparingly to avoid detection. While I was no healer, I possessed some minor skills. I searched his body, seeking the cause of his discomfort. Yet I could find no bone to heal, no wound to staunch. Those sicknesses bred within the body, those ingrained in the flesh, I could not heal—for immortals did not suffer them. And even if I could, I could not protect my father from the greatest threat to his life, I could not return what time had stolen … unless I restored the immortality he had lost.

“Will the emperor give you the elixir again?” I asked urgently.

“He has fulfilled his obligation to me, he will never relinquish it again.”

Despair swelled through me, heavy and bleak. “What can I do, Father?”

His smile struck the years away; I saw the man my mother had loved, with gentle humor and warmth in his eyes. Then the shadows descended once more, cloaking him in gray. “This is enough, more than I had hoped for—to see you this once, to hear you acknowledge me. Don’t endanger yourself. There is nothing you can do, for the doctors say I have just a little time left.”

I lifted my chin, studying the paintings of his accomplishments upon the marble grave. A miracle, and yet almost a curse, that I had found my father only to learn he was dying. Joy, tainted with the promise of sorrow. No, not a curse, I corrected myself—an opportunity. It was not too late, not while he lived. We had a chance to be a family again, to mend that which had been broken. A prize beyond my wildest dreams, though I did not delude myself into thinking it would be easily won.

“I am your daughter,” I told him. “And I will bring you home.”

Chapter 7

From the Mortal Realm, the moon shone like a silver disc against the black of night. My mother had completed her task, though it would do little to assuage the Celestial Emperor’s wrath—a stark reminder of its absence yesterday. My spirits sank at the thought of my mother and Liwei cast in his disfavor; it would have mattered less had he been infuriated with me alone. I had confronted his wrath before and survived—though barely.

I could not let that daunt me now. My father was ill. Dying. I had to help him, and who knew more about the mortals than the Keeper of their Fates? He had been a teacher to Liwei and me before, if only I had been a more attentive student. I could have sought him in the Jade Palace, except there were too many prying eyes and loose tongues. Fortunately, I was familiar with his routine and how he descended to the world below each night.