“What?” I twist around, and locate the little bronze statue sitting atop an old bookshelf. Old worn copies of classics like Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber are stacked beside it. “O-Oh. Yeah, sure.” I nearly trip over my chair in my haste to grab the statue for her, my fingers trembling as they close over the cool surface. I’ve never been the super religious type (when I was five, Mama told me that all humans are just a clump of cells waiting to decompose) but if I can lose all visible shape and form without warning, who’s to say a mini bronze Buddha can’t give me the answers I need?

I hand it over to Xiaoyi with both hands as you would a sacred artifact, heart hammering in my chest, watching intently as she unscrews the Buddha’s foot, reaches inside and pulls out...

A toothpick.

“Um,” I say, uncertain. “Is that for—”

Using one hand to cover her mouth, Xiaoyi slides the thin wooden stick between her teeth with a loud sucking sound. She snorts when she sees the expression on my face. “What, did you think this was for you?”

“No,” I lie, the rush of heat to my cheeks giving the truth away. “But, I mean, I was kind of hoping you could...”

“Offer you guidance? Explain to you what’s going on?” Xiaoyi offers.

“Yes.” I plop back down on my chair and look pleadingly across the table at her. “That. Anything, really.”

She considers this for a moment. “Hmm... Then you’ll have to tell me how it first began.”

“If I knew how it began, Xiaoyi, I wouldn’t be having this problem right now,” I point out.

“But how were you feeling at the time?” she presses. “What were you thinking?”

I frown. The first memory that surfaces is Henry’s smug, disgustingly pretty face as he moved to join me onstage. I quickly shake it away. My hatred toward that boy might be all-consuming and powerful enough to keep me up at night, but it’s not so intense as to trigger some freakish supernatural reaction.

And besides, I didn’t notice anything weird until after we both got our awards and our photos taken, or after it occurred to me that...

“I would be leaving,” I murmur. My hands go still on the table. “That without Airington, I’d be—”

I’d be nothing.

I can’t bring myself to finish my sentence, but Xiaoyi nods sagely, as if she can read my mind.

“One of my favorite authors once said: Sometimes the universe offers us the things we think we want, but which turn out to be a curse,” she says, which would probably strike me as a lot more profound if it weren’t for the toothpick still sticking out of her mouth. Or the fact that I know her favorite author is a web-novelist who exclusively writes fantasy books about hot demon hunters. “And sometimes the universe grants us the things we don’t know we need, which turn out to be a gift.” She spits the toothpick into her palm. “Another author also said that the self and society are like the sea and the sky—a change in one reflects a change in the other.”