My mask of serenity cracks, and my cheeks prickle. In no world is this a compliment. I guess I shouldn’t have been expecting a compliment from someone like him, but I hadn’t been braced for a personal attack either.

“How nice of you,” I say coolly.

He starts to speak again, but his voice is drowned out by the most cheerful wedding music I’ve ever heard in my entire life. The chorus is vaguely familiar, like the particular sweetness of the corn-flavored jelly candies, something I can’t name but know that I should be able to, if only for the way it creates a faint stirring under my breastbone. Familiar, but forgotten.

As I twist around in my seat to watch my beaming cousin make her way up to the front of the ballroom, I’m still fuming over Cyrus’s choice of words. Worn out. As if even the four layers of makeup can’t conceal my exhaustion. As if he can tell from one glance that I’ve been buckling under the pressure, pouring my tears into an industry that couldn’t care less if I disappeared—and so I did. I have.

I left it all behind me, and now, somehow, I’ve ended up here: at a wedding I never wanted to attend, next to the old nemesis I never wanted to be reunited with, who’s retained the uncanny ability to get under my skin after two years.

And I have no choice but to bear it until it’s time to go.

CHAPTER TWO

I’m pretty sure my cousin gets married.

Almost certain. I do my best to pay attention as she goes through the rituals while the guests sniff into their napkins and the children continue munching on the candy. The only reason I know what the rituals even are is because my mom had been talking about them before we left the house. First, the pair must bow to the sky and the earth, and then to their parents, and then to each other.

Wine is poured into little ceramic cups. Vows are probably made, and the scene is probably beautiful, a celebration of true love and whatnot against a backdrop of brilliant scarlet and gold banners.

I would know for sure if I weren’t so distracted by Cyrus and his reactions. Or, rather, his lack of reaction. He’s the only person here who looks decidedly unmoved. Unimpressed. He barely seems to be paying attention to the bride and groom at all—he spends more time watching my aunt fold up her silk handkerchief into a neat square after she wipes her eyes.

“What’s your problem?” I mutter as Xiyue starts to move toward one of the round tables, one hand balancing a glass of wine, the other holding on to her new husband’s arm. “This is meant to be a happy occasion. They’re in love.”