But it was my phoenix that was the problem. The Emperor intended to discover his perfect match by a test: any woman over the age of sixteen who had a phoenix was supposed to bring her to the palace, kneel before the Emperor, and see whether her phoenix responded to his dragon’s call. Boys had snickered when the herald announced this in the village hall. Yeah, I’m sure Jingzhi’s ‘phoenix’ is going to respond eagerly to the Emperor’s ‘dragon’ all right.

I’d rolled my eyes at their suggestive smirks. Boys could be so tiresome.

I didn’t want to go to the palace. But everyone in the village knew about Chilli Oil, and the envious glances of some of the other girls made me shiver. I suspected one of them might even go so far as to murder me to steal my phoenix if it weren’t such a futile task: even apple-cheeked children knew that a phoenix was a divine bird and would belong only to the person she had chosen – certainly she would not choose a murderer – and for some unfathomable reason, Chilli Oil had chosen me.

“You must go,” my mother said, hunched over the table in her workshop, carving into a sheet of wood to make a lantern frame. “Jingzhi, you must take Chilli Oil and go.” She looked up from her careful paring and laid down her knife. “Although I hope you are not going to tell the Emperor what a silly name you’ve given your phoenix.”

“If it would make him reject me, I would tell him.”

Mother sighed. “Any other girl would die for this chance. Why do you look so miserable?”

“If I married the Emperor, I would have to live so far from you, and Grandmother and Grandfather.” It was not a lie, but it was not the real reason, either.

My mother’s face brightened; she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Well, you are a good daughter – I am sure you would come back and visit us often. And you would be so rich! You would want for nothing, and you could send us money.”

“I just want to stay here and make lanterns with you, Ma.” I walked closer and brushed my fingers along the rough sketches she’d made, that would later become intricate paintings on the glass panels of the lantern. Two cranes bowed to each other like gentlemen; plum blossoms bloomed over a preening peacock.

She put a gentle hand on my arm. “Like I said, you are a good daughter. Please go to the capital and make your mother proud.”

Can’t I make you proud some other way?

I swallowed the question. It was impossible to challenge my mother when she kept calling me a good daughter.

*

“Chilli Oil, what do I do?”

My phoenix glowed silently. Her name wasn’t silly at all, no matter how much it had displeased my mother, right from the beginning. Really, Jingzhi? Such a undignified name for the queen of birds! I found Chilli Oil – or she found me – when I was ten, but even now, the sheen of her orange-red feathers made me think of well spiced food, of the hot gleam of oil floating on broth, flecked with flakes of chilli. Of heat searing my tongue even in the deep of winter. That was what she had always been to me: warmth when I needed it most.