“No,” she said. “There’s something else, something more. I just haven’t figured out what.”

They continued along the riverbank. He gazed up and imagined how the landscape might appear if he were looking down from the constellations, the river’s watery path curling north to Changsha, continuing on until it flowed into Dongting Lake.

“I can feel it, you know,” the Star said, “the exodus of immortal creatures. Each day I quell the urge to follow them north, to resist the polar pull of the Kunlun Mountains. He is all that keeps me here.”

He. The Prince. Shao. The professor sighed.

SO MANY OF his classmates had rushed to enlist after Nanking fell. Shao did consider joining up. He had wavered, changed his mind a dozen times, and only Sparrow knew of his indecision. But if he’d had any thoughts of enlisting, they’d faded with his mother’s last letter.

The only place as safe as the foreign Settlement in Shanghai is the protection of your university as you move west. The only thing that keeps me from falling into despair is the knowledge that you are safe.

He couldn’t enlist. His mother already worried enough about his brothers. More impatient and less tolerant of their mother’s anxieties, they no longer lived in Shanghai. His eldest brother, Luming, was with the government in Chunking, aide to a cabinet minister. When the war began, his second brother, Tienming, had gone to the port town of Wen-chou to run the family’s warehouses and shipping business. His mother’s sanity depended on knowing Shao was with Minghua. She probably pictured students strolling cheerfully from one picturesque rural town to another, staying at quaint inns, dining on interesting local dishes. She had no idea what they had seen and faced.

He set his lamp on the floor beside his cot and sat down cross-legged to read. The arrangement Mr. Lee made for getting their mail to and from Changsha worked remarkably well. For the second weekend in a row, a package of letters had arrived for him. Some more than a month old, but at least they were getting through.

His roommates had set up a trestle table where they studied by the light of shared oil lamps.

“Shao, your lamp!” one of them called. “We need it here.”

He waved off the request. “Right after I read my letters.”

Unexpectedly, there was one from his brother Tienming. His brothers never wrote. It was his mother who wrote to each of them, passing on all the family news. His brother’s letter had been posted from Shanghai, not Wen-chou.

Younger Brother, I hope you’re safe and in good health. I heard from Cousin Wenfei at the Ministry of Education that Minghua University is on its way to Changsha, so that’s where this letter will probably reach you, providing the situation doesn’t change.