And about the unexpected consequences of this promise.

“He lacks purpose,” the Star said. “And without purpose he’s never been truly happy in any of his lives. Professor Kang helped me see that.”

“Has he ever loved you, even if he didn’t know who you were?” Lian said. “In all those lives, were you ever married or lovers?”

“Ah. Another detail unknown to scholars,” Sparrow said, with a wry smile. “To give him lives of privilege, I bargained away any possibility that he would ever fall in love with me in mortal form. Yes, there were some reincarnations where we were married. Arranged marriages where he was kind to me and that was all. It was enough.”

Lian closed her eyes. The Star might have lived beside her Prince in each of his lives, but she had never been more than a companion, a good friend. A loyal servant.

“I know,” Sparrow said, as if reading her thoughts, “it was a bad bargain. But I was only a maidservant. How could I outwit the Queen Mother of Heaven?”

“Do you also go through the Wheel of Rebirth?” she asked. “How do you remember all your past lives?”

“I’m immortal,” Sparrow said. “I’m not required to drink the Tea of Forgetfulness.”

“What will you do now?” Lian said. “Will you go to the Kunlun Mountains with the other immortals?”

The Star didn’t answer. Sunrise crept over the hills and light drained away from her. She stood up and was once again just Sparrow Chen, a house servant walking back to the inn.

Lian touched the flowering stems of forsythia, the pink-tinged buds of rhododendron. She remembered the shining single antler on the foreheads of the qilin. She thought over everything the Star had told her. And although they never spoke of it directly during the hours they’d talked, she didn’t have to ask.

Shao had never been, could never be for Lian. Or anyone else on this earth.

Chapter 30

After the inn, they rode with the same truck driver for another six hours to the next town. There was no military there, no motor transportation at all. But Shao’s money worked wonders when it came to getting a ride on a donkey-drawn wagon, where they bounced on hard wooden bench seats, squeezed between laborers on their way to repair a railway line.

Then came another ride in another truck. And another bout of fever.