Then in the morning, Lian would eat quickly after getting up and pack a steamed bun for lunch, sometimes a boiled egg, slipping it in her cloth tote with her list and the map. She made sure the apartment key was hanging securely on a cord around her neck, tucked under her clothing. Only then would she take the stairs down to the foyer, praying that this would be the day.

She started when the doorbell rang and realized she had been dozing. She opened the door to Sparrow, in a wool coat over a high-necked qipao dress. A dress of good quality.

“I’ve never seen you in ordinary clothes,” Lian said. “You look so . . .”

“So ordinary?” Sparrow said. She dropped the coat on a chair. “Shao’s second aunt gave me some of her clothes.”

Lian thought Sparrow looked tired, somehow diminished, and not for the first time she remembered that the Star had no special powers. Except for being immortal. Sparrow looked around the room, at the polished parquet floor, the tall French windows.

“I can’t imagine my sister living here,” she said. “No courtyard, no view of the sky without leaning out that small false balcony. Let’s go for dinner.”

After hot soup followed by a dish of freshwater crabs steamed with ginger and garlic, Lian felt less despondent.

“But I don’t know why I get so tired, Sparrow,” she said. “After all that time on the road, all those miles of walking, stumbling around in the dark and the cold, I thought walking through Shanghai would be easy. But I just want to fall over as soon as I close the door.”

“It’s not the walking,” Sparrow said. “It’s the sight of so much tragedy concentrated in such a small area. The Settlement is only thirteen square miles’ worth of Greater Shanghai. They say more than a million displaced now live here.”

“And my mother’s here somewhere,” Lian said. Despair returned. “Among the million.”

“You’ll find your mother,” Sparrow said.

“I have a routine now,” Lian said, trying to sound cheerful. She pulled her list out of the tote bag. “Every night, I take out this list and cross off the names of the camps I’ve visited. Then I take out the map and circle two or three more locations for the next day. I began by going to the camps closest to the apartment and now I walk farther each day.”

Sparrow looked at the list. “Let me make a copy. The External Roads district is a long walk from here, but not as far from the Liu residence. I can search the camps on the western side of the city.”

“Oh, Sparrow, that would be such a help,” Lian said. Relief washed over her. Then hesitation. “But you must have duties that keep you busy.”