Chapter 12: The First Night

She told him in the carriage, because of the second term.

"He whispered something while he was kneeling."

Chengxiao sat with his bad arm across his lap and his good hand around hers.

"What did he say?"

"He asked why they never gave me my father's body."

The carriage rocked over the paving stones.

"I never saw your father's body either," Chengxiao said at last.

It was an answer, and it was not a comfort.

"You were in a coma."

"I was. I will find out why he said it."

"You will tell me."

"Everything I find, Wanning."

She looked out of the window at the grey street and did not pull her hand away.

At the estate he leaned on her more than he wanted to, and she let him.

That night she did not light the second lamp.

She sat on the edge of the bed with her sleeves pushed to the elbow and the needle case in her lap, and did not open it.

He lay propped against the pillows in his white inner robe.

"You are not treating me."

"No."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Deciding."

"Decide aloud. It is the second term."

She almost laughed.

She put the case aside. "When he knelt, I wanted to kneel too. Not to you. Just to see what it felt like to be that safe."

He went very still.

"I'm not a person who gets to be safe," she said. "I was given a door. I stood behind it, and it held."

"Wanning."

"I broke the third term last night in my sleep. I'm going to break it again on purpose."

She reached out and untied the sash of his robe.

His breath changed.

"I believe," he said, rather hoarsely, "that there was a term about separate beds."

"There was."