Chapter 7: The Roof

On the seventh night, the Thunder Hall was too hot for either of them.

The fever came earlier, and harder, and the walls ticked as they heated.

Zhiyi held the seventh pill to his lips with a hand that was starting to shake.

"Hundred breaths," she said.

"I know."

He swallowed it.

Seven finger-widths of black were gone from his skin now, and the fern was a thin, ragged thing along his ribs.

She put her palms against his chest, and for the first time they were not enough.

Her hands were warm.

She stared at them.

"It's all right," said Lei Juehan, hoarse. "It's only heat. Come outside."

"Outside where?"

"Up."

He lifted her off her feet and walked to the window.

The Thunder Hall had a ladder of iron rungs set into its wall, black with age, up to the roof.

She had never seen anyone use it.

He climbed it with her slung over his shoulder, and she hit him on the back the whole way.

"I can walk."

"You can't climb. It's very high."

"Put me down."

He did.

They were on the highest roof on Mount Canglang, at the end of a tile ridge as wide as a road.

The iron rods rose around them, one at each corner, black against the sky.

Below, the whole sect was a scatter of lamps.

Above, the full moon of the eighth month hung close and white, and the stars were so thick they looked spilled.

"It's cold up here," said Zhiyi.

"Good."

The tiles were still warm from the sun, and he laid her down on them as carefully as glass.

He knelt over her and the moon lit one side of his face.

"I have been trying to say something for a day," he said.

"Say it."

"I have no right."

"To what?"

"To you."

His thumb crossed her lower lip.

"On the twenty-first night I may not come back down. I should not have touched you the first time."

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