Chapter 6: First Light

The sun came over the roofs of Qinghuai Ferry and touched Zhuoran's face.

He flinched, but nothing happened.

He stood in the inn yard in the open morning light, solid as a living man.

The cinnabar was still bright on the back of his hand.

"It doesn't hurt," he said, as if reporting a rumor.

"Come inside," said Pingan.

"I'm standing in the sun. For the first time in a hundred and thirty-one years."

"I know. Come inside before the Bureau sees you do it."

Zhuoran let himself be hauled up the ladder to the loft.

Pingan shut the shutters, bolted the door and leaned against it, breathing hard.

Thin gold bars of daylight came through the slats and lay across the straw.

Zhuoran stood in the middle of them and turned over his own hands.

"The ink should be gone by now. It always fades when the cock crows."

"It didn't."

"No. Something has changed." He frowned.

"Three of the dead things have gone into me. The hungry one, the frightened one, the one in the well."

"Each time, I feel heavier."

"Heavier how?"

"As though I weigh more. As though I'm staying where I'm put."

Pingan looked at him.

Pingan did not like how that sounded, and he could not say why.

He decided to look at it later.

"Maybe it's the ink," he said instead.

"Maybe it's you."

Zhuoran turned from the window.

In the barred light his ash-grey hair looked almost silver.

The old fire scar down his neck stood out.

"I don't want to talk about it anymore," he said.

"All right."

"I want to do something that isn't hunting."

"All right."

"Pingan." The corner of his mouth lifted. "Write on me."

Pingan swallowed.

"Where?"

"Everywhere you want."

He pulled the burned black sash undone and shrugged the crimson robe off his shoulders.

He lay down on the straw on his stomach, with his arms folded under his chin.

His back was long and pale and marked with old scars that did not heal.

Pingan stood very still.

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