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cheeks warm. "I'm flattered. But."
    "Don't, Yunyan. Have some decorum; you know how mortals are."
    The other woman's laugh rises deep from the throat. "This coming from one who seduced hundreds of country girls and left them crying."
    "Please. I was perfectly decorous with them."
    The ceiling and walls are orange, lobster shells stitched and pinned into place by gleaming rivets, and jellyfishes hang upside down to provide the function of lamps. Julienne shifts her feet uncomfortably; her heels keep sinking into a carpet of seaweeds. Astoundingly it does not smell; a faint hint of salt but nothing more, as though every dead lobster has been scrupulously cleaned, as though each tendril of living seaweed has been scolded and bred into giving off no stench. Up in the back where seats cost round perfect pearls instead of black-veined turquoise, long slender arms extrude where the armrests should have been.
    Lights dim. A white face appears, powdered operatically and crowned likewise with a wig elaborately coiffed, a headpiece heavier than any neck should be able to bear. Unseen cymbals ring; the face opens its mouth and spits firecrackers, loud as New Year, that leave a cloud of pale smoke.
    What follows is a strange play, in the bombast of operas but not in Gunwa, Gwongdongwa, or any language Julienne recognizes. The curtains never rise, a backdrop of unrelieved black; the actors appear erratically, glimpses of sleeves and faces in profile, slippers and horns and tails. There is a sinuous meeting of lovers, whose costumes mark them as women, always negotiated from opposite ends of the stage. They sing against instruments, they sing against silence, and leave twisted scrolls for each other center-stage.
    It is stark and Julienne doesn't comprehend a single word. Her breath is pulled out of her chest even so, the tempo of her pulse yoked to the play's.
    Afterward, when applause submerges the auditorium, Julienne asks Olivia, "Why did you take me to see this?"
    "Didn't you like it?"
    She puts her hand against her sternum. "I did, of course I did."
    Olivia's features lie half in shadow. "Good. So you will see that we aren't just animals." She weaves her way out, fluidly between seats and seat-arms, through gaps in the crowd. Julienne scrambles to keep up.
     
    1.4
     
    The moment Julienne is pulled out of this world, it empties Houyi's senses, leaving her blind and deaf.
    It is disorienting. She's put a thread of herself into that arrowhead, but the wrenching is stronger than she expected. In all the years she has existed she has never invested so much of herself in protecting an individual. A town, a village—those were different, not half this personal.
    The calls log tells her Julienne rang some half-hour ago—it must have been while she was out, the phone left behind. A message as well, incoherently cheerful, telling her all is fine and there's nothing to merit worry.
    Daji's ringback tone puts Houyi's teeth on edge. It sounds for far too long before Nuwa's fox deigns to answer. "Lord archer. How impatient. I haven't even had a chance—"
    "I would meet the viper."
    "Now? On so short a notice. You overestimate me."
    "I am certain," Houyi says mildly, "that you can have her materialize on command, should you insist strongly enough."
    "To be flattered by you is terribly disarming. Do it more often and you'll never need to string your bow again. Give me a moment." If Daji speaks to a subordinate she has muted the phone on her end. "Ah. She appears to have abducted a mortal, does Xiaoqing. Naughty girl, and her having pledged herself to virtue too. The young ones always give in to their baser urges in the end."
    No blood has yet been spilled from Julienne's veins, she can tell, and her niece's pulse continues strong. But that does not mean anything. "Yes," Houyi says, uninflected. "Very sad."
    "I'll have her call you. Take me hunting with you sometime. You'll find me a satisfactory partner."
    Houyi does not bother with public