The Laitrong spaceport was packed with people boarding and disembarking, searching for the baggage they had lugged all the way from their previous planet, or trying to take with them the things they thought mattered from this one as they left.

  Rali watched the bustle from the peaceful shade of Jim-nang’s private transport. The young master was the heir to a prosperous merchant family, steadfastly attached to his possessions and status symbols, several of which he was currently engaged in overseeing the loading of.

  Time and again over the last month, Rali had tried to show Jim-nang that love of stuff was the very thing weighing him down, but the young master insisted that he would never part with a single piece. Rali tried to explain to Jim-nang that it wasn’t the possessions themselves that were the problem, but his clinging to them that hindered his advancement. That was the part that didn’t click for the young master.

  At every meal, the young master begged Rali to speak more about Spirit and happiness. He liked hearing about finding the vein and the essence of his [] Spirit, but when it came to putting those words into practice, Jim-nang wasn’t a fan.

  Still, some buried part of him must desire freedom, because he kept Rali on as his personal guru, even asking Rali to accompany him on this business trip.

  “These talks of yours are gold, Sage Rali,” Jim-nang had said. “They keep me charged up and ready to face the world.”

  That made it sound like Rali was less of a helpful guide to enlightenment and more of a temporary motivation. But he’d agreed to go in the hopes that Jim-nang might suddenly make a breakthrough. In the grand scheme of things, Rali thought—if there was actually a grand scheme, and there were actual things—every advancement was meaningful.

  Besides, Rali could spend the time between their meal talks searching whatever new city they landed in for hakkeyoi.

  Sushi swam back from the field where she’d been chasing butterflies and hovered over Rali’s shoulder. When he didn’t take what she must have considered an obvious hint, she nipped his earlobe.

  “Pet Sushi, Rali,” she whispered.

  He smoothed the little fish’s flowing dorsal fins back.

  “Hakkeyoi’s probably been inside me all along. You’d tell me if it was, wouldn’t you, Sushi?”

  Instead of answering, she swam out in front of his face.

  “When does Rali and Sushi go back to Grady?”

  Rali wondered whether he should tell the little fish that when they saw Hake again, there was a good chance either he or the Death cultivator wasn’t walking away.

  “I’ve got a lot of truth to find before I can face him again, Sushi,” he said.

  “Sushi misses Grady.” Her mismatched eyes filled with tears. “Rali misses Grady. Sushi and Rali should go to Grady before Grady becomes Sushi and Rali’s Lost Mirror.”

  Rali didn’t know what to say to that.

  Luckily, Jim-nang marched around the side of the transport just then, bangles clinking and nose stud sparkling.

  “That’s everything loaded,” he announced as proudly as if he’d completed the task himself. He dabbed sweat from his forehead with a designer handkerchief. “Ready for the hop to Shinotochi-Nandai, Guru?”

  “Yeah, let’s…” Rali’s reply died out.

  Across the spaceport, a familiar shock of brilliant white hair caught his attention.

  Hake’s murderous angel of death, the one they had freed from the Heavenly Contrail’s fight pit, stalked down the ramp of a newly arrived craft. Her silver-mirror eyes flashed as she scoured the port.

  Angrily, she snatched the topmost arm of a passing baggage handler and demanded something. He shook his head and shrugged her off, going back to his work.

  Jim-nang followed Rali’s gaze.

  “The rare perfection of a fairy is enough to strike even a wise guru dumb,” he said, winking. “If the timing on this meeting wasn’t so tight, I’d say we stay and see if one of us could coax her to supper.”

  “I doubt she would accept,” Rali said. “My friends and I have had some dealings with her. When she’s angry…”

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  Jim-nang chuckled. “All fairies have sharp tongues, Guru Rali. Don’t let that frighten you away. A night with one would be worth a planet’s ransom. A galaxy’s ransom.”

  “This one might be more dangerous than the ones you’re used to.” Rali perched his chin on his walking stick. “And I think I know who she’s looking for.”

  The angel glided through the crowd, her marble skin radiant in the afternoon sun. Her silver eyes roved over every face that passed her.

  This was bigger than coincidence. Bigger than a chance passing at a spaceport. This was a stroke of fate the size of sword legend.

  Her mirrored glare lit on Rali. Recognition flared.

  Rali smiled and waved.

  She veered his direction.

  Rali turned to the young master and bowed. “I apologize from the bottom of my broken Spirit sea, Jim-nang, but Sushi and I can’t go to Shinotochi-Nandai today. Thank you for all your kindness, honored friend, but destiny is pulling us in another direction. You’re welcome to stay and greet it with us.”

  Jim-nang looked truly torn for the first time since Rali had met him. His gaze darted from the angel flowing toward them to his private transport. His brows knitted in an expression of pleading desperation.

  “This deal has been in the works for months,” he said.

  “Didn’t you just say fairies were worth a galaxy’s ransom? Surely you’re not going to make more than that on this deal.”

  All six of the young master’s fists balled. “It’s just an expression!”

  “An expression that’s falling into your lap right now,” Rali said. “What if your destiny is here, Jim-nang? What if this moment, this decision, is the one that frees your kishotenketsu and lets you soar to heights you’ve only dreamed of? Don’t you want to find out?”

  As handsome and refined as the young master had been up to that point, he suddenly switched to ugly and crude. Jim-nang growled an obscenity, then jabbed pointer fingers at Rali.

  “You’re no guru, you’re just a sponge!” he yelled. “You only want to live off others and tell them to give up the things they love most while never working a day in your life!” His chest heaved with fury. “You’re nothing but a broken Spirit sea, and you want everybody else to be nothing, too! Just impoverished, shiftless, lazy lumps!”

  The young master spun on his silk-slippered heel and stomped off.

  The angel reached Rali as Jim-nang’s transport door slammed and the engines roared.

  “The irony is he’s right about a lot of that,” Rali told her. “Just not in the way he thinks he is. He was so close!”

  Letting out a trilling white, the transport coasted to the takeoff pad. Rali sighed watching it go. He hoped Jim-nang found what he was searching for.

  “You’re a friend of the Death cultivator Grady Hake,” the angel said, her voice like a blade. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced, and after that dressing-down, I’d hate for it to get around that I don’t observe the social niceties.” Rali pressed his hands together and bowed. “Iye Skal Akarali. It’s a great pleasure to meet the one so doggedly pursuing Hake and, by extension, the rest of us.”

  He didn’t introduce Sushi. The little fish had disappeared when the yelling started. Now Rali could feel her presence hovering around the angel of death. Sushi would reappear when she felt safe. Given the power he felt coming from the angel, Rali thought it was likely that she had already sensed the little fish studying her.

  “Where is Grady Hake?” the angel demanded. “Take me to him now, or I will end your pathetic life.”

  “My time had to come eventually. When better than after I’ve been humbled by a rich merchant in front of all these travelers?”

  The angel shot forward, stone-white hand darting out like a lightning strike to catch hold of Rali’s collar.

  With a last-second twist of his shoulders, he avoided the grab.

  “My Spirit sea is broken,” Rali said, “but I can still avoid physical attacks.”

  She lunged again and he turned, letting her fingers zip past.

  Rali shrugged. “I’ve never really had to put much effort into physical training. I always just seemed to have it, you know? I can’t defend against a Spirit attack right now, however. You should try that.” He let the suggestion hang in the air for a second before adding, “Unless you can’t use your Spirit, either?”

  The angel snarled. Unlike Jim-nang, the angel’s fury only made her more beautiful. Must be the curse of men to get uglier when they were mad and the blessing of women to get prettier. Or maybe it was actually the other way around, a blessing to men and a curse to women.

  Rali could see the trickle of brilliant white Spirit leaking from her stomach, near her navel. More Spirit had been stoppered there in attempt to stem the loss, but it clearly wasn’t working.

  “Hake thought he damaged your Spirit sea when he grazed you with Sudden Death.” Rali tapped his chin and dodged another grab. “I notice you don’t move around invisibly like you did when you attacked us in the shut-ins outside Ghost Town. Oh, and later in the Boglands. You also don’t seem to be flying much anymore.”

  She darted after him, a dazzling white adder striking.

  An adder who couldn’t hit her prey. Rali slipped another marble-handed attack.

  “What do you plan to do when you find Hake?” he asked. “He’s not just some pushover with a broken Spirit sea, not like you and me—”

  “Injured!” the angel snapped. “I am not broken like you, former cultivator.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that Hake’s kishotenketsu is still going strong. You’d hardly guess he started cultivating less than a year ago. Did you know he already advanced to Ten?”

  Fury flashed again in her silver eyes. “Of course I know!”

  As suddenly as she had attacked, she went still. From riled adder to living stone. One that wasn’t breathing nearly as hard as Rali was. But then, the angel wasn’t packing around quite as much weight as Rali. He wasn’t usually self-conscious about his size, but when he was around women, embarrassment tended to rear its ugly head. He swallowed and tried to quiet his huffing and puffing.

  “I saw him,” the angel said, her mirrorlike gaze turning introspective. “For that brief moment in his advancement, we were connected. I warned him to choose another path, but the fool didn’t listen. All he had done up to that point could have been undone. This…” She shook her head. “Grady Hake has started a war with the Reapers. One that will not end until he has been destroyed.”

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