Hua Mimi thinks it was all just a strange, fantastical dream. She says I would remember the details more clearly, like what happened to her and who I married and who my complicated lover was, if it had really happened.

  But I do remember, I just cannot bring myself to tell her. She is only sixteen and so innocent. So alive.

  Instead, I let her remind me who I am. We reread my favorite passages in the fiction novels on my shelf, but I cannot remember why I loved these books. We make a few more pieces of jewelry, but the weight of wood and glass is too insignificant to me now. She sews us a kite and when the wind rises we fly it in the garden, until it becomes caught in the trees. She takes out my old lute as well, but plucking a single string produces such a dreadfully dull note that I cannot bring myself to play it. The lute I had was so much nicer than this.

  No tutors come because they take vacation in the summertime, but Mimi makes me review her notes on geography and history so that I will not be unprepared in the fall. Her notes on the state of the war in the north paint a picture of a very minor conflict. "Mimi, were you--" I catch myself before I ask if she was alive when the northerners invaded and assassinated the crown prince. Of course she wouldn't know that, but clearly it has not happened yet.

  No, I remember, it happened much later. Years after she died, and after this house burned.

  "What, Lili?" Mimi's finger still points to the line she considers important, but she is wrong.

  It does not matter at all that the cities of the western coast have recently united under one king and that their alliance is growing stronger and wealthier. The new kingdom will falter when its king dies, and the queen who follows him will pledge fealty to the third prince, until he betrays her to marry me. Does he marry her in the end, after my death? She seemed the type to forgive, condescendingly. Was it her hand that delivered that poison to me? 'The queen', the note said. I forgot that she was also a queen, however little she resembled one.

  No matter how hard I try, I cannot convince myself that it was not real.

  "'Was I'?"

  "Hm?"

  Mimi shakes her head, confused. "Was I what?"

  What can I ask, that will not reduce her to tears? Again. She cried when I did not remember our old hobbies, cried when my hands failed to make a kite--could I ever?--cried when I called Aunt and Uncle Hua servants--which is what they are paid to be--cried when I would not climb the tree to watch from the roof as visitors passed by on their way to the temple...

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  I only watched the visitors because I had none of my own. If the temple guests looked interesting, I pulled on a simple gown and veil and went also, to volunteer and meet new people. The temple always needed more help with cleaning, or in the kitchens. If they were really desperate, they even let me wear their robes and talk to the guests. I suppose they recognized that I lived like a monk and assumed it would harm no one.

  How wrong they were. If not for those robes, I never would have met him. And Mimi wouldn't have died.

  The last time I went was just after he left, after he gave me the pendant. I could not bear to go and not see him when I was so stupidly, naively in love. "Mimi, when did I last visit the temple?"

  "God hears your prayers just fine from here, Lili." Her impatience cracks her voice. She always was strict about study time, even if she sat through many of my tutoring hours for me. It was fine, she said, as long as I learned from her what she learned from them. She was better at studying, and her explanations made more sense to me than the tutors' long-winded speeches.

  But I cannot focus on studying now. "Mimi, this is important. When was it?"

  She watches me for a moment, testing whether I will give in and study first. Then she closes her eyes to think about it. "I suppose...it was the third month of spring."

  That memorable summer is hazy and hurts to look at. I do not remember when it was, exactly, but I remember how long it had been. Fool that I was, I counted the days from his departure like they were tears, proof of my heart's steadiness. Are the marks still on the calendar?

  Mimi crosses her arms and huffs as I sweep her notes and my books aside to bring it forward. They are, beginning in the third month of spring until the second month of summer. I returned in the middle of it, and now the third month is passing before my inattentive eyes. I count the days carefully, my heart threatening to ruin my concentration with its erratic beat.

  Tomorrow. The queen's men will come tomorrow. Mimi dies tomorrow.

  I feel a chill in my bones, as if someone watches and mocks. I had so much time, and most days I made her cry. Now I have only one day left, and I can think of nothing to avoid the passing of time. My eyes are drawn to the dragon painting--does the king of time look brighter than usual? "Mimi, does the painting look weird?"

  "Lili, I have always hated that painting."

  "I know." She screamed the first time she saw it, and said she had nightmares afterward. She was only eight. Now she is only sixteen. "Let's leave here, Mimi."

  "And go where?" she almost laughs, forgetting she is trying to be strict. "If you are not here, how will your family find you?"

  The Song family already has the permission they need to find me, and Song Zhilan is on his way. But he will be too late to save Mimi.

  I shake my head. "No, we need to leave now. We need to go as far as we can and--"

  "You forget, you gave your horse to that runaway girl in early spring and loaned the little cart and donkey to the temple for their use. All we have is our feet, and they would not carry us halfway to the next town."

  I want to argue that pilgrims manage all the time, but she is right. Here, we are much closer to the northern border than any proper cities. When Zhilan rescued me on horseback, it still took us two days to reach a real city. "Then we go to the temple and get the cart." I turn from her to glare at the time dragon in the painting. 'I will not live the same life twice,' I want to tell them.

  Does the king of time sense my defiance?