Page 159 of A Forgery of Fate

“I grew enough to fill the entire canal,” he replied, eyes twinkling. “Would you like to see?”

Behind the cart, he had an entire boat brimming with waterbells. Hundreds of them, all on the brink of blooming. An impossible feat in this weather, but here they were, made even more beautiful by the fresh coat of snow dusting their petals. I was awed.

“Do you want to know the secret?”

He’d told me once before. “You talk to them?”

I’d forgotten how beautiful he was when he smiled. “I do. But that’s only half of it.”

He took off his gloves. His fingers were long and human now, no more claws or sharp nails. Carefully he lifted a box from the stern of the boat. Inside was a planting bed teeming with spongy green mounds.

“Moss!” I recognized.

He looked pleased that I knew. “They’re a vital part of every forest and every garden. Waterbells especially take to them. They thrive together even under the harshest of conditions. Even during winter.”

So he hadn’t forgotten everything. Me, yes. But not everything.

I wanted to know his name—whether he was Gaari or Gaarin or someone else entirely. I wanted to know what he’d been doing these last three years, how his wounds had healed, and if he still had a connection to the sea as I did. If he still chased after whales and ate noodles at Luk’s.

But I had to be patient. One question at a time. “What do you talk to the flowers about?”

From the way he hesitated, I could tell no one had asked him this before.

“There’s a dream I’ve had many a time,” he confessed, “of waterbells floating under the moonlight, and in spite of the cold, it warms me to dream it. Like I’ve found home.” He forced a chuckle. “I suppose that’s why I was drawn to your lantern. Why I keep planting the same flowers year after year.”

I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I burst, “Elang, don’tyou remember me?” I pointed to the lantern, to its river of waterbells, the starry night, the girl and the boy. “This is us.”

Whatever rapport we’d built in these few moments of conversation, I’d ruined it. He took a step back, his gray eyes turning cloudy, and there was a beautiful sadness to the way he shook his head.

“It’s getting late,” he said softly. “They’ll soon be lighting the lanterns and sending them off. You shouldn’t miss it.”

It was a polite dismissal.

Tears prickled the corners of my eyes. From under my scarf, I lifted the cord around my neck, my fingers lingering on the jade butterflies. Two flying in a close pair, never to be parted.

“This is your red thread,” I said, my voice shaking. “Your promise to me, a lifetime ago.” I pushed it into his hand. “Maybe it’ll help you remember.”

He caught the cord by its pendant, clasping the butterflies before they fell onto the ground. Something in his eyes flickered then, as he held them, like a pinch of light sieving through the clouds.

A trick of the sun,I thought, turning before I suffered another disappointment.

I fled back into the crowds, losing myself among the sea of endless faces. The only direction that mattered was the one farthest from Elang’s cart. I forced myself to keep going and not look back. I knew I’d crumble if I did.

It’d gotten colder, and an icy rain glazed the air. I folded my hood over my head, ignoring the calls from the food vendors as they appealed to the dull pangs in my stomach.

I was crying, and it hurt to breathe. He was alive, I told myself.Thatwas what mattered. Not the fact that he didn’tremember me, that he had looked at me with those cloudy gray eyes like he’d never seen me in his life. If he was under another curse, I’d break it. If he’d simply forgotten me, then I’d try again tomorrow, and every day after until that changed.

But not today. Today the hurt was too much.

I picked up my pace. Lanterns were floating into the sky, speckling the night with a constellation of paper stars. A magnificent sight, but I didn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t.

Soon I was halfway through the market, rushing past Luk’s Noodle Shop for the street where I’d left my family. Mama and Baba were shopping for tea, and I slowed before the store to unwrap my scarf.

“Wait!” Someone was shouting from behind. “Wait,Tru!”

I walked inside. My pulse still throbbed in my ears, and under my hood I couldn’t hear that I was being followed. Until, three steps in, I felt the change in the water.

It called to me—from the tea being poured, the frost coating the rooftops, the steam of my breath. It was a tickle of snow, like a gentle kiss upon the back of my neck. Slowly, I turned.

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