“Nono, let me go!” Yu cried out, unable to brace himself against the inevitability he scrambled to fight. “Xiao, let m— ”

It was too late. The pair of boys were sent tumbling toward the ground, landing with a loud thud of tangled bodies slamming into the main path, sound echoing cruelly through the entryway leading up to the palace’s interior. It could have been worse, right? They could have fallen upward like the camellia petals. They could have been launched into the sky and gotten stuck there or maybe died. Then Yuhui would never get the chance to meet or speak to the vessel of his sudden infatuation.

Of course, on the other hand, Yuhui would have to live with the knowledge that this was his first impression, ever an irrevocable instance of time that occurred only once. He groaned from atop his brother, gangly limbs slow to collect themselves under the hard stare of an expert swordsman with his fingers wrapped around his weapon’s grip, ready to protect his priestess.

The boy in black was just as quick. Immediately, he drew support from the shadows cast by the midmorning sun to summon his own vorpal dark to hand, a slow eddy of darkness slithering across the dewy daylight ground to lounge in blade shape, languid in their master’s hand.

Before Xueyu could call him to halt, the viper youth was already on the platform, black sword pointed at Yuhui’s pretty chin.

“Oh gods,” Xiao coughed, then gasped when he saw the assassin’s blade. “Fuck—”

“Enough, Laike,” the priestess called gently, light-warmed touch a calming presence at the interior edge of Xueyu’s elbow. She smiled at the boys pinned beneath her high-strung pupil’s instant response, unnaturally speedy when set between two shadows. “Good morning young master Xiaoxu, young master Yuhui.” A tile came crashing to the ground next to the group and the small woman swallowed her laughter, lips pursed to keep her stoic mein. “An unconventional entrance indeed.”

Yuhui’s eyes were wide, black drops of ink sitting stark atop pools of the purest white. His line of sight scaled Laike’s sword from tip to top, tracing the contours of the hand belonging to that boy who held it, up his arm and around the curve of his shoulder, moving quickly along his neck to his finely tuned features and his serious eyes. The younger of the Tian boys lingered in his stare, hopeful that if he didn’t acknowledge anything happening outside the narrow space their bodies occupied, then he would be able to live in this moment with this stranger until his heart settled and allowed him the time to catch back up with its rhythm.

“Sincerest apologies,” Yu muttered like he was the responsible heir of the clan, like he was talking only to the threat about to bleed him red all over the dusk of his moody blues. “I hope your journey from the mountain was pleasant.”

The young assassin’s hazel eyes narrowed at the polite response, heard the Heart of the Mountain’s command in the back of his head. Still his blade pointed downward. What did he find when he listened to this voice? Xueyu always told him to pick apart every detail in his opponents—

What did this opponent offer him?

He was being traced out like the contours of a painting, studied like a distant landscape dissolving in the sun, mirage heat lines dissipating in desert air. He was memorized, his sheet music tendons and pentatonic hands. When he listened to what this boy murmured before him, the quiet hidden tremble in his low tenor sound, he felt alone.

Laike sucked on the inside of his cheek as he grudgingly scattered his ember blade and, instead, offered his hand to help the prince to his feet.

When Yuhui took Laike’s hand and rose, his watch retreated, fading to demureness forced by his chin tucked in embarrassment.

“Thank you,” he said, turning to then help his sibling, glancing up the roof and its missing-tile damage, which the trio would surely be scolded for that same evening. He caught a glimpse of his sister in the tree branches where she remained, a shocked WHOOPS branded silent on her face.

Reflexes soothed by the touch in the crook of his arm, the knowledge that this possible attack was just the carelessness of curiosity gone wrong, the master swordsman’s arm returned to his side.

“Masters Xiaoxu and Yuhui, Madam Miyan,” Xueyu sternly announced, “Allow me to introduce you to three of Luanshi’s most skilled disciples: Laike, Chongwei, and Jiewei.” He gestured to each child in turn—the shadow stalker, the girl unafraid of horses, and then the blonde who was.

Laike bowed curtly to each in turn but his sidelong glances lingered on Yuhui even as he peered toward the wide eyed girl trying to descend from the magnolia tree without tearing up her dress. Before anything else could be said, the black-clad boy walked away, resuming his position at Jiling’s side, one step behind his teacher.

“We apologize for the disturbance,” the oldest Tian child said smoothly once recovered, bowing his head before his mountain elders. “We received your message from the birds this morning—we were simply anxious to meet your disciples. Sorry to surprise you.”

The youngest in the visiting pack, blonde curls about her face, jabbed her dark haired sister in the ribs with an elbow, pointing to the girl in the magnolia tree with a toothy grin.

Her older sister was already nodding, tell-tale smirk betraying the schemes rapidly forming in her mind, expression spread across sly lips tucked between the bobbing ends of her chin-length hair.

“I’ll show you inside—” Yuhui volunteered in a quick step forward, as if miraculously willing to take responsibility for the dull ceremony of greetings before his weekly warding. The boy nearly tripped over nothing in the further unraveling of his ability to maintain control over himself and the things around him, but caught his feet in an awkward stumble as he set off toward the wide steps leading up to the main house. “I’m sure my parents are looking forward to seeing you.”