Chapter 722: The Night of Lanterns

The night after the Kessarine tea, floating lanterns filled Kuroyomi’s streets, each carrying a dead person’s name in glowing ink. Skull-candy stalls clattered by puppet duels while drummers beat the pavement, making the Night of Lanterns Miri’s loudest party ever.

"Nobody on the surface mourns like this," she laughed, ducking a flying skewer.

Hajin crunched a candy skull between his teeth, "They throw a party for their dead and dare the dead to complain, I love it."

She sat on a fountain’s rim, weaving glowing thread between her fingers, shaping one paper lantern for each girl. Each lantern listened to its owner’s heart before lighting, a Soulweaver’s trick, quiet, private, the part she loved most.

Loccy bounded over, holding hers high, "Mine smells like warm bread, what does it wish for?"

"A bakery," Miri said, smiling, "with a big window so everybody can watch the dough rise."

"That is the best wish anybody has ever made, I will tell absolutely everyone."

In a roped ring, two skeleton puppets hacked at each other with wooden swords while a crowd screamed odds. Hajin joined the shouting at once, rooting for the smaller puppet, which lost horribly and made him thoroughly furious.

"That puppet had heart, they rigged the strings, I demand a rematch!" he yelled.

"You bet three candy skulls on a stick figure, darling," she teased, passing him a fresh one.

Juna snatched her own lantern, scowling at it, "Mine doesn’t wish for anything."

"It’s refusing to tell me, which is a wish too," Miri teased.

Miri saw the wish shimmer behind the paper before Juna crushed it into her fist, shielding it from every eye. It was one name in a tight, hurried hand, a secret she would guard faithfully until her very last day.

Vella plucked hers from the air, then read the glow with a startled blink, "A garden... how domestic, you terrible little thief of hearts."

’Her garden has a bench for two, but I won’t say so aloud, it’s hers to confess.’

Eirwen and Loccy ate their way down the avenue, Loccy buying everything, Eirwen tasting everything with formal, wide-eyed caution. A skull-shaped sweet cracked between the noble’s teeth, breaking her expression into a startled, utterly delighted gasp of joy.

"This is violently delicious," Eirwen declared, clutching the stick like a sceptre.

"I have never tasted anything that was not a negotiation," she added, almost whispering, "the court sweets were all lies."

"There are a hundred more kinds, we have only started," Loccy said, towing her toward the next stall.

[ashley(mod): Eirwen discovering sugar is the best thing I’ve seen all week.]

[GrandmaViewer: Somebody feed that child a proper dinner too.]

Rumi and Nari stole each other’s skewers outside a drum stall, each trying to out-snatch the other twin. When the rhythm game began, Nari grabbed both sticks, grinning wickedly, while Rumi hid behind her own sleeve.

"You’re the shy one tonight?" Nari crowed, hammering the drums with perfect timing.

"I’m thinking," Rumi squeaked, "I’m just thinking about the skewers."

"You are blushing, sister."

"It is the drums, they are very hot," Rumi mumbled, stealing a skewer back while Nari laughed.

At a tinker’s stall, Ferra, her crooked green hairpin glinting, let Hajin strike a bent spoon over blazing coals. Sparks sprayed everywhere, singeing his eyebrows, leaving the spoon curled into a crooked star nobody could mistake for art.

Ferra snorted, "You hit it like a man beating a rug," then kissed his cheek quickly when he drooped.

"Was that a pity kiss?" he asked, touching the spot on his cheek with a dazed little frown.

"It was a grading kiss, shut up and hold the tongs."

"What grade did I get?" he asked, hopeful.

"Passing, barely, now strike the star again and try to keep your eyebrows."

Juna seized Hajin’s wrist and dragged him into a circle of stomping beastkin, where her tail swayed in time. Her tail brushed his hip twice, deliberately, before she bared her teeth, daring him to complain about it loudly.

"Keep up, human, the pack doesn’t wait for slow feet!" she shouted over the drums.

"I’m trying, you keep stepping on my toes on purpose!"

Vella’s cup stayed untouched on her knee as she watched the dancers, looking for one long moment almost shyly young. Miri understood that look, the quiet hunger of someone who learned to want things slowly and never asked for them.

"A wolf teaching a fool to stomp, I could watch this all night," she murmured.

"You could join them," Miri said, sitting beside her.

"I would ruin my reputation as the only adult here, never, darling."

"Liar," she said softly, nudging her shoulder, "your toes have been tapping for ten minutes."

"Hush, I am merely admiring the architecture of this very loud street."

When the drums slowed, Hajin wandered over, flushed and breathless, "Miri, teach me the slow one, the one the old mourners are dancing."

"Get back here, the second round isn’t finished—" Juna shouted from the circle.

"Later, Wolfie, I owe the teacher a lesson," he called back, grinning.

She set his hand at her waist, correcting his elbow, showing him the slow circling step the mourners danced. He stumbled twice at first, then caught the pattern, moving with her as though the whole street went quiet.

She breathed out slowly, "Left foot first, then breathe, don’t count, just feel it."

"Like this?" he asked, turning her under his arm.

’He is watching me instead of his feet, I am supposed to be the teacher here.’

He grinned down at her, "Good, you can be taught."

Heat flooded Miri’s face, climbing past her ears until even her rose-gold hair seemed to glow brighter. Her careful lesson fell apart in her hands, because the student flipped the whole thing on her.

"That is my line," she whispered, her ears burning.

"I know, I’m borrowing it," he said, spinning her once more.

Nyra, wearing a fox mask over her gold-edged horns, slid a skull-candy from a stall while the vendor turned. Didi stood three paces off with her arms crossed, staring at the sky, pretending with dignity to see nothing.

Nyra spoke around the candy, one cheek bulging, "I have not stolen anything."

"I saw nothing," Didi replied, not looking down, "the sky is extremely interesting tonight."

Nyra squinted upward, "Is it truly that interesting... or are you lying to me?"

"Eat it before the vendor notices, you ridiculous little goblin."

Nyra hid her smile behind the fox mask, chewing slowly, her horns glowing a faint, thoroughly embarrassed gold. Didi pretended to study the stars again, though the corner of her mouth trembled with something suspiciously warm.

"Thank you," Nyra mumbled into the mask, "for not seeing me."

The great bell of the Cradle Palace tolled midnight, lifting every lantern higher up in a slow glittering wave. The household drifted back together beneath that glow, sticky and laughing, Cessy towing a bewildered Lucan by the sleeve.

"Didi, I saved yours for last," Miri called, holding up the final lantern.

The drums kept pounding behind them, but Miri heard nothing except the quiet where Didi should have been.

Nobody answered her, because the spot beside the stall where Didi stood only a moment ago was now completely empty. A single frost footprint glittered on the cobbles, then another, leading away toward the Bone Bridge above the Bright Dark.