He brings you a gift; he always does. This one is the most expensive yet, a small jade pendant you don't know if you'll ever be able to wear, since someone would surely ask you where you got it, and you wouldn't be able to tell the truth. Even so, you'll cherish it, and you tell him so; he smiles his kind smile, the one that makes his boyish face look even younger, and he points to the engraving in the centre of the pendant.

"It's a rosefinch," Sect Leader Nie explains. "To remember the day by."

The carriage trundles on, bearing the two of you out of Lanling into the countryside, and you let yourself lean against his side as a turn of the wheel over an uneven patch of road jostles you. He laughs and lets his fingers twine through your hair, and you spend the rest of the trip like that, savouring the illicit delight of his company, and with it the knowledge that, in the eyes of Sect Leader Nie, you're someone special, enough so that he'll steal you away from Carp Tower just to spend an afternoon whiling away the time with you and your idle talk.

Sect Leader Nie loves to collect beautiful things. He has an artist's eye. You weren't tutored much in the ways of refinement at home, so you've had to catch up since arriving at Carp Tower, and you're always lagging behind. When he points out the intricacies of a piece or explains the meaning of a small detail, you nod along and try to commit it to memory. You may not have the words yet to say intelligent things about the symbolism or the craftsmanship, but you like pretty things, and he likes to buy them for you. You would never ask, but he's thoughtful. He has a very good memory, almost like your brother; sometimes you'll mention something you liked that you saw in a marketplace years ago, and a few months later, the next time he's at Carp Tower, he'll bring you something just like it.

✥

The birdwatching that he had in mind isn't particularly successful; the trees are empty and there's no song in the air, even when the two of you sit in the shade very still for what feels like hours.

Sect Leader Nie explains, when he pronounces defeat and the two of you finally give up and eat your picnic lunch on top of cloth spread out across a log, that the sky hasn't yet decided if it wants to rain, and birds can sense that sort of thing. Bad luck, but it couldn't be helped.

Just like he told you at the beginning, it's important that the two of you only meet in secret, because as a sect leader he must be particularly careful of his reputation. Yours is already bad, so you wouldn't care so much for your own sake, except you know your brother would be dismayed to find out: dismayed in both of you! He loves Sect Leader Nie like his own brother, and he's always doing his best to look after you. You've also never managed to shake the sense that you're being unfaithful to him. Not that you've ever told him how you feel--not that you ever could--but you'd still like to keep it from him. He'd probably worry that you're going to bring shame on yourself, or the family, or that you're being taken advantage of.

He wouldn't think that if he'd seen Sect Leader Nie the way you have. He's sometimes melancholy around you in a way you've never seen him in public, where his mood is always slipping from one end to another, gregariousness and laughter and extravagant tears. It's only around you that he's quiet and thoughtful. He doesn't speak about his worries, but you can tell they're there. He's a sensitive soul, like you. It's why you get along with each other.

Take the conversation today, for example: you tell him about the family of swallows nesting in the peaks of the roof above your room at Carp Tower, and when you say you've been feeding them, he doesn't chastise you for encouraging pests or mock your sentimentality, as any of the other disciples would. He smiles, eyes bright and interested.

"Do they eat out of your hand?"

"Not yet. But they'll come land on my windowsill if I leave it open."

"Good, that's good." He chews thoughtfully. "Have you ever tried catching one?"

"Catching them? How?"

"Well, there are lots of ways. If you get a birdcage, you can try leaving it out on the sill with food inside. Eventually they'll get used to it, and you can latch the door on them if you're careful."

Every so often, he'll say something like this, which reflects skills and interests you know can't have been instilled in him by his proper, wealthy childhood. Bird-catching is the kind of thing the kids in Mo Village do for fun. You have to adjust your understanding of him to imagine him coaxing swallows into a trap.

You could hardly believe it at the beginning, when he set out to befriend you. You! You've never had friends in Lanling, let alone powerful ones, besides your brother, and he's so busy; even busier than Sect Leader Nie. But he has a taste for gossip, and with the whole cultivation world passing through from time to time to meet with your brother, now that he's Chief Cultivator, Carp Tower is always simmering with whispers. You don't have many friends, but people pay little enough attention to you that they'll often carry on their conversations in front of you as if you're just another piece of furniture, so you learn things. And then there's the things your brother tells you, and the places he shows you; you know other people aren't privy to those things. You're a bit more hesitant to share that, even with Sect Leader Nie, but he can be so light and fun to talk to that you let your guard down, and it's never blown up in your face; Sect Leader Nie knows how to keep a secret, even if you have to deal with the guilt that follows for betraying your brother's trust even in these small ways.

Forbidden affairs are always a popular topic of speculation, even if they're rarely corroborated by anything, but you're quite sure no one's ever suspected the truth about you and Sect Leader Nie. You've been so careful; you've followed all of his instructions. Inside Carp Tower, where other people can see, you treat each other with no more familiarity than a minor disciple would the leader of another sect. But outside, in the anonymity of dingy establishments or rolling, secluded hillsides--like this one--the two of you can enjoy what you have together: an unlikely friendship between like-minded people. Why should it be anyone else's business? You're not hurting anyone. Sect Leader Nie doesn't have a wife, or even a betrothal. He's not kissing anyone who doesn't want to be kissed, and even then he's restrained and nearly always chaste, like the well-born gentleman that he is.

"It's too bad I can't bring Young Master Mo back to Qinghe with me. If I could introduce you to some of my birds, we could bear messages that way. But they'd have to get to know you first, otherwise they'd just leave letters with anyone. The poor things aren't that bright."

"Aren't there clever birds? What about ravens?"

"Ah, too clever, too clever! They won't be trained. They're too human. They mourn their dead, you know." Sect Leader Nie looks wistful, and he adds, "Did you know that shrikes are hunters? They keep the bodies of their prey impaled on thorns until they're ready for them."

The breath leaves your lungs in a shocked, impressed gust. "Really?"

"It's true. I've seen it. It was so gruesome, it gave me nightmares for weeks."

You hum, but something stirs in your chest, a prickling sense memory of the place your brother led you once again, a fortnight ago, with its oddly clean smell and the rows and rows of tools and knives, where he let you peruse some writings with an infamous name on the cover, which you would doubt could possibly be genuine if it weren't your brother, who never lies and whom, you sometimes think, knows everything.

Maybe it shows on your face, because Sect Leader Nie has an odd look until he looks up at the sky, and makes a startled, open-mouthed expression. "Oh, look at those clouds! We better get back to the carriage, or we'll regret it."

You make it back to the road, where the driver is waiting for you, just in time; within the first few minutes back on the road, a steady pitter-patter comes through the roof. You take the excuse to snuggle closer, while you can, and he indulges you; he wraps an arm around you and laces your fingers together. It's that warmth that lets you overcome the caution that tells you to stop, to hold back, that he'll condemn you if you let on what you suspect that you know.

"Nie-gege, do you remember the room I told you about, last time?"

You shouldn't have doubted him; he only responds with genuine curiosity as you begin to edge closer to the topic of demonic cultivation, in so many words. Of course he wouldn't judge you for following where your brother, whom you both love so much, leads you to go.

The carriage stops an incense stick's walk from the Carp Tower gates, so when you return you can say you spent your day strolling the street vendors. He embraces you, briefly, before you open the carriage door. He smells of apple blossom and his skin is very soft. He whispers next to your ear, "Thank you for the company. You always make the best conversation."

Your breath catches in your throat a little. You consider asking how long it will be until he returns to Lanling, but he's never been able to give you a straight answer when you've asked him in the past. He's so busy. You squeeze your arms a little tighter, trying to memorize the way his body feels against your own, and to remember what it feels like to be understood, for a little while, and then you leave through the door and return, once more, to the quiet torment of the most beautiful place in the world.

✥

A few weeks later, you return to your rooms from the day's training to see an unmarked package has been placed amidst your small collection of personal belongings. You unwrap it to find a small hand mirror, the kind that can be taken with you anywhere you go. It's decorated with a border of ravens in flight. A slip of paper flutters to the floor, and you pick it up.

It reads, in a spindly hand, In honour of a good idea. Maybe someday.