What do you want? he asks. His harsh response is almost enough to make me flinch.

Mustering my courage, I bow and give the proper condolences offered in these situations. I am very sorry for the loss of your father. May his spirit live in immortality.

Thank you, Li Wei responds, but he is clearly suspicious that there is more to come.

I make sure no one else is around before dropping the formalities: Are you still planning on leaving?

His face hardens. Yes. Why? Are you going to tell someone? Try to get them to stop me?

No. He regards me expectantly, and I take a deep breath, summoning my strength. I . . . I want to come with you.

The words fly from my hands before I can stop them. The idea has been brewing in the back of my mind all evening, but until I said it, I hadn’t consciously realized that’s what I was going to do. Zhang Jing’s plight has made me realize that things will never change . . . unless someone makes them change.

Li Wei stares incredulously at me and then lets out a laugh with a harsh edge to it.

You? Pampered, prized apprentice? You aren’t that bold little girl anymore. Stop wasting my time. I have things to do. He shakes his head and starts to walk away, but I catch his sleeve. Remembering the effect touching him had on me last time, I’m careful to promptly let go and keep a respectful distance.

What bold little girl? I ask, puzzled.

He hesitates. The one who climbed the rotten shed even though she knew it was dangerous. Just to prove she could. I thought you were so brave back then. Brave and bold and beautiful. I always believed that over the years until . . . well, you’ve changed.

My heart lurches at all the misunderstandings that have arisen between us. I haven’t, I say. Look, I thought about what you said, about how it isn’t enough to just keep getting by day after day as we are. I saw my sister . . . and she’s exactly like that. Not happy with her life but convinced there’s nothing more. I can’t let her go on like that, with nothing else to hope for. I want to help you. I want to talk to the keeper too and see if there’s a way to change things.

It all comes out in a jumble, not nearly as eloquent as I’d hoped. Li Wei studies me for several long moments. The earlier rain clouds have passed. With the sun down and the moon still rising, torches light the paths around the village, casting flickering light and shadows, but I can see well enough to know he’s trying to decide if I’m speaking the truth. Unless I’m mistaken, I even see a flash of hope in his eyes, as though he too wonders if there might be a way to repair our past.

At last, he shakes his head again. No. It’s too dangerous, Fei. You wouldn’t be able to handle it. I’m already going to have my work cut out for me keeping myself alive. I can’t allow myself to worry about you the whole time.

I won’t be a burden! I insist. I can help you.

Now he looks amused. How? Will you win the line keeper over by drawing him a picture?

I sigh in irritation. Clap your hands, I tell him.

He stares in understandable confusion. I gesture impatiently, and with a shrug, he claps three times. The sounds are short and loud.

Now do it again, I say, just before turning around. I wait and hear nothing. After several seconds pass, I look back and glare. You didn’t clap.

He looks a little surprised but shrugs. What’s the point?

Just do it, I insist. I turn my back to him, and this time he claps. I face him once more. You just clapped three times.

His face is understandably puzzled at this exercise, but he doesn’t yet seem to grasp that anything unusual is happening. So? That’s what I did before.

Then clap a different number of times, and I’ll tell you the amount. Seeing his baffled look, I add, Do it.

He claps four times, and I tell him the number. Then two. Then seven. The last time, he doesn’t clap at all, and when I turn around, his eyes are impossibly wide.

You didn’t clap that time, I say.

How are you doing this? he asks.

I steel myself, working up the courage to state what I can barely believe myself. I can hear the sounds—they’re caused when you clap. I don’t understand it, but somehow my hearing has returned. I hear this. I hear all sorts of things.

The idea is so ludicrous, so beyond our everyday experience, that Li Wei can’t even try to take it seriously. He looks at me like we’re children again, caught up in a game. It’s some kind of trick. Come on, Fei. Tell me how you’re really doing it.

It’s not a trick! I tell him. It’s been going on for almost two days, and I don’t understand it. That’s why I was so distracted earlier when your father died. Li Wei . . . you’re the first person I’ve told. You must believe me.

He scrutinizes me intently. It’s impossible, he says, though his expression isn’t so certain. Hearing is gone for us.

Not for me, I say.

Why just you then?

I wish I knew. . . . You can’t even begin to imagine what this has been like. The burden of carrying this secret is catching up with me, and I think Li Wei is beginning to realize this. His expression softens, filling with an affection I haven’t seen in him in a long time. Out of habit, he reaches for me, wanting to comfort me like he might have in our childhood.

I nearly let him, but the importance of what’s at stake enables me to push aside my own desires. Stepping back, I try to look tough. Look, I say, believe me or not, but the point is, I can help you on this trip. Maybe I can communicate with the line keeper. I can certainly help in other ways. I pick up a small stone on the path’s side and hand it to Li Wei. Throw it at one of these trees. I turn around again and wait. After a pause, I hear a sharp sound off to my left. When I face him again, I point in that direction. There. You threw it over there.

It’s impossible, he repeats. But I can see in his face that, despite whatever reason is telling him otherwise, he’s daring to believe my story. How? How did this happen? Fei, you must have some idea!

I don’t, I say. I really don’t. But it seems to be here to stay, and as long as I’ve got it, it can be helpful. If I can hear where you just threw the stone, I’ll be able to hear when stones are falling on the climb down.

His breath catches as understanding hits him, and for the first time in our acquaintance, he is at a loss for words. At last, he lifts his hands to speak. Perhaps . . . perhaps you might be useful on this trip after all.

CHAPTER 6

WHEN I RETURN TO THE dormitory later that night, I’m certain that everyone will notice my nervousness and excitement, but much like my hearing, the storm of emotions churning inside is apparent only to me. The other apprentices who went to the funeral have returned, and everyone is preparing for bed. I’m certain if Zhang Jing had still been in my room, she would have noticed something was amiss. But my sister is on the other side of the school, with the servants.

I change for bed and slip under the covers dutifully, just like all the other girls in my room. Darkness descends, lit only by peeps of moonlight shining through the edges of the blinds. Soon my roommates fall into sleep, and the room is filled with the soft sounds of what I’ve come to recognize as breathing. Sometimes I find that sound oddly soothing, but tonight I’m too anxious to give it much thought. I have hours to wait until I can spring into action, and my mind is spinning with all the things that can go wrong on the journey I’m about to embark upon with Li Wei.