The story of thy self. Lan Wangji has always been telling that story to himself, polishing it with every meditation, the story of a boy who knew precisely what to do with every moment of every day until he met someone whose light flooded him and scoured all of his certainty away. He knows who he is: the second young master Lan, Hanguang-jun, Wei Ying's devoted husband, a man who mourned the Yiling Patriarch for thirteen years and who battled his way to reconciling the rules of his childhood with the betrayal of watching his world turn cruel and unreasoning. Some memories flare cold and bright, their pain slow to fade, but he has always had them. He has never forgotten like this before.

In the slow silence, he breathes, careful with it. He has to line up the words before he can speak them, like assembling a weiqi defense stone by stone. "Magnus," he says when he can. "He nearly died and I was not there. I was with Aornis. It was a mundane conversation. She was working her entropy manipulation to kill Magnus all the while."