New Year’s first fireworks danced across Changdo’s night, their exuberant sparks half-reflected upon the Sea of Ghosts. Ling Zhiyu, courtesy name Wenhan, Sixth-Rank Clerk of the Ministry of Truth, Junior Secretary of the Lower Oracular Council, set down his brush to admire the distant pyrotechnics.

From first light to sunset, the Indraracha Institute bustles with activity. The docks continually ferry people in and out of the campus. Meal, study, repeat—every day is a routine at the academy, a routine strengthening the minds and sharpening the skills of the future sorcerers and politicians of Tang Mai.

It’s 30 minutes until midnight and the river’s delta is gleaming with bits of gold dust coming off the tips of the fires scattered about. Dragon-tailed lanterns illuminate the paths as multi-generational families recount raucous stories.

“To the left!”

Sichen was three when the grandmasters first clashed in Zhining Village. She remembered it clearly. The magistrate’s villa was torn from the earth like an obstinate weed, which made everyone cheer, then it was thrown into the drinkhouse, which made everyone groan. But the grandmasters didn’t care. On her father’s back, her small body bouncing to the cadence of his footsteps as they fled their family’s inn, Sichen watched the fighters with unafraid curiosity. Even as ceramic shattered and geese honked and people shouted, even as a broken oxcart flew into the air with a braying ox in tow, even as magic tightened like a fist about to strike, the grandmasters had eyes only for each other.