...bed. ( He hisses, because truly, now, a man harmed by his own rules is no wittier than one injured by his own blade. Both have earned their bloodletting and must suffer the humiliation with a stiff upper lip and a straight, unyielding spine.

Still, he can pepper his obedience with a parting jab: ) She is no dog.

( Come on, Tykhe. Truly. For all Lan Wangji leads her precisely as if she were collared, with little regard for her delays and confusion, acknowledging the essence of her story and her hurts, but not the immediate reality of her petty questions and pains. No, let them not touch on his hypocrisy, as he reroutes them towards a different tombstone, equally young, the ground beneath it freshly raked and bearing the signs of negligence that suggest the person interred was... of lesser rank, or perhaps committed deeds unsavoury.

At first, no reaction. Tykhe rolls her eyes in hand, a slight pit-pattering of raindrops drenches the grounds. He prepares to brace against the cold. )

There is a third bed —

( And then, a woman peers from behind the tombstone, scream mute and long. )