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Yumi, walking invisible at Painter's side through another town she will leave without ever properly seeing, reflects on how indistinguishable the towns have become to her — only their cool springs and shrines and places of ritual stay in her memory. Today's shrine sits in the middle of a working orchard, the cultivated trees drifting and bumping at their chains, the air cool and dim. It is not strictly traditional — shrines are meant to be set apart — and the people of this town have chosen to keep theirs near. A rebellious corner of Yumi approves. Liyun notes the spangled spirit statues on the roof with a brief frown, then bows out and leaves her yoki-hijo to her prayers.

Painter immediately complains about Liyun; Yumi tells him a yoki-hijo must be pure even in thought, and walks him through the six prayers strictly necessary for the unpracticed. He drones the words after her while she kneels beside him, hands folded, head bowed — perhaps, she thinks, if she can provide the heart the spirits will accept his mouth. The half hour passes too quickly for her and far too slowly for him. He flops onto his side at the end and starts to close his eyes; she snaps at him not to, terrified the moment of sleep will trigger another swap. When he keeps drifting, she pushes a finger through his forehead and the hion-line warmth rolls through them both again — her own emptiness mashed up against his fatigue and fretful frustration — and he sits bolt upright, complaining.

She has a plan for him, but first they must meditate until the appointed ritual hour. He responds with a tirade about ritual baths, ritual clothing, ritual underpants, and ritual fingernail clippers. She snaps that levity is unworthy of a yoki-hijo, that she has been trained into ironclad solemnity by people who knew people would starve if she failed, and that she has turned out fine — or, rather, what she has had to turn out to be. He looks ashamed. They kneel together, and she introduces meditation to him as the rejection of all thought, sensation, and individuality — and is astonished to find he has never been taught it at all. She starts him gently on his breath, the way a child is started. She herself centres easily, slips into the familiar drift of nothing — and notices him next to her, still smiling and still thinking, his presence tugging at her even through the silence. They argue softly about control and accomplishment, and her thoughts drift in turn, against her will, to the strangeness of kneeling beside a person at a shrine. That was a thing married couples did. She remembers Samjae, the yoki-hijo friend of her childhood, smuggling her the forbidden tales of yoki-hijo falling in love, which had always tasted the sweetest because they were forbidden.

Liyun returns and Painter springs up grateful that meditation is over. He pauses on his way out to realise he has never actually been told how to summon the spirits; Yumi tells him not to worry, it is easy — he simply has to stack some rocks. It is time to test her theory.

She walks him to the place of ritual, the fenced-off circle of prepared ground where townspeople have gathered behind the rail and musicians wait. The tether tugs her a few steps inside when he gets too far. He looks back; she nods him on encouragingly. Earlier she had said his task would be easy. That was not exactly true. Real stacking takes years of training. But after the morning in the bath she had come to a conviction: the spirits had begged her for help and sent him because she herself was inadequate. He had to be a hidden prodigy. That would explain everything.

She is able to hold this delusion right up until his very first rock — a large flat piece, intended as the floor of any composition — tips sideways on its own and rolls away. He doesn't notice the gasp from the crowd. He pushes a few more stones into a heap, mashes his finger, yelps. He puts one on top and the heap collapses. He looks back at her, goofy and pleased, and asks if that looks right. Liyun stands watching with a slack jaw. *Oh no,* Yumi thinks. *Oh, spirits, no.* They are in very serious trouble.