The First Emperor was the first and last of true immortals on earth, and no winter touched his realm. No autumn wind blew. His orchards bloomed and fruited and bloomed again. In his court, death and old age were shut out. And every day, he drank a cup of tea brewed in the dew of lotus flowers, which had been collected that morning from the lotuses that grew in a heaven-touched lake at the easternmost point of his palace grounds.

The new girl from the north, wide-eyed and awed at her new surroundings, had been raised all her life to join the emperor’s service. Her mother (who had served sweets to the palace ladies in her youth) had drilled the girl in court etiquette; she’d taught the girl duty and obedience, grace and charm. Yet even she was shocked when her daughter was chosen for that rarest of honors: to collect dew for the emperor’s tea.

It was a small group of maidens who were given this task, no more than eight at a time. They woke before dawn, and they slipped their boats into the lake just as the sky began to whiten in the east. In the predawn light, they rowed from shore. And so they were ready when sunrise broke: when the pink lotus flowers unfurled, and a glowing pink dawn spread across the lake even as dawn spread above in the sky. The heavenly scent of lotuses filled the air. Dewdrops glistened on petals and leaves. But only petal dew would serve the emperor, and time was short. The maidens had only a few hours to gather the emperor’s due before the precious drops evaporated in summer air.

Each girl had a glass vial and tiny glass dropper. It was laborious work to fill each vial, to collect each dewdrop one by one. But they all took pride in their task.

The newest girl had never dreamed of such an honor. Memorizing the various levels of salutations for different court officials; learning to arrange a plate of sweets just so; practicing how to hold her arm properly, gracefully, as she poured a cup of tea—she had never imagined she could be where she was now. On a blessed lake, breathing in the sacred scent of these lotuses. Touching their silken heads. Surrounded by color and beauty like a dream. Her neck ached as she bent her head to her task; her hand cramped as she squeezed her dropper, drawing up a crystalline dewdrop. Her heart sang with joy.

• • • •

How could it happen? you might ask. For the maiden’s heart and mind were pure. She was guileless, transparent as morning dew. She’d been carefully chosen, like all the dew-maidens; the emperor’s aides had tested her rigorously, and found no fault. She was free of envy and meanness, greed and self-interest. Temptation—even the faintest impulse toward it—should never have entered her heart.

It didn’t. For long years, it didn’t.

Each morning, she gathered dew with her dew-sisters, working with joy. She was honored for her position and had few other tasks. She learned to take pleasure in the luxuries of the First Emperor’s court: music and poetry, song contests in the garden, tea tastings in the peach orchard. Fine wines under moonlight, dances, and parties. Delights for all five senses: fine silks on the skin and rose-scented baths, exotic perfumes, dishes to thrill both tongue and nose, beauty to dazzle eyes and ears.

But her greatest joys were always the cool mornings on the blessed lotus lake. Floating amidst that field of bright flowers, beaded with dewdrops numberless as the stars. Collecting those crystalline drops in quiet, alongside the women she now thought of as sisters. She drew liquid light off dawn-pink petals and drew the light of morning itself into her lungs.

Years passed, in the manner of time at the beginning of the world. The newest maiden was no longer new. The group of dew-maidens had changed. More senior girls retired, and new ones were brought in. A dew-maiden’s time was limited, like that which she gathered. One could not harvest those drops of light for too long without change. One could not be trusted with the emperor’s dew water forever.

And the days grew only more precious as time passed. The hushed mornings on the lake—not just the lotuses and their dew, but the bird calls at dawn, ringing off the bright air. The shadow of leaves, the splash of a frog. White herons among the flowers, looking for fish.

And then to row back with the filled vials, to hand them over with satisfaction at the palace. A cup of jasmine tea and hot pastries for breakfast, fresh from the oven. Banter with the kitchen staff. All this was precious—the daily routine, the company of her sisters, the presence of friends. Laughter in the garden under an arch of wisteria. Fireflies at dusk. Walking hidden garden paths, hand-in-hand with another. A beloved voice in her ear, murmuring her name.

She was on the lake again, and the light was all around her. The light of the world, that glowed everywhere that ran under the surface of all things. Something thrummed in her veins. She’d had only scant hours of sleep the night before. She’d been with her sweetheart, and she still felt his touch. The lotus dew shone. The light was there, in droplets, right within reach.

Was it truly greed, what happened next? Greed to take what wasn’t hers? Or just greed to hold on, to preserve the moment, to capture and keep the light she’d collected for so long. To take it into herself and hold on. Oh, to hold on.

A moment of weakness. A traitorous act. Or perhaps, I think, a pure impulse of joy.

She did not think. She brought the lotus bloom to her mouth. She tasted, and swallowed, one precious drop.

• • • •

The sky darkened, although there were no clouds. The birds fell silent. The earth stilled.

The transparent dome of the First Emperor’s paradise cracked.

A cold wind blew through. And Mortal Time stepped in.

• • • •

Your Majesty, I know how you mourn the passage of mortal time. You’ve sought to slow it, halt it, and even reverse it. This portion of my story angers you. I can see it in your eyes, although you cannot speak.

Patience, I ask of you. Let me tell it in full.

• • • •

The dome of paradise cracked, and Mortal Time stepped through.

The earth shivered.

Until this moment, time had been slowed for the First Emperor’s subjects. They aged, but far more slowly than people of today. But now they all felt time’s tempo quicken. A shadow fell across their hearts.

The First Emperor’s aides and ministers ran to his rooms. They threw open the doors, they shouted his name. He was gone. Back to the Courts of Heaven from where he’d come. Back to a realm of light and eternity, where they could never follow.

And our dew-maiden, our foolish girl, our hapless thief? Her sisters on the lake said they saw her turn into a bird. A white heron, lifting into the sky. The heron held a vial in its beak. It soared into the suddenly dim sky, which was the shade of gray dusk. It flew up and up to where the air grew thin, luminous white against the dark, and the vial fell from its beak. Dewdrops spilled out, and they scattered as white stars against the sky. And that is what we now call the Milky Way, which others may refer to as the White River, or Bridge of Stars.

• • • •

There are compensations for the maiden’s act, don’t you think? You mourn the end of an eternal summer, but consider, Your Majesty, the glories of fall. The blaze of red maples, the golden gingko trees. The crispness of air. The summer dew gives way to autumn frost. A lacework of crystals on grass and stems. A burst of final autumn flowers, chrysanthemums orange and purple and gold. Autumn mist on the hills, lit by the sun’s morning rays.

The melancholy of autumn. The shortening days, the falling blue twilights. The call of geese overhead as they leave us. Autumn rains. Rain and rain—the tapping sound on our walls as rain fills autumn pools, as it fills the black nights. What would our poets do, Your Majesty, without autumn? Without an autumn moon to sing of, round and full over the waters? Without the mists and falling leaves? Your poets and artists love this season, you know. They love its bittersweet beauty, its growing chill. They love saying goodbye.

Winter. The breath freezes in air. A crust of snow breaks underfoot. The moon so cold and white above.

It’s said that it’s always winter on the moon.

• • • •

The white heron flew into the sky, spilling a vial of stars. And it’s said that she flew straight to the moon and resides there even now, amid its white mountains and snowy fields. Some say she lives there alone, and weeps. Her tears fall like crystal stars into the night and melt swiftly away.

But there’s another story, too.

• • • •

He was the Moon Heron’s sweetheart, before she flew away. They met in the kitchens. He was the newest apprentice to the First Emperor’s personal tea master, and before the promotion he’d spent years studying with others. He’d learned to brew every type of tea existent in the realm, and was always experimenting with new variations. It was an honor beyond his imagining to learn to brew the First Emperor’s tea.

One of his tasks was to collect the vials of lotus dew from the First Emperor’s maidens. He would meet them at the kitchen door and take their vials one by one. When he first met the girl who would become a heron, he was so struck by the sight—by her sparkling black eyes, her face brimming with light—that he nearly forgot to close his hand around the vial she held out.

It was months before he could make himself say more than a few words to her. But from the beginning, he made sure the best jasmine tea was always served for her breakfast.

The night before she broke the world, they’d walked the garden paths together at dusk. They’d stood on a bridge over a pond, staring at the reflection of the moon below. They’d had a private meal in a hidden arbor, and retired to her private quarters.

They’d spoken of their future. Her time as a dew-maiden was limited, but she could stay on at the palace if she married him. She could find another job. It was true that one day they would both have to leave. Although the First Emperor’s subjects aged slowly, they did age. And in his court, old age and death were shut out. After a certain point, they would be exiled from his inner realm.

But they would leave together. They pledged to be together forever.

Then the dew-maiden betrayed their emperor.

• • • •

The light of the sky dimmed. A cold wind blew.

The royal tea master’s apprentice felt a shadow cross his heart. And he knew.

He who had held the vials of lotus dew in his hands each day—who watched his master bring it to a just-simmering heat, who had begun to help brew the First Emperor’s tea himself—he knew.

The young man ran to the lotus lake. An eerie dusk had fallen; the sun was gray in the sky. His love was gone. Her sisters pointed to the air, where she could no longer be seen. But a hazy band of stars illuminated the sky overhead—a new marvel, brighter at that moment than it has ever been since.

• • • •

He went in search of her, even as the world broke and aged all around him.

In the palace, the First Emperor’s ministers squabbled for power. The gardens and grounds fell into disarray. The first autumn frosts fell.

The young man left it all behind. He traveled the world, looking for a way to get close to the moon. He sought out sages, sorcerers, people of spiritual power. He consulted a great kite-maker, asking if he might make a kite large enough to fly him to the moon. He visited temples and prayed. He begged all the birds of the world—the herons, the cranes, the eagles, and more—to fly him to his beloved.

He sold tea as he traveled, to pay his way. Only one type of tea—her favorite, the delicate, floral green jasmine he had created just for her. He poured it for customers from a red clay pot he’d taken from the palace, and it never ran out.

Eventually, he found his way to the highest mountain in the world.

He was no longer young. Age had caught up with him; his black hair was tipped with white. He made his way slowly up the peak, and winds howled all about him.

It was silent at the top. The night sky stretched above—the great sweep of the Milky Way, a haze punctuated with glittering stars. He could almost reach out to touch it. Here, he would be closer to her than anywhere else on Earth.

He set out his red tea pot and cups. He waited for the moon to rise.

• • • •

The moon rose, and the White Heron of the Moon looked out and down.

She saw her love, so far below. His hair streaked with white. Lifting to her a cup of jasmine tea.

She wept. Her tears fell as a rain of crystal stars, burning in the night sky.

• • • •

He stayed on the mountaintop. He felt her pure, white light. He wasn’t sure if she could hear him, but he spoke to her each night—stories of all he’d seen and done in her absence, memories of what they’d seen and done together. Light musings and jokes, as though she were sitting with him now. He poured her cups of tea. He drank his own cup, and set hers out for the night air and moonlight to take.

He grew thin, there at the top of the world. The roof of the sky was so close. The stars glittered above. Sometimes it seemed that if only he could jump high enough—if he were light enough, if he could float for an instant—then he could catch hold of the nearest star and climb his way up to the moon.

He began to work on a new tea.

He took rolled balls of tea leaves—brought with him from the First Emperor’s stock—and set them to steep in starlight and moonlight. He layered the leaves with his yearning and love. He brewed them in pure snow water, caught in the moonlight before the flakes touched the ground.

He drank, and felt himself growing lighter.

He jumped, pushing off from mountain peak. Again and again. But always, he landed back on earth.

• • • •

The Moon Heron wept, seeing her love. He was so thin now. So frail. And though his face was not yet too aged according to the view of mortal men, his hair had turned pure white.

She was close to the hazy band of the Milky Way, the Bridge of Stars. Moonlight blotted out the view of those stars from earth, but the stars were still there.

And then the moon entered the Milky Way itself, the midst of that river. Its full light glorious in the sky.

Her tears fell, and they were crystal drops, freezing and then melting as they hit the roof of the world. But a white bird—a white heron—heard her call. From the warmth of a summer lake, it flew. It caught one of her tears before it could melt away.

Gently, the bird flew down and dropped that tear—frozen light itself—into the tea master’s cup of tea.

• • • •

The white-haired tea master—he who had once been apprentice in an emperor’s household—drank.

And now he was finally light enough. He leaped off the peak, and this time he didn’t fall back to earth. He caught hold of a low star. The Milky Way hung before him, and he began to climb.

He climbed, stepping upon crystal dewdrops. A bridge, a road, to where she waited above.

And she was there. In a snowy field, in a realm of white light, in the moon’s eternal pure winter—she was there.

• • • •

Your Majesty, are you crying? Do I see a tear in your eye?

Well, I admit it. This is something I never expected.

• • • •

There’s so much I never expected about this meeting, Your Majesty. I imagined you old and frail. I didn’t expect you half-paralyzed, unable to speak. Glaring at me from your bed pillows, unable to wipe your eyes. Helpless, despite all the power of your title and name.

I didn’t know what it would be like, telling you this story now.

Here, let me wipe your face. Are you comfortable? Shall I prop you a little higher in the bed?

You used to hate stories of the White Heron of the Moon. I remember how you railed against them. You said they glorified a thief, a selfish, unthinking girl who stole the First Emperor’s Immortality Dew. But I wonder now . . . are you a little in love with her, like most of us are?

Have you merely grown soft in old age?

• • • •

The Heron Woman of the Moon lived happily ever after with her lover. This is one story we tell.

But the stories we know are the ones we live here on Earth. Here, where the seasons spin past faster and faster as we age.

The First Emperor left, and his empire fell. He left no named heirs. In his wake, new kingdoms and empires rose. New emperors followed. The winds of mortal time blew, and in this new world there was suffering but also new art, music, and poetry—perhaps richer and more beautiful than what had come before. A sharpening of feeling, a new taste of loss. New patterns to be made with shadow and light.

Even our tea changed—did you know that, Your Majesty? In the First Emperor’s time, only green tea was drunk. Delicate, floral, refined. Made from fresh-picked leaves and buds, quickly heated. But in the after-days, tea masters learned to expose the tea leaves to time. To let the leaves first brown and blacken in the sun. Even to age them again after the initial processing—to let them ferment for years in bamboo sticks or baskets. To let time do its work.

And so now we have teas the First Age never knew: dark and complex, full-bodied and rich. We’ve learned to appreciate age.

But still, people grieve what was lost. And some of our emperors, remembering stories of the past, have sought to create those stories anew. To claim for themselves the glories of the First Emperor’s rule. To claim immortality for themselves, or as near as they can. To brew the First Emperor’s Immortality Tea.

• • • •

There is no recipe for Immortality Tea. No written directions from that time. And yet, generations have searched for the First Emperor’s lost grounds, for the tea orchard that once grew on a shaded hill near his palace. For the lotus lake where Immortality Dew once fell.

It’s said that the moment Moon Heron stole her droplet of dew, the remaining dew on the lake’s lotuses all turned to plain water. Yet still, people search. In the markets, vendors sell what they claim are ancient seeds from the lotus lake. Hopeful fools plant them, trying to recreate a lost field of flowers.

Others have tried to collect dew from elsewhere, anywhere. Other lotuses, other flowers and plants. The First Emperor’s lotuses were lost, but perhaps some other dew—consumed every day, in a large enough cup—might still have some power. The Twelfth Emperor drank dew shaken from broad lotus leaves, for his servants could not collect enough dew from the petals alone. And his grandson built a statue of the immortal First Emperor in worship and aspiration, as tall as the tallest tower in his realm, and holding high a bronze plate to catch heaven’s dew.

Other emperors moved on to other ingredients. Rare herbs to crush into their tea. Crushed jade and pearls and melted gold. They hired alchemists to devise entirely new elixirs: drinks of cinnabar, silver, mercury, and lead. Poisons to give eternal life.

These emperors aged prematurely. They sickened and died.

A new emperor came to the throne, strong and powerful and vigorous with life. And desperate for yet more life, for life beyond mortal reach, like his forebears before.

This one heard tell of an old woman in the market. An unexpected master of tea.

• • • •

She was round and cheerful, with sparkling black eyes and hair white as snow. And despite her wrinkles and age, every step she took was imbued with lightness, as though with a single jump she might float entirely away.

Her fame started in the markets of the south, where word spread of an old woman who brewed miraculous teas. Teas that settled stomachs and fevers, that cured chronic coughs and tremors. That brought vigor to the listless, and calm to the anxious. That eased aches of the body and aches of the heart.

Teas that were different for each customer. Delicate teas, in shades of light gold. Strong teas of red-brown to nearly black. A bright, grassy tea of jade green. Teas that comforted, refreshed, and renewed. That brought hope to the despairing, and will and courage to the weak. Each tea poured from the same spout, from the same red clay pot.

The crowds around the tea woman’s stand grew. No one saw her change or refill the pot. What was in it never ran out.

A local magistrate, suspicious of fraud or dark sorcery, ordered the tea woman arrested. But she was gone when the magistrate’s men came to seize her.

And then she was seen in a market several provinces away. And a month later, in a market in the north. “Grandmother Tea,” people called her. Crowds gathered wherever she appeared. She never stayed long in one place. She took as payment whatever customers offered—whether that be coins of silver, or a plea and a prayer.

Finally, she set up shop in our kingdom’s capital.

The emperor, nerves strained from his search for immortality, restless and sleepless, issued an invitation to her to come to his palace. To serve him a cup of tea.

• • • •

She came, the humble-seeming old woman, and bowed before the emperor’s throne. In a glance, she took in the tension of his bearing, the strain on his pale face. The desperation, barely controlled.

She brewed him a pot of dark tea, rich yet soothing. He drank, and his brow relaxed at the first sip.

From then on, she was ordered to come every morning to serve the emperor tea.

The tea helped him. It settled his stomach, eased the hunger of his heart. Lessened, for a little while, his fear. The fear that accompanied his every moment—the fear of age and death, of inevitable decline and weakness and loss. The fear that had haunted his forebears and driven some to an early grave. He drank Grandmother Tea’s brew, and for that moment the fear receded. He wasn’t looking ahead into the terrible future. He didn’t hear the panicked wingbeats of dread. There was only the present: the warmth of the cup in his hand, the rising steam, the rich, full flavor—smoke and honey and apricot tones, a hint of roasted grain. And the barest, faintest edge of bitterness, somehow enhancing the sweetness and making it whole.

The emperor drank, and he was soothed. He was able, briefly, to again take pleasure in the present moment. To notice the light in his gardens, the charm of the palace girls. To savor a meal and conversation with companions. His realm was rich and at peace; he was at the height of his powers. It seemed, now and then, almost enough.

But not quite.

Grandmother Tea came every day with her pot, easing his heart’s hunger with her brew. But that hunger for eternal life was great, fueled by deep fear and stoked and restoked by others. Alchemists who came with their fake elixirs, priests and sages with arcane rituals and spells. Physicians with charlatan treatments to extend life. Advisors who cynically supported his quest, currying favor and manipulating his desire to serve their own ends.

He drank Grandmother Tea’s brew in the morning, then met with men who presented him schemes to achieve immortality: maps to distant lands where Fruits of Immortality grew; funding requests to seek out more rare herbs. Promises in exchange for silver and gold.

Grandmother Tea had been in the capital a month. She served the emperor and then served tea to the market crowds. But she would not stay long—everyone knew that. The emperor had sent his men to follow her, to try to find where she stayed after she closed shop each night. But she, fleet and light-footed, always eluded his men, melting away in the crowds.

Now, before the close of a second month, he drank his tea and asked her, as he had asked her before, to enter into his permanent service. And as before, she politely declined.

He nodded, feeling gracious. The tea was warm in his veins; he felt clearheaded and keen. And he asked her the question he’d been wanting to ask since first learning of her.

“Grandmother,” he said. “Do you have the skill to brew Immortality Tea?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Your Majesty, the ingredients for that are long lost. The First Emperor’s tea plants are gone, and the dewdrops for the brewing are beyond our reach, shining high above in the sky.”

The emperor nodded. “But what if they were found again?” he said. For just yesterday, a man had come to him, claiming that he knew of a shaded hill where rare tea plants grew, descended from the very ones that had provided the First Emperor with his morning tea.

The old woman said nothing.

“You will speak,” the emperor said, and she did not. And then—“You will stay, until these ingredients are found.” And at a gesture, his men moved to take hold of her.

But she, light-footed, twisted under their reaching hands. A puff of wind, a glitter of light like snowfall. Some swore, afterward, that they’d seen—for an instant—a white bird. And Grandmother Tea was gone.

• • • •

Your Majesty, you are impatient with these old tales of dead emperors. I know, I have kept you waiting.

One more tale, I promise. And you will have your answer.

But first, to ease you: another cup of tea.

• • • •

Grandmother Tea disappeared before a court’s wondering eyes. But she’s been seen again, here and there, through the ages. Sometimes she’s a round-faced old woman with snow-white hair, and sometimes she’s younger, with hair of iron-gray or black. But always she’s a cheerful woman with brightness in her eyes, light-footed as someone who’s swallowed the light of the moon. She never stays long, but while she’s here she’ll share what she has freely with either emperor or beggar. As free as the light of the stars and the moon.

It’s been many years now since she’s come to earth. But twenty years ago, there were rumors. You probably heard them. That she’d returned to mountain villages of the west, the woman who was said to be the daughter of Moon Heron and her lover. Daughter of she who stole the First Emperor’s dew, and also daughter of the greatest tea master of the First Age.

At that time twenty years ago, there was also a princess living in this palace. The last of the emperor’s recognized children. He paid her little attention, for he had many children, and those other children were sons. And he’d never particularly cared for her mother.

And there was something that the emperor cared for more than he cared about any of his children, and that was to create (or discover, or recreate) the brew that would grant him immortality. For this, he pressed the greatest talents of the realm into his service. For this, he funded expedition after expedition in search of rare minerals and plants. For this, he had the last magical horned-horse killed for its golden blood. For this, he did far worse.

He could not retrieve an Immortality Dewdrop from the night sky. He did try: With the wealth of his treasury, he commissioned kite-makers and engineers to design him a flying machine. And they succeeded, but their flying machines never came close to the stars. And taking inspiration from the story of Moon Heron’s lover, he sent sage after sage to remote mountaintops, with stern directions to somehow climb up and retrieve a Milky Way star. To keep them light of body like the great tea master, he did not give them food. The sages all froze or starved to death.

Finally, a scholar unearthed for him a forgotten legend. The legend claimed that long ago, in a great battle of the heavens, a dragon carelessly knocked a star from the Milky Way out of the sky. The star fell into the sea and became an island. And on that island, it was always summer; birds forever sang, and orchards bloomed and fruited and bloomed again. Clear springs ran from the earth, and whoever drank from those springs would live forever.

The island was said to lie somewhere to the east.

The emperor became determined to find it.

• • • •

This emperor did not trust his own admirals. He feared that if they were successful in finding the Isle of Immortality, they would keep its water to themselves. And so, he sent his eldest son out to command the first fleet.

His daughter was but an infant at the time, still nursing in a maid’s arms as her mother had died shortly after her birth. She did not notice when her eldest brother left.

That brother never returned, and the emperor grew tired of waiting. Six years after his first son left, the emperor sent his second son to sea, with a fleet only slightly smaller. This time the princess was old enough to know, old enough to attend the departure. She hardly knew this brother, a distant figure. But she was excited by the pomp and ceremony of it all: the cheers of the crowds, the songs of flutes and drums. The ceremonial dances and blessings. Her brother standing on the dock before his ship, handsome and tall in a coat of ocean-blue. And her father beside him, praising his son. Looking at him with what looked like love.

Years passed. There was no word of Second Brother’s fleet. Five years after its departure, the emperor sent out another expedition, this time with his third son at the helm. This son also never returned.

And so, the princess’s childhood passed: brothers disappearing at intervals, each interval shorter than the one before and the size of the fleet shrinking each time as well. She was raised on stories of her lost brothers’ heroism, the glory of their quest for the Immortal Isle. She grew up on stories of other quests for immortality, of distant lands found and mapped and (sometimes) conquered. Of daring adventures and deeds and accomplishments, like the capture of the horned-horse or the great dew-gathering statue of the Immortal Emperor built by one of her father’s forebears, a lost wonder of the ancient world. She learned stories of the First Age: its lost glories, and the tale of Moon Heron and her lover who climbed to the moon.

The princess dreamed of distant lands, of seeing the world’s wonders for herself. She hardly ever left the palace. She was a princess, and she was to be protected within the palace walls. Her father did not much care what she did or did not do, but there were ministers and servants to uphold tradition. A rigid, impersonal bureaucracy to keep her in place.

In her eighteenth year, her fifth and sixth brothers, a pair of twins, were sent off to sea together. Together, but also apart, for they were sent in opposite directions—one toward the east and one to the west. If the world were round as his scholars said, the emperor had reasoned, perhaps sailing west to go east might be the way toward immortality. To find out, he set his twins against each other in a race. The treasury had been suffering from overspending, and so the sons were given command of only one ship each. They set sail, promising one other that they would meet on the Immortal Isle.

And then there was only one son left, the seventh son, and the princess’s favorite. The only one she was truly close with. He was only three years older than her, and they’d played together as children. Even now, with his many duties, he made time, now and then, to visit with his younger sister.

She was twenty years old, and her last brother was called to go to sea. Her father had once thought to keep this one at home, to be sure of an heir if his other sons never returned. But as the emperor aged, the thought of mortality made him ever more frantic. He felt he was running out of time. He was ready to sacrifice everything.

The week before her brother’s departure, the princess requested an audience with her father. He was in his private chambers, head bent over paperwork. The aide announced her name. Her father looked up and blinked, and she knew that for a moment he did not know who she was.

She bowed, restating her name and position. And asked permission to accompany her brother on this last voyage.

The emperor stared, mouth agape. And then he laughed.

“Absurd,” he said. “Young ladies like you don’t go on expeditions like this.” And he bent back to his papers. It was a dismissal. He said nothing more.

• • • •

At their last goodbye, the princess squeezed her brother’s hand. “Come back,” she said. “Promise me.”

He pressed her hand back. And then, in full view of the crowd and defiance of all court decorum, he pulled her suddenly into a full embrace. He held her tight. She felt the tremble of his breath. But he made her no promise.

• • • •

And then the princess was alone in the palace, with an attentive staff and few real friends. And a heart full of dreams and longing.

It was then that she heard the first rumors that Grandmother Tea was back, selling her tea in mountain villages to the west. Her tea was said to cure all ills of the world. To change a person’s life. Others in the palace dismissed the rumors, saying it was merely servant gossip, or the story of yet another pretender. But the princess was determined to see for herself.

There was a famous temple in the mountain town where Grandmother Tea had last been reported. So the princess submitted a request to make a pilgrimage there with her retinue, to pray for the good health and fortune of all her brothers and for the gracious and magnanimous emperor as well. The request was readily granted.

She had never been to these mountains, only a week’s ride away. She’d hardly been anywhere. The road climbed under her carriage; birds twittered from the trees. Streams and rivers rushed past; valleys opened up under sunlight. The country inns and markets were filled with strange new foods and wares, with people speaking in local accents she barely understood. They passed pretty towns and ramshackle huts, green fields and shrines, and an abandoned garrison. Monkeys called shrilly from the forests. Deep river gullies opened under their feet, as the road became a stone bridge. The princess imagined walking through one of the villages or forests alone, without the company of her maids and guards. She imagined wandering through the world like Grandmother Tea: alone and utterly fearless.

The air thinned. The road hugged sheer cliffs, winding up and up. The night before the princess visited the temple, she stood in a stone courtyard beneath the night sky. She stood near the roof of the world. The Milky Way shone as a pearly haze above, a great river of misty white light. She could almost reach out and touch it.

At dawn, she entered the temple to make her offerings and prayers. Then she made her inquiries, discreetly. She learned that Grandmother Tea had, of course, left the area weeks ago.

• • • •

Grandmother Tea had left, but on the journey back to the capital, the princess’s retinue stopped at a town for supplies. She walked through the market to stretch her legs. There was a woman selling tea at a table. She was middle-aged, with just-graying hair. A deeply tanned face, wiry body, and sparkling black eyes.

The princess had a cup of tea. It was bright gold and tasted like spring in her mouth. It tasted like holidays, like the sight of a beloved ship coming back into port. Like hope and adventure, and a call to courage.

The tea seller looked into her eyes. The princess’s maids and guards stood nearby, but the question in the tea-woman’s eyes was silent, and understood by the princess alone. Do you want to come with me? those sparkling eyes asked.

Yes, the princess mouthed. And her heart repeated: Oh, yes.

The tea-woman smiled.

• • • •

She was not Grandmother Tea, the princess would later learn. Not the Grandmother Tea she had sought.

Instead, she was one of Grandmother Tea’s students. For on her visits here, Grandmother Tea occasionally takes on an apprentice. And occasionally, one of these apprentices takes on one of their own.

This tea master was not Grandmother Tea, but she knew some of her tricks. She was fleet and light-footed. She took the princess’s hand, and even as one of the guards stepped forward, the two women vanished with a puff of wind. A glitter of light.

• • • •

And now, Your Majesty, we are nearly at the end of this story. I know that you have waited long for this moment. Longer than I’ve been alive.

The princess roamed the world with her teacher, learning and seeing. Thinking and doing. And when teacher and student at last parted ways, the princess continued to roam on her own.

Finally, twenty years later, she turned her steps toward home.

Her father was still alive, she had learned. Old, older than anyone could reasonably expect—the rare herbs and elixirs he took had an effect, after all. But they could not ward off time forever, nor guarantee health. She’d heard that he’d suffered a seizure, an occlusion in the brain. He could no longer walk or talk, could barely move.

She turned toward home, bearing her father gifts. She sold tea as she traveled, and her fame as a tea master preceded her. Her father’s men met her at the city gates. Some in the palace could still recognize her.

And so, she was admitted into the emperor’s presence, his innermost chamber. The only one of his children to return.

• • • •

And so I am here, Your Majesty, with tea to ease your discomfort and pain. To hopefully soothe your last days. I am sorry that this brew can do no more; it cannot heal, cannot restore speech or movement or time. It cannot reverse the damage in your body, or give you back youth. Grandmother Tea herself could not do that with the ingredients she had on hand when she first appeared.

Ah, that’s the question you want to ask, though, isn’t? With the ingredients she had on hand. You want to know if I brought back something more, if I found that ingredient you seek. If I succeeded where my brothers did not. You want to know if I found that missing thing—dew from lotus blooms or a star from the sky. A teardrop from a moon goddess, or water from the springs of a star-born isle.

Your Majesty, you never trusted your admirals to bring back Immortal Water if they were ever to find it. And yet you believed my brothers would do so. Respectfully . . . why? Why would you trust anyone—even the most dutiful son—to return to you with such treasure? You never thought they might keep it for themselves?

You never thought that, given ships and crew and supplies, at least one might seize the chance to be free?

But I am your daughter, and I have returned. I have roamed the world and crossed into countries unmapped. Without your funding or aid, I’ve traveled through mountains and deserts, forest and jungle and plains. I’ve sailed the rivers and lakes of this country and set sail over the sea.

And I found it. I have some now, in this flask. Water to brew Immortality Tea. Enough for a single cup.

I came back because I need tea leaves to finish the drink. A single dewdrop gave Moon Heron eternal life, but I don’t want to spend eternity on the moon. Nor do I want to stay on an Immortality Isle, forever removed from human affairs. I want the choice to stay in the mortal world, to move between worlds like the First Emperor himself. So, I need to brew mortal tea leaves, leaves grown from plants firmly rooted in this earth. I need the tea leaves the First Emperor once grew.

And here I am lucky, for one of your schemes has worked after all. That special tea grove you planted after I left, the one on that shaded hill? The man who convinced you of the scheme was correct: Those plants are indeed grown from cuttings descended from the First Emperor’s grove. Brewed with ordinary water, they make mostly ordinary tea. Yet I hear the taste is exquisite. I picked some this morning and pan-roasted them within the hour.

Now it comes, Your Majesty. I have the water heating in this pot. I’ll steep the First Emperor’s leaves. The question is: Should I drink it?

Should I break the world, as a dew-maiden once broke it long ago?

I’ve always loved the tale of Moon Heron. You’ve hated her, blamed her for everything wrong in our world. But I love that she stole a dewdrop. I love that she took what wasn’t hers. She was a dutiful maiden, raised all her life for obedience, and she took what wasn’t hers. What was claimed by the First Emperor for himself alone. Impulse, rebellion, an irresistible moment of greed. A thoughtless impulse of joy. We don’t know what it truly was, why she did it. But I love her.

And there is a tale told to me by my old teacher, who heard it from her teacher, who heard it from Grandmother Tea herself. And this story says that it was all fated. That Moon Heron was always meant to do what she did. That the First Age was meant to be broken, the dome of paradise cracked. Humans were not meant to live for as long as they once did. Fall and winter are our inheritance, too. In this story, the First Emperor knew what would happen. He bears Moon Heron no anger. And though he left our world, there are days that he visits Moon Heron and her lover on the moon, and they all sit down for a cup of tea.

Your Majesty, I ask you now even though you cannot reply—do you think I should do it? Shall I drink this tea and claim immortality for myself? Break the world again and remake it from the shattered bits? In place of the First Emperor, I would set myself up as an Empress. I’ll declare a new age, and accept all that it brings.

Or perhaps I should take this brew now, and go to the harbor and pour it into the sea. Perhaps I should go to a high mountain and fling it up at the stars. Maybe I should let it simply sit out for the night air to take—let the tea evaporate and then rain down from the sky on us all. Perhaps I should share this tea with the world, as Moon Heron shared what was left in her vial of dew. As her daughter and her daughter’s students—as my old teacher—share freely what they have. Should I do that instead? What new stars might be born?

Your Majesty, I’ve come back to you, the daughter you ignored. The one who was never expected to travel out in the world, to do anything, to achieve anything of her own. I came back to see your face as I speak these words.

Your Majesty. Father. My tea is now ready. Father, what do you think I’ll do next?