Ashley’s scream shattered the tension. “Someone’s coming!”
A gust of wind blew into the room. Demons and warriors alike scattered from the force of the blast. But I held my ground. When the wind had died down, I hardly dared to believe my eyes as I drank in the sight before me.
Spirits. Dozens of them. In shades of ghostly gray and blue, they flooded the room, bringing with them warmth that reminded me of a fireplace.
“Wh-what’s going on?” Jordan stammered.
I recognized these spirits. One had Ye Ye’s kind, crinkled eyes. One had Ba’s wider-set eyes. One had my narrow jaw and higher nose.
These ghosts couldn’t be who I thought they were. Could they?
“Sorry we’re so late,” said the spirit of a middle-aged woman with curly black hair. “Hongyi was pigging out in the human world.” She tugged on the ear of a nearby man who looked slightly older than she was. He still gnawed on a drumstick.
“It’s called the Hungry Ghost Festival, not the Starving Ghost Festival, Cixi,” Hongyi protested. Cixi yanked on his ear again. “Ow! Let go, woman!”
The demons stirred on the ground. Meng Po pointed a finger at the newly arrived spirits. “Get them!” she screamed. A few demons got to their feet and tried to attack the ghosts, but the ghosts simply blasted them away with a wave of their hands.
“It would be a grave mistake to attack us right now,” warned Cixi. “We’ve just eaten a grand feast prepared for us by our living descendants. Our souls will be fortified with extra energy until the end of the Hungry Ghost Festival, and even for many days afterward.”
Meng Po rolled up her sleeves and shot across the floor so fast that her image blurred. Ashley and Jordan dove out of her way, and Ren coolly stepped to one side. Meng Po didn’t seem to notice any of them. Her gaze was fixated on the spirits.
My ancestors.
“Look out!” I shouted.
But the spirits stood in a row like one big ghostly wall. When Meng Po flew into them, they raised their hands and sent her careening backward. Her body crashed into a nearby window and then shattered it. Down went Meng Po, right over the side of the Last Glance to Home Tower.
“Oh my gods!” shouted Jordan, throwing his hands up over his face. “Will she be okay?”
“Who cares?” Ashley cried gleefully. “Hey, Moli, are you seeing this—? Wait. Where’s Moli?” She looked around with a startled expression on her face, as though realizing for the first time that Moli was nowhere to be found.
“She’s gone to save her father,” I explained.
“Good. At least one of us should be reunited with their father,” Ashley muttered.
Ren sprinted over the unconscious demons, unintentionally knocking out a demon that had started to get up. I followed him, careful to avoid the broken glass on the floor. Together, we looked over the edge of the tower, where Meng Po had fallen.
I squinted to try to see better in the darkness, but there was so little light that it didn’t matter. The Lady of Forgetfulness had vanished.
“Don’t worry, Falun. Meng Po will be all right,” called Cixi.
“Drat,” muttered Ashley.
Falun. My Mandarin name. It had been so long since anyone had called me Falun. So long since I’d seen Ye Ye.
I faced my ancestors. There were five of them in total, two women and three men, gazing back at me with the same interest that I imagined was on my face.
I wished someone had taught me how to react to seeing the spirits of my ancestors, my family, for the first time—and right after they’d blasted an evil old lady out of a tower. That seemed like a useful lesson to add to the training curriculum in the New Order instead of algebra. (Who uses algebra?)
“You … you guys are …” I swallowed, trying to remove some of the tightness in my throat. “You’re … my …
“Family,” I urged myself to say. “Family.” How hard could it be to say one word?
To my horror, something wet dripped onto my cheeks. I swiped at my tears, but it was too late. Everyone was seeing Faryn Liu, the girl who’d once been the Heaven Breaker, crying like a big baby.
“I thought you guys weren’t coming,” I managed to say. “I thought you … that you didn’t … that you didn’t consider me part of the family.”
“How could that be possible?” Cixi said at the same time that Hongyi said, “Yeah, we debated that for a bit. I still vote no.” She swatted him upside the head, and he howled.
Another, older woman stepped out from behind the bickering couple. Her bushy eyebrows and strong jawline reminded me of Ba.
“Nai Nai?” I said cautiously.
The old woman smiled and revealed a row of teeth, half of which were missing. “Falun.”
I gaped at my grandmother, trying to pinpoint where I’d heard her voice before. And then it struck me.
“The voice I’ve been hearing in my head—it’s yours.” The voice that had been guiding much of my journey to and through Diyu. The voice that had been present in every one of my visions about my brother. “You … you showed me those dreams about Alex. You were trying to help me help him. Weren’t you?”
The soft, warm smile that stretched across Nai Nai’s face told me all I needed to know. My grandmother had never abandoned me. None of my ancestors had. They’d been helping me all along.
“Wait,” Ren gasped. “Your voice—I recognize it, too. You showed me that vision. You showed me the way here!”
Nai Nai turned her smile onto Ren, nodding. The light in her eyes grew stronger and more serious. “Falun, you remind me of your father when he was your age,” my grandmother said. “Headstrong. Reckless. To a fault sometimes.”
Some of the warmth vanished from the pit of my stomach. It would be on-brand for
