Chapter Three: The New Manager's First Midnight Meal

Even shadows could run fevers. The clerk was Zhou Xiaoman—twenty-seven according to his human guise, true age undisclosed. His daughter, Little Lamp, was a blot of darkness kept in a glass candy jar. Frost covered the glass. Every time she cried, one of the restaurant's lights went out. “She found this this afternoon.” Zhou opened his hand. A fleck of paper ash bore the mark of a white umbrella. “Tonight she began to fade. If one of the Shadow Folk turns completely white, the Between calls us back. We never find the road here again.” Wen Jiu leaned against the stove. “Echo-seed residue. Make her a bowl of Shadow-Keeping Congee.” “You make it,” Su Li said. “I'm injured.” “I'm the acting manager you abducted.”