Chapter Five: The Buddhas of Dunhuang Have No Backs

His arm sank into rock. Then he entered a black city overlapping the grotto. A person crouched behind every Buddha; an unrealized catastrophe seethed beneath each mural. Thousands of shadows were linked by painted cords that ended around a key of black and gold. Rin stood beside it. She wore Lu's face perfectly, even his anger. “Your sister has waited ten years,” she said. “Want to know who left her here?” She pulled. Every cord tightened. In the physical grotto, twelve candidates were strangled by their inner shadows. Lu's knees hit the ground. The vision's first scene had arrived twenty-three hours early.