In the great groaning stratosphere of magic dispersing, clinging to his hands, his limbs, darkening his eyelids — he feels weighted, anchored, a rusted coil that tightens, reduces itself. The flakes of his metal strip in shavings. He corrodes, and cold earth cries deaf around him.

He stumbles to sit, drifts until his legs fold beneath him. Waits for Wei Ying to recollect himself, and steals the first glance molten, the second hard, the third — rapt in latent study. Earlier, he knows, and filth runs slick and sticky on his fingertips, collects beneath his nails. Earlier, the pulse between them germinating, electric.

The way of the land, he knows. The ache of it, grief flaying itself to leave the tattered remains of loam and silt, divided from history. Yiling heard them, and yet, what lives still of Yiling? What lives still of Lan Wangji, death walker of deep prints across this world?

He does not know himself, until he claims Wei Ying's hand again — struggles with the understanding that Wei Ying is a disparate creature, and not a natural extension of himself, his body.

His thumbs curl. Pads flicker. "Your hands run cold." And softened, "Who made a snake of you?"

The world, stripping away Wei Ying's skins.