by J C Kang
Lord Ting’s men all paused mid-stride, gawking.
“You tricked me!” Lilian sprung up and surged forward with a barrage of punches.
Jie hopped back onto the table and snatched up a pottery shard. Spinning away from the attacks, she sawed through the bindings on her feet. She slid off, putting the table between them.
Lord Ting’s men now set down the crates and stormed over with knives and cleavers from the kitchen. Two came around either side of the table, while Lilian leaped onto it with a dagger drawn.
Jie flipped the table up onto its side, throwing Lilian back, just as both men fell on her. One chopped down with a cleaver, but Jie lifted her bound wrists into its path. The blade nicked her forearm, but frayed the rope enough for her to pull her hands free.
Now entirely mobile, she spun out of the line of the other’s stab. In the same motion, she pushed the table, sending its far legs slamming into the first man. He stumbled into the second, and Jie seized his wrist, twisted the knife around, and let him impale himself on the point. His eyes bulged, and she plucked his weapon away.
The survivor stared, dumbfounded at the turn of events. He lunged at her, but she slipped past him in the direction he’d come and pushed the table so that the leg clotheslined him. She yanked the crossbow bolt from Lord Ting’s back and stabbed the man through his eye.
A musky scent stuck to her hand. Stupid half-elf! The toxin! With only a few more seconds of consciousness, she pulled the table down.
Lilian was gone, and given the way Jie’d spun the table right and left, blocking her view, Lilian could’ve used any of the exits, save for the kitchen.
The two surviving men, Scar Head and Masked Crossbowman—now unmasked—were running toward the main entrance. Torches in hand, they lit banners, paintings, and anything flammable along the way. Fire already raged in the two archways between the common room and the kitchens and conservatory. Meanwhile, a line of firepowder crackled and sizzled in a flash of light. It would ignite the improvised explosive before Jie could reach the makeshift fuse.
Thank the Heavens: the active ingredient of the toxin must’ve evaporated. Tucking the bolt away, she started toward the main entrance.
The men set the pile of bedding ablaze, blocking that route of escape.
With only seconds to escape the initial blast, she bolted to the hall, toward the veranda. She yanked on each set of double doors, only to find them barred from the outside.
An explosion erupted from the common room hearth. Timbers cracked and glass shattered. Firecrackers burst in a staccato beat. A fireball billowed toward her. She turned the corner and raced to the bathhouse. Crashing through the doors of the first room, she dove into the tub. Flames shot above her, filling the room with reds and oranges before receding.
Jie surfaced, but avoided taking a breath of the hot, choking air. The towels and robes were all burning, filling the room with smoke. She climbed out of the tub and, staying low, crawled to the hallway.
The moist wood hadn’t caught, but it wouldn’t be long before the fire from the rest of the mansion reached here. The servants’ door had been blasted open. Jie scuttled through the hall and leaped through the exit.
She gulped in the cooler fresh air, and looked.
Flames raged from every window of the Chrysanthemum Pavilion’s main mansion. Wood crackled, and ash floated on the smoke. From outside the compound walls, bells clanged and people shouted.
Finding out which way Lilian had escaped would take time, especially since the orange glow from the flames kept Jie’s elf vision from kicking in and assessing the area around the mansion. The two surviving accomplices, however…
Chapter 12
First patting soot onto her face, Jie dashed around to the front of the burning mansion. The gate guards approached, running halfway between the main gate and the mansion.
Jie sprinted to meet them. “What happened to Lord Ting’s men?”
Giving her a look from head to toe and back, the first guard pointed to the main gate. “They left to bring help.”
Unlikely. “Did they claim their weapons?”
The guard nodded.
Bidding them farewell, Jie dashed out the front door to search. They couldn’t be more than a few minutes ahead, though they had the advantage of knowing where they were going.
She sniffed. Hidden among the soot and ash smell, and the gathering crowds, was the sesame-ginger marinade. Using her nose, she followed the ever-stronger scent.
The neighborhood fire brigade ran by, laden with buckets, bamboo ladders, and poles, the colors of their blue uniforms flashing.
They passed, revealing the two men striding across the bridge out of the Floating World. One carried a Repeater, which the house guard had failed to mention.
Jie stuck to the shadows as she pursued them into the abandoned silk market. Inside, with the tent blotting out the moons and stars, her elf vision transformed the shadowed, empty stands into hues of green and grey. Though human eyes supposedly couldn’t see as well in the dark, she still stayed low as she trailed them.
They paused at several stalls, looking back toward the entrance, and wagged their fingers. They were counting, trying to locate a specific stand.
“This is the one,” one said.
“Are you sure? I’m counting three down, two over.”
“That’s what she said.” The other threw his hands up.
“Just drop it off, then.”
One knelt and stashed something under the table.
Jie sucked on her lower lip. Whatever else Lilian was, she was right about Jie’s cavalier approach. She should’ve recruited clan sisters to help, because no matter her skills, she couldn’t be in three places at once. Now, she had to choose: follow these men; wait for them to leave to see what they’d left behind, and who came to retrieve it; or track down Lilian.
“All right. Good job tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow.” One of the men saluted the other with a palm in his fist, head bowed.
The other returned the gesture.
If only there were four of her! She dashed up to them as they turned from each other, and pulled Masked Crossbowman’s dagger from his sash. Reaching up and covering his mouth with a hand, she slashed his throat. She caught his crossbow before it clattered to the ground, then eased his body down.
She turned to chase after Scar Head. Just before he reached the edge of the tent, she caught up. She extended an arm—
He spun around, his broadsword sweeping from its scabbard.
Jie rolled backward under the weapon’s arc, then backhand-sprung over his follow-up. She landed on one of the tables in a defensive crouch.
“You!” he said. “You just won’t die.”
“I’m like a cockroach.” And in the dark, she had an advantage. Jie threw her voice to the side with Ghost Echo.
He chopped down toward the perceived source, his broadsword lodging into the table and sending a reverberation into Jie’s feet. He yanked on the weapon to free it.
Jie darted over and slashed his palmar tendons.
He screamed as his fingers went slack about the hilt, but also whipped a dagger out with his other hand and stabbed.
She jumped to the other side of the table, then crawled under it. She threw her voice behind him. “Over here!”
When he turned his back to her, she severed his Achilles tendons. He buckled to his knees, but kept slashing back and forth with his dagger.
Jie came out behind him and cut through his triceps, locking his elbow in a bent position and rendering his weapon useless. She pulled his hair back, bringing him to the ground.
“Now,” she said, stabbing the tip of her dagger into his cheek. “You will die tonight. Answer my questions, and it will be quick. Who hired you?”
“Your whore sister,” he said through gritted teeth.
Jie dug deeper, eliciting a scream.
“I swear it. Our Lord has been her patron for a year—”
“Had been. You betrayed
him. Now, go on.”
“And she’d talk to us, all sweet.” He sniffled. “She slept with us.”
“Impossible. She’d never sleep with her patrons’ guards, and you couldn’t afford her.”
“She loved us. It was true, genuine affection.”
As any other Night Blossom except Jie could fake. She snorted. Lilian had set these men up.
“Well....” His face scrunched up, and he opened his mouth to speak, but then shut it.
Jie knew why. Her blind spot was obvious even to him. “Say it. I promise I won’t hurt you more for the answer.”
His eyes flitted to the blade. “Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think.”
Clearly not. “I’ve never seen you or the other three at the house.”
He shook his head. “Only his most trusted guards went with him to the Floating World.”
“And yet, he got stuck with a pack of traitors today, of all days.”
“She had us poison their food. They were all sick today.”
So Lilian had set herself up as the planner, fixer, recruiter, and operative. The clan had drastically underestimated her. Jie had drastically underestimated her. The blind spot. “So, you kill your lord, what then?”
“She said there’d be a reward and a new job, but never said where.”
Jie looked over to the table where they’d dropped the package. “What did you leave under that table?”
“A message.”
“Who is picking it up?”
“I don’t know. She just told us to leave it there.”
Jie sucked on her lower lip. If Lilian had wanted the message for herself, she would have gotten it from them at the Peony Garden. As was, she likely didn’t want to be seen making contact with whoever planned to retrieve it.
Meanwhile, Masked Crossbowman seemed to be fading in and out of consciousness. In the bigger picture, he was just a pawn, and there was no point in making him suffer. His was a necessary death, lest rumors of real Black Fists get out. “As promised,” she said, “I will make your death quick.”
After slashing his throat, she went over to the table and retrieved the message. No seal, just a honeysuckle scent and Jie’s own name written on it.
With trembling fingers, Jie unfolded the message and looked. It was a poem recounting the parting of lovers, written in Lilian’s graceful hand. But she’d embellished certain words in a way that only a Black Lotus clan member would be able to decipher:
My Sweet. I am happy you found this, because it means that you survived. However, you also fell into my last trap. While you followed Ping’s men, my trail has gotten colder. You were always too impulsive. Goodbye, my sweet. I’ve always loved you.
Jie’s gut wrenched, twisted by conflicting emotions. She started to crumple the message up, but then stopped. This might be her last memento of Lilian. No matter how events had unfolded, she’d tried to keep Jie out of danger; and when that failed, attempted to turn her away from the clan. Even now, she would exact vengeance on the Peony Garden and—
Jie sucked in a breath. There was one last chance to track Lilian down.
Chapter 13
With the crowds gathering outside the conflagration of the Chrysanthemum Pavilion, the streets were nearly empty. Jie still kept to the back alleys, to avoid questions about why a half-elf in a stealth suit was running around. She paused only when she spotted a clan sister on her way to the shrine, and signed, Come to the Peony Garden.
Despite Jie’s scandal the previous night, red banners hung from the Peony Garden’s gates, in honor of Young Lord Peng Kai-Zhi’s imminent First Pollinating. Two house guards stood at the main gate, but beyond, there was none of the usual chatter or sound of musical instruments coming from the mansion. Jie had seen the Peony Garden girls among the crowds outside the Chrysanthemum Pavilion.
She crept around to the back, and like the night before, entered through the empty kitchens. Even the hearth stood cold. Jie went over to it and listened, in case any whispers echoed through the shared flue system.
“I didn’t know,” moaned a disembodied male voice. Shixian’s voice.
Jie’s gut clenched, not with the pleasant butterflies from the night before, but with anger. He was upstairs, either in the Gardener’s room or Lusha’s.
“The Gardener told me she’d paid for it,” he said. “That it was a gift. I didn’t know about the virgin price. I swear. I—”
His scream cut short his words. A female shriek joined his.
Jie darted to the empty common room, leaped up to a tabletop, then pop-vaulted off a column to grab the floor of the mezzanine in front of the Gardener’s room. She pulled herself up, flipped over the railing, and went to the door. No sound came from within, but Jie slid the door open and peeked inside.
The Gardener lay sprawled on the bed, sightless eyes open, blood flecking her lips. A cup rested on a table, but no steam wafted above it. Jie padded in and sniffed. Yue bark toxin, near imperceptible to a human’s frail nose, and fatal in just a few minutes. The poor woman must’ve sipped the tea, started to feel light-headed, and then gone to lay down, never to wake up.
The Gardener deserved many things for what she’d done to Jie, but death?
Another scream echoed in the hearth, this time closer.
Jie ran out, climbed to the top of the mezzanine rail, and then jumped to catch the floor of the third-floor balcony. She pulled herself up, flipped over, and tried the door.
Locked.
Jie went through the next door, into another Blossom’s room. She climbed through the window, shimmied over to Lusha’s, and looked in.
In the area lit by a bauble lamp, ropes bound Shixian spread-eagled to the posts of Lusha’s bed. Sweat beaded on his pale face, and he whimpered as he looked toward a bloodstain on his crotch. On the other side of the bed, cord suspended Lusha’s tied hands to the rafters. Lines of blood trickled from multiple wounds on her face. A bloody cloth served as a gag.
Lilian had meted out all the vengeance Jie had sworn, when she’d knelt all alone in the storeroom the night before. From the sound of Lilian’s soft sniffling to the side, she hadn’t found it easy. Despite all she’d done, she was still sweet, gentle Lilian.
Jie’s heart ached more at what she had to do now. She took a deep breath and bounded through the window, rolling over the carpet. A throwing star whirled at her head, and she handsprung out of its way. Twisting midair, she landed in a crouch, fist to the ground, dagger in her other hand.
Five paces away, Lilian presented her side, a noble’s curved dao sword lifted over her shoulder with both hands. “How—?”
“Don’t you remember? You told me you’d come here to punish them.”
Lilian let out a cute laugh; the way her lips quirked stirred fond memories. “I guess you’re not the only one with a blind spot.”
“No.” But maybe it had been meant to lull Jie into a mistake. She looked around for potential traps. “You planned everything so well, I’m surprised you didn’t predict the possibility of a final confrontation.”
“Who says I didn’t?” Lilian raised an eyebrow.
“Because I suspect I would already be dead.” Jie gauged possible lines of attack. Before tonight, she would never have considered the sword’s longer reach to be an advantage, not in Lilian’s hands. Now, though… She feinted with a stab.
The blade flashed into the space where she would’ve been, faster than Lilian had ever wielded it.
“You are full of surprises,” Jie said.
Lilian snapped back into a ready stance. “I’ve always held back. Just like you taught me.”
“You always let the other sisters win, then.” Jie stayed at the edge of the sword’s reach, ready to attack again. “To hide your true ability.”
No, that wasn’t it, judging by the way Lilian’s lips pursed for a split second. She’d done it because she was a good person. She lowered her weapon. “I’m not going back.”
“The clan wouldn’t take you back,
after what you’ve done. I have no choice but to bring you in for questioning.”
“Or let me go.”
“You know I can’t do that.” Jie lunged again, avoiding the chop, and stabbed.
Lilian slipped out of the first attack, then the follow-up, and riposted with an upward slash.
Jie dodged, but pain seared in her side. She looked down to see a split in the stealth suit, and the fine line of blood from a shallow wound. With a shorter blade and apparently equal skill, she was at a disadvantage. Jie jumped back and plucked the light bauble from the lamp.
She dropped it to the floor and crushed it underfoot. Her elf vision kicked in as the light winked out. She threw a grunt to Lilian’s side with a Ghost Echo.
Turning her back on Jie, Lilian swept her sword through the spot.
Jie surged forward, seizing Lilian’s wrist. She leaped up feet-first and wrapped them around Lilian’s arm. The sword slipped out of her grasp, and its tip lodged into the floor. Jie leaned back to hyperextend Lilian’s elbow, but she bent it, grabbing her wrist with the other hand. She thrust her shoulder down, slamming Jie into the hardwood floors.
The shock knocked the air from Jie’s lungs, and her fingers went limp on Lilian’s arm.
Lilian pulled her arm free, stood, and ran to the door. When she opened it, light from the common room flooded in.
Wheezing, Jie popped back onto her feet and staggered into pursuit.
Lilian threw herself over the mezzanine and dropped down so her feet landed on the railing below. She ran along it to the next column and slid down to the first floor. With a last look at Jie, she ran through the front door.
Jie gave chase, following the same route down to the first floor.
Lilian came back through the doors, then closed and barred them. She spun to face Jie, knife in hand. Her eyes spoke of fear.