But Yún had turned into Little Miss Proper. She had no time for pranks, only her studies. Even worse, she lectured me the same way Mā mī did. I wasn’t smart enough, steady enough. Oh, sure, she didn’t say those words exactly, but telling me I had “lots of potential” was just another way of saying I was too stupid right now.
Ai-ya, how I wish we’d never won that stupid reward. We wouldn’t be friends with Lian, but at least we’d be friends with each other.
Chen materialized next to me, large and spiky. You forgot a few things downstairs.
He set my ink bottle (capped) and a pile of smudged notes on my desk.
Thank you, I said through gritted teeth.
You also forgot to say good-bye to Yún.
Who cares? She doesn’t.
Chen grunted in a way that could mean “you stupid boy” or “I know lots more than you do but I’m not telling.” Pigs were obnoxious like that, and Chen the worst of all.
Why don’t you call Gan? he asked after a few moments.
He’s busy, I snapped.
Not today. Tao says Gan went on night shift last week.
Tao was Gan’s ox–spirit companion.
Cursed nannies, I thought. Always gossiping about their humans behind their backs. But I punched Gan’s number into my talk-phone anyway.
Fizzle-sizzle-clickety-click.
Gan answered on the second chime. “Kai.” Gan answered on the second chime. “Kai.”
His voice was deeper, quicker than last year.
“How did you know—”
“New talk-phone with ID circuitry,” Gan said. “Last week. Standard issue.”
Aha. That meant he’d passed his entrance exams for the king’s guards. Trust Gan not to mention it. Well, knowing how the royal wizards spiked the lines regularly, we were better off talking in face-time. “Uptown shiny hotspot,” I said. “If you have time.”
“A couple hours, sure,” Gan said. “They put me on night shift duty last week. What about the others?”
Meaning Jing-mei and Danzu.
“Yeah. But you better call them.”
Before he could ask about Yún, I clicked off.
Old habits are hard to rub clean, as the saying goes. Even if we weren’t a real gang any more, we still used our codewords. “Uptown shiny hotspot” meant the new tea shop in the palace square. It had silk screens playing music videos from local bands, and it served rare teas and snacks imported from the Phoenix Empire and beyond. That was another thing that had changed between last year and this one—we all had plenty of money.
Speaking of which, I tucked some bills and coins into my shirt and smoothed back my hair.
Chen appeared in a fuzzy pig-shaped cloud and grinned at me. Pretty.
“Shut up,” I said. “And move your ugly snout from my mirror.”
His only reply was a snorting laugh before he popped out of sight.
The wind-and-magic lifts were running on half schedules, but even so, most of the front cars were empty. I tossed a ten-yuan piece at the fat counterman, hopped over the railing and into the front seat. A whistle shrieked. I buckled myself in just in time. Magic crackled around the lift. A second whistle split the air. The next minute, the cars dropped down two heart-stopping levels to Lóng City’s main terrace.
An attendant handed me a double-strength chai—standard issue for all express passengers so we could recover our heartbeat. I slugged down the cup and staggered through the gates into the main square. The tea shop stood on the corner between the palace and the city’s largest avenue. Jing-mei and Gan had taken over the biggest table by the ceiling-high glass window. Jing-mei played some complicated solitaire game, while Gan watched from half-lidded eyes. Two miniature teapots and matching cups were already in use.
I slid into the seat next to Gan. “No marble eyes?”
Royal guards had special surgery that gave them artificial eyes with all kinds of wiring and special connections into the palace’s magic currents. Gan shook his head and gave me a slow amused smile. “Not yet. Check again in seven years.”
Jing-mei flipped her cards into a new pattern. She wore a filmy blue tunic that glittered with sparks of magic flux pulled in from the surrounding air.
“Nice threads,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes. “That slang is so old, it died before my ancestors did.”
“It was a joke.”
“An awful one. Hey, Deming.”
She beckoned to a passing waiter, a sleek young man with a shaved head and spectacles that glittered with magic and electricity. “More ginger tea,” she said. “Oh, and some of those pepper pastries you told me about.”
The waiter blinked. Bright specks flowed over his lenses. I’d heard of the new micro-receptor-transmitter technology, but I’d never seen it before outside the royal palace, and even there it was new stuff. With a smile both polite and condescending at the same time, Deming glided away to fill our order. Jing-mei shuffled her cards anew. “He’s their best waiter,” she said. “We’re lucky to get his service.”
Gan snorted. Jing-mei shot him a sharp look. “It’s true.”
“I never said it wasn’t.”
Jing-mei’s mouth stretched into a thin, unhappy smile, but all she said was, “You said you liked those pastries.”
Deming returned with a tray stacked with cups, teapots, and a platter bearing small white pastries. They were fancy ones, dusted with red and black powder, and arranged to look like Lóng City’s highest bell tower. I snagged one from the top, ignoring Deming’s pained expression at my lack of appreciation for art.
“So, where’s Danzu?” I asked.
“He’s coming, but he might be late,” Gan said. “He’s checking over a special shipment.”
“What kind of shipment?”
Gan shrugged. Jing-mei glanced away. All those stories about Danzu and his new gang being smugglers were true, then. Embarrassed, I stuffed the pastry in my mouth. Deming had continued to hover around our table. When I scowled at him, he just sniffed.
That’s when I realized why they were called pepper pastries.
Fire exploded inside my mouth. I choked, spraying pastry bits all over the table. Jing-mei poured a cup of ginger tea and emptied it down my throat. I swallowed and wiped the tears from my eyes. Oh, joy. Everyone in the shop was staring at us. How nice.
Jing-mei poured a second cup. I waved it away. “No more,” I croaked. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
She frowned, but then glanced up. I followed her gaze to see Danzu, grinning at all of us. How much had he seen? Too much, I guessed.
“You haven’t changed at all,” he said. He dropped into the seat opposite me, still grinning.
I grinned back, though it made my teeth hurt. “Hi, Goat Boy.” Danzu’s companion spirit was a scrawny goat with mismatched horns.
Danzu made fake grunting noises at me.
Gan grabbed my arm before I could smack Danzu. “Shut up. No fighting.” Under his breath he added, “I wish Yún were here. She could make you both behave. Why didn’t you invite her?”
“She was busy, okay?” My gut cramped from guilt and the pepper pastries. I drank another cup of ginger tea, slowly. “When she’s not studying, my mother gives her extra work in the shop.”
“Really? I heard your mā mī closed the shop.”
I hesitated. “Not completely. We’re doing some astrology readings for old customers. Some special conjuration orders. Things like that.”
“Hü.” Danzu studied me with a speculative look. “Does that mean you’re doing magic?”
Remembering the ink disaster, I shook my head. No use talking about working magic myself, all alone on the city walls. That was just an accident. “Mā mī does the real magic. Yún and I do inventory and accounting books. And lessons. I think I might die doing lessons.”
Jing-mei snickered. “I still don’t know why you signed on as an apprentice. You hate that stuff.”
“Oh, but I love my health,” I assured her sol
emnly.
“Oh, yeah,” Danzu said. “If he refused, his mā mī might lay a curse on him, turn him into a gargoyle. Not that being a gargoyle would hurt your looks,” he added.
He grinned. I grinned back. This time my teeth didn’t hurt so much. Gan just shook his head. Then Jing-mei started a long story about some old rich merchant who bought magic infused shirts because he wanted to impress his beautiful young wife. Gan followed with stories about early days in the academy and pranks they had played on their officers. It wasn’t exactly like old times. No Yún, for one thing. But the talk itself was good, and underneath, I could hear Chen’s snorfling and the faintest replies from Jing-mei’s monkey-spirit, Gan’s ox, and Danzu’s miserable goat.
“So,” Danzu said, pouring more tea into his cup, “what is going on with the king?”
Gan was just reaching for the last pork dumpling. He paused and gave Danzu a suspicious look. “He’s ill.”
“I know that, stone-face. But I hear rumors. Thought you might have the real story.”
“Me? I’m just a grunt in the academy.”
“Not anymore. I heard you graduated last week.”
“So? That only makes me a different kind of grunt.”
Danzu gave a quiet chuckle. “You are one careful Ox Boy. Okay, forget I asked. I was just curious.”
My skin itched, uncomfortable at how the mood had changed so quickly. Jing-mei must have felt the same way, because she scrunched her face. “We’re all curious, Danzu. You should know that.”
“And what makes you think we know more than you do?” Gan said.
“I don’t think so. But I ask, just in case. The more I know, the better I can figure plans for some special deals.”
“Smuggling,” I said, without thinking.
Danzu made a rude gesture. “No.”
“Then what kind of special deals do you mean?” Gan said. “You don’t talk to us anymore.” His glance slid toward Jing-mei. “At least you don’t talk to some of us. All we can do is guess.”
“Well, you guessed wrong.” Danzu stood up and dropped a bag onto the table. It landed with a noisy clank. “Here. My treat. See you later. Maybe.”
He stomped out the door and slammed it shut.
I blew out a breath. So did Jing-mei. Gan stared out the window. I followed his glance, and saw Danzu emerge from the tea shop. An older man and two young men crossed the square to join him. They all conferred a few moments, then melted away into the crowds.
“I have heard stories about the king,” Gan said softly. “But I didn’t want to—I wasn’t sure.”
Jing-mei laid a hand over his, then plucked it back and started fiddling with her cards, shuffling them in different patterns, over and over. I watched them both and thought how our good hour was just an illusion. The truth was, our gang had broken apart, and none of us felt comfortable talking about anything but fluff.
“I heard . . .” I said tentatively.
Both their gazed flicked up to mine.
I cleared my throat and tried again. “Mā mī told me yesterday that things weren’t good in the palace. I don’t know where she heard it, but she says the court physicians can’t figure out what’s wrong. They bled him, stuffed him with pills, read his latest astrology charts. Nothing helps. Even the potions cooked up by the royal wizards did zilch.”
“That’s what I heard, too,” Jing-mei whispered. She started another shuffle, stopped, and set the pack aside. “And it started so quick—right in the middle of a private talk with those tilt-nosed muckety-mucks from Lang-zhou City.”
“Diplomats,” Gan murmured.
“Same thing,” Jing-mei said.
She was right. Lang-zhou City was the biggest and richest of all the mountain kingdoms. Some claimed it was too far into the lower hills to count. No matter. Lang-zhou City guarded the main passes into the Phoenix Kingdom. Anyone who wanted to transport goods into or out of the mountains had to use their roads, just like anyone who wanted to trade with central and northern kingdoms had to go through ours.
Gan cleared his throat. “They say some of the nobles are plotting—I mean, planning what might happen if the princess doesn’t return in time.”
“She will,” I insisted. “You know Lian. She’s probably on her way now.”
Again, their gazes swerved up at the same time. Gan glanced at Jing-mei, then said, “Didn’t you hear? Lian hasn’t answered her talk-phone, or the letters, or—”
“—it’s like she’s vanished,” Jing-mei said. “And that’s why the nobles are, well—”
“—plotting,” Gan finished for her. “There’s talk about problems with the magic flux, or the empire being so far away, but the royal wizards have private lines for urgent communications. Besides, we haven’t had any trouble with magic since the Interregnum Wars, and those were three hundred years ago.”
My mouth went dry. I knew Lian. She’d never run away from her duties, no matter how terrible. Sure, she had fought her father to study at the Phoenix University, but that was only so she could learn how to rule properly. Remembering her face as she stared down the king of the ghost dragons, I shivered.
“Have you talked to her?” Jing-mei asked me.
“No. I thought she’d be too busy.”
Too busy for a street rat who failed advanced calculus. Maybe Gan could read my thoughts, or Chen had a word with Tao, because he shook his head. “Never mind all that. Call her. Just in case. She’d want to hear from her friends.”
Hü. I found that hard to believe. Still, I tapped Lian’s private number into my talk-phone.
Click-click-tick-a-tick.
The magic flux hissed loudly as it switched over to connect-mode. Then a flat, mechanical voice announced, “Sorry. No such number.”
OUR PARTY BROKE up quickly after that. No one wanted to speculate about Lian or why her number no longer worked. We paid our bill from Danzu’s stash, including a hefty tip for Deming, and silently scattered our separate ways. Me, I took the long route home, walking instead of taking the wind-and-magic lifts, and arrived just as the tower bells chimed half past three o’clock.
Yún waited for me behind the front counter. Hsin the queen and one of her sisters dozed off to one side. A thick book lay open in front of Yún. Its pages were crammed full of old-fashioned, hand-brushed characters—one of the ancient histories Mā mī had special-ordered from a northern university. One of our assignments?
“You’re late,” Yún said. “And I thought you had homework.”
I was still scared about Lian and wanted to yell that my homework was none of Yún’s business. But Yún looked cranky and tired, so I swallowed hard and shook my head. “Sorry. Any new business?”
“Two astrology readings and one Elixir of Eternal Happiness.” She shuddered. “I don’t know why anyone would order something that nasty.”
The Elixir of Eternal Happiness was our shop’s best-selling product, brewed from licorice, black pepper, and fermented rice—plus whatever magic kick Mā mī added that week. Like Yún said, it was nasty stuff.
“People are strange, that’s all I know,” I said. “Is my mother back yet?”
Yún frowned. “No. She said something about visiting the herb markets. Here.” She handed me a sheaf of papers. “Tell your mother I finished the inventory. Here’s what we need for restocking. I’ve marked the items we can buy in the city markets. The rest we need to order special from merchants up north or from the Phoenix Empire.”
I scanned the top sheet. Lots of items had checkmarks, but lots more had none. “We need all that?”
Yún rolled her eyes. “What do you think? I have better things to do than make these things up.”
“It was just a question.”
“So nicely asked, too. By the way, I hope you had fun with Gan and Jing-mei and Danzu. Thank you so very much for inviting me.”
“You were busy.”
“And no one can ever change their plans to later.”
“They might if you—”
I stopped myself before I said anything truly unforgive-able. Yún still carried her knife from our gang days, and she knew how to use it. Besides, her eyes were shining. If she didn’t stab me, she might start crying.
We both glared at each other instead.
“I have to get home,” Yún said. “Auntie needs me.”
She stomped out the front door. I threw the bolts and flipped the sign around to CLOSED. BACK SOON. Mā mī would peel the skin from my butt for closing early, but it wasn’t as though clients were banging on our door. A part of me wondered why she needed so many new magical ingredients, but my head hurt too much to think about it.
With a sigh, I shooed Hsin from her perch and pulled out the account books. They made a huge boring heap on the counter. But I promised, I told myself.
You didn’t promise, Chen said. She ordered you to.
Where have you been? I asked.
Around. Looking in corners and holes.
Chen, being cryptic again. I set about sorting through our students’ accounts. By the time I finished with them, my brain would start working more clearly. Maybe.
Once I settled into the routine of checking numbers, the hours slid past like oil. Yún had turned the radio station to something dull and meditative, which suited me just fine. Once or twice, someone rapped at the front door, then cursed loudly when an invisible pig poked his snout into their backs.
When I couldn’t read the numbers anymore, I switched on the wall lamps. Brown shadows spilled away from the light. Outside, the skies were violet and shading into gray. A few stars speckled the clear skies of early autumn, but I noticed a fringe of clouds by the horizons. Soon the rains would start.
Very slowly, my brain clicked over a few key thoughts.
Dark. Watch-demons. Mā mī.
Once the sun set, and twilight poured over the horizon, the royal guards released the watch-demons of Lóng City to patrol the streets. They were better than any human sentries, and twice as dangerous. Only the bravest thieves dared to venture out after dark. Most of them didn’t survive. Yún and I had once, along with Princess Lian, but that was a different story.
Fox and Phoenix Page 3