Chapter Seven #2
Leander opened his mouth without speaking.
He had never thought of it that way, but it was similar.
“Yes, sort of like that, but Heng doesn’t ask us to work for him.
He claims us as a sort of family. The man your mother and I worked for was our boss.
He told us what to do and gave us money for our work. ”
“So, he was like Uncle Heng and the pill master wrapped up together?”
“Sort of,” Leander said, although he hoped the pill master did not turn out nearly as sadistic. Leander could handle arrogance, but he was finished with allowing the powerful to take advantage of him. Let other people play fools in motley, but he was done. D. O. N. E.
Shanlin seemed to think about that for a long time as he fingered the trim on his blue robes.
“Are we safe from the man my mother worked for and from the government? Are we safe here?” He looked up at Leander, his eyes shining with unshed tears.
Maybe a parent would be kind enough to lie.
Maybe that would ease the nightmares that plagued Shanlin’s nights, but the world was full of dangers and Shanlin needed to understand them.
“We are as safe as I can make us. Over the next week or two, I’ll walk the perimeter of the town and identify some hiding places or mountain roads so we can run if we need to.
But if the Chinese government arrests us for staying here without permission, we can’t fight them, not in their own country. ”
“And they would send us back.” Shanlin shrank into his seat.
Leander silently cursed Tecca for getting herself killed, and then he cursed himself for getting involved.
Letting a child die wasn’t okay, but he could have told Creek how he used leaves to spy to convince him to take Salem into custody.
But if Creek’s bosses heard even a hint of Leander’s powers, they’d lock him in a tiny room for the rest of his life.
It wasn’t fair to assume Creek would betray him, but he might to get his bosses to take the threat against Salem seriously. Leander hadn’t been willing to take the risk.
“I will be in danger if the Chinese government deports us back to the United States, but that’s only because the authorities suspect I’ve broken the law already. You would be safe.”
“Not if I developed magic.” Shanlin’s gaze skittered across the room.
“Have you had magical outbursts or accidents?” Alarm made Leander’s voice sharp. He didn’t know how to handle nascent magical powers.
Shanlin shook his head.
“This is very important,” Leander said. “If you suspect you’ve unlocked magic, you need to tell me. We’ll deal with it together. I promise.”
“I haven’t,” Shanlin said, his voice sharp and his glare angry. But then he wilted. “Only in my dreams and nightmares.”
Leander winced. That wasn’t a problem he could solve, and he couldn’t take Shanlin to a therapist. He doubted there was one in town, even if he had been willing to tell their secrets to a stranger, and he wasn’t. “I’m sorry, Shanlin.”
He shrugged without answering.
Leander was screwing this up. He tried again. “Having magic isn’t illegal. It’s only illegal to use it. If the Americans found you or if you turned yourself over before you turned eighteen, you would be in the clear. They’d pay for your education and help you find a job.”
“As long as I worked for them.” Shanlin wrinkled his nose.
Leander chuckled. “I felt the same at your age. I knew I had a... less dangerous... magic than anyone else in the group. The government would never feel a need to watch a flora mage the way they would a blood mage or a negater or a shadow wielder. I could have turned myself in and become a botanist or a researcher. I could have worked dozens of different jobs, maybe even taught college or worked with floral arrangements at the White House. That’s an actual job. I looked it up.”
“But you didn’t want any of those jobs?”
“It’s more complicated than that.” Leander struggled with the words. “I could have been happy in several of them, but I wasn’t happy at the idea of someone telling me who I had to work for. As a kid, being told what to do felt like the worst fate ever.”
“Because it is,” Shanlin said with a snort.
“I can think of far worse fates,” Leander said as his mind drifted to some horrors he’d seen working for Druwolf. “Come on, let’s try on our clothes. We both need to get used to robes.”
“I still say they look like dresses.”
“You can think that all you like, but you won’t say it outside this house. Think of it this way—they’re all used to robes that flow around the legs. Our pants probably look like underwear or pajamas to them.”
Shanlin’s face twisted with horror. “No way.”
“Yes way,” Leander said as he put his clothes back in the chest. “I just walked around town in a dirty set of pajamas with my pant legs showing—no robe at all. I should be furious with Auntie Daiyu. So are you going to go to school tomorrow in pajamas?”
Shanlin scooped up his own pile of robes and shirts. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Being logical and telling you not to walk around looking like an idiot.”
“You’re trying to get me to wear robes.”
Leander picked up the chest and headed for the stairs. “Of course, I am. I don’t want to be embarrassed knowing that my family member looks like an idiot in front of everyone at school.”
“It’s still a dress,” Shanlin said as he followed Leander up the stairs.
“Dress or pajamas? Which is worse?”
“They have pajama day at school. We all look forward to wearing pajamas in class,” Shanlin countered.
Shit. Leander had thought he’d won there for a second.
He pushed the door to the north bedroom open and put the chest on a bed.
The mattresses were so thin the chest was basically sitting on the board under the mattress.
Leander made a mental note to stack all the mattresses on one bed if he wanted a decent night’s sleep.
He turned to find Shanlin hovering at the open door.
“This is our home, and this is how people in our new home dress. Pick a robe. You will wear it tomorrow.” He tried to sound firm and not too aggravated. From Shanlin’s flinch, he might have missed the mark.
“Can I wear my normal shoes?” he asked.
Leander wanted to tell Shanlin to wear the new shoes, but the embroidered cloth slippers were horrible. Leander couldn’t come up with a better term. They were gaudy and too colorful and flimsy. At least Leander had a pair of leather boots. “Fine,” he relented. “But hide them under your robes.”
“I could hide a frikkin’ horse under the robe,” Shanlin muttered as he turned to his bedroom.
“Language,” Leander yelled after him.
“Whatever!” A door slammed.
This was why Leander had never wanted to be a parent.