Chapter Nine #2
Leander stepped back. If Creek was allowing himself to be seen, the trap had already closed and police would be in the village, but Leander’s instinct to fight made him call up the plants he could find.
Vines burst from the houses and darted across the ground.
The flowers in the boxes threw clouds of pollen into the air, and the tree on the corner swayed ominously.
“Leander. It’s just me. I’m alone. I didn’t bring anybody. You’re safe!” Creek rushed forward only to be tripped by a vine that curled around his leg. Creek’s shadows raced forward and caught at Leander’s clothing, pulling him to the ground.
Leander cursed the ridiculous robes and kicked against the foreign magic that clung to him, cold and sharp and unfamiliar.
“Both of you stop!” Auntie Daiyu shouted.
Lightning cracked in the sky, white across the blue field, and a clap of thunder crashed into the village so violently it knocked down everyone except Auntie Daiyu.
That was the first time Leander had realized they were not alone.
In fact, a dozen people had been watching from behind corners, stumbling and falling at the force of the sky magic that blasted the area.
All Creek’s shadows dissipated, and Leander’s vines collapsed, cut off from his magic.
“You children are lucky that I am old enough to have learned patience for disagreeable younglings,” she said.
Leander flinched as he climbed to his feet.
“Both of you, inside. I swear. Humans lack any sense at this age. Inside. Both of you.” She shook her finger, and Leander had the feeling she was seconds away from slapping both of them upside the head.
It turned out he was more afraid of Auntie Daiyu and her impressive magic than the authorities, so Leander bit down on his protests and headed to the house.
Creek was still cutting vines away from his feet when Leander passed without looking at him.
“Ass,” Creek whispered.
When Leander walked into Auntie Daiyu’s house, he forgot to breathe.
Of course, he’d heard of storage rings that could hold entire farms in their magical space and paintings that people could step into, but those were myths.
Stories. The idea of a space being infinitely larger on the inside was in the realm of science fiction.
Only it wasn’t.
Inside, Auntie Daiyu’s small cottage had a vast reception hall with double doors open to an exterior garden courtyard that was not part of the village outside.
“Hey,” Creek said. Leander whirled around, horrified that he had lost focus on the current problem. Creek lifted his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “I come in peace and alone. Promise.”
“You are both ill-behaved,” Auntie Daiyu said.
Leander bowed to her. “I apologize for my poor judgment and for using dangerous magics around you.”
She snorted. “You are lucky that I enjoy having an excuse to remind others that I have cultivated magic beyond their comprehension. Sit,” she ordered in English.
One side of the large room had long couches around a huge, low table, and Leander sat.
Creek was slower to obey, but he eventually did. She pointed at Creek. “Talk,” she said.
Creek rubbed his ankle. “You didn’t have to try to break my ankle,” he said. “I told you I was alone.”
“You’re the police. Excuse me if seeing you chase me to the literal far side of the planet concerned me,” Leander said.
“Fuck,” Creek whispered. “I never wanted to scare you.”
“Fuck.” Auntie Daiyu repeated the word slowly and with a thick accent. “I have not heard this word before.”
Creek turned brilliant red, and Daiyu cackled like a mad woman.
“Why are you here? How are you here? And could anyone have followed you?” Leander asked.
“I’m here to warn you or because I was in deep shit. Take your pick. And I always knew where you were going to run. I’ve known since we were nineteen that this was your backup plan, and no one followed me because I didn’t use any smugglers to get here. I hope you covered your tracks half as well.”
Leander sat forward. “What do you mean, you’ve always known this was my escape plan?” Leander hadn’t known this was his escape plan until he’d learned that Druwolf planned to kill a literal child just for being born to the wrong parents.
“I can use shadows in ways the government doesn’t know about.”
Leander gestured for him to go on.
Now Creek looked guilty. “I was worried about you, being in another country, especially after Finn told me how much you hated it here and how this Nie Heng was the only reason you weren’t calling it quits.”
“You talked to Finn? Back then?” Reality shifted around Leander. Finn had been the staunchest supporter of Druwolf’s revolutionary goals, and Creek had been under government control for years by then. When had they spoken? How had they spoken?
“As much as I could,” Creek said softly.
“Until he was gone.” Leander glanced away, desperate to get control of his emotions.
Maybe Creek felt the same because his voice was rough as he continued.
“Anyway, I can make shadows look like printing on a page or on a computer screen. After all, words are just dark lines on a white background. So I asked Finn to give me as much information on your friend as possible, and then I made a tech think he had an order for a background check on a Chinese national with magical powers. The American government tracks as many magical places as they can, even in other countries, and this place turned up as his birthplace.”
“You assumed I would move to the hometown of someone I knew a decade ago?” Creek was ridiculous. His being right was beside the point.
“Finn was horrifically jealous, so I assumed there was something between you and this Nie Heng.”
“So you assume I would fuck someone for a safe bolt hole?” Leander didn’t know what was more humiliating—that someone he’d known for nearly twenty fucking years thought that way or that Auntie Daiyu was here to hear the humiliation.
“No!” Creek ran his fingers through his hair.
“Jesus, can you cut me some slack here? I know you embrace the whole asshole persona, but take it down a notch. You’ve travelled nowhere else, and I know Finn wouldn’t have been jealous unless there was an actual relationship to be jealous of.
” Leander bristled at the idea that Finn’s jealousy was justified as opposed to what Leander had felt, but he had bigger problems.
“I need to leave. If you can follow that logic, others can, too.” Leander stood, but Creek shot to his feet and cut off his retreat. It startled Leander into sitting.
“Several detectives have reported hearing you talk about moving to the Midwest and working as a travelling preacher. You wouldn’t be the first magic user to sell minor miracles.
The police will look there first, and since Finn burned every letter right after getting it, no one else will get clues from what you wrote back then. ”
“He burned them?” Honestly, Leander didn’t remember what he’d written back then, but the idea of Finn burning his letters hurt.
Creek sank back down onto the couch. “Sometimes I think he knew what was coming. Maybe when he touched Druwolf’s magic, he realized the truth before the rest of us figured it out, but he said he had to keep you safe, and the letters weren’t safe.
He made me promise that if something happened, I would protect Salem.
But then something happened, and I couldn’t protect anyone because I couldn’t get permission from my bosses. ”
“Your owners,” Leander said with disgust.
Creek sighed. “I spent a lot of time listening to my... superiors. After Salem disappeared, they thought I was compromised. They were debating whether to transfer me or charge me with dereliction. They were going to move me to the involuntary employment division under the theory that I might have helped you.” He gave a distressed laugh.
“I actually had helped you, but they didn’t have one shred of evidence.
Still, they were certain that they could have me charged and moved to involuntary within a month.
It takes longer than that to get paperwork for a new pair of glasses, and they were going to take away the few rights I had left.
” He fell back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling.
Guilt rolled through Leander. He had done that.
He had put Creek in a terrible situation with the authorities.
Again. It was just like school all over again, only this time it hadn’t been plants he had accidentally made grow.
He had taken Salem out of that house when Creek had been on guard duty. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Finn warned me. Tecca warned me. You warned me. I thought the fact I had made the better choice meant I had made the right one. It turned out we were all fucked and lying to ourselves about it.”
“Life didn’t give any of us good choices,” Leander said. Their entire society was a giant trap for magic users, which is why so many people listened to Druwolf when he promised to make things better for his people. “You can stay with us.”
Auntie Daiyu cleared her throat. “I have welcomed Boon Lian because he is the qidi of Lei Heng. Our community is open to any who are family to those with roots in Orange Flower Hills. Boon Lian has roots here with Nei Heng. What roots do you have here?” She looked at Leander even though she was talking to Creek.
“He is my qidi,” Leander immediately said.
Maybe they hadn’t had an adoption ceremony, but they were the last two standing from the family they had cobbled together in the group home.
Everyone else was dead or missing or horribly dismembered in a supposed accident on a construction site.
Leander and Creek had never been the two closest, but they were family.
“And do you agree to be his qixiong and provide for him, ensuring that he has a place in your home?”
“Yes,” Leander said. He frowned. “Except we live in Heng’s house....” He had no home to offer.
Auntie Daiyu grinned, her old skin wrinkling. “Heng honors you as his qidi, and he would not forget his family. If you claim this outsider as your qidi, then you can share what Heng gives you.”
“Will it reflect badly on Heng?” Leander asked.
As much as his heart told him to protect Creek, who had never lived on his own, who had been controlled and manipulated since he’d been a sophomore in high school and the government had taken him, he couldn’t make Heng’s life difficult. This was his home.
“Heng is a good boy. He knows that a man who takes a qidi is often required by circumstances to accept that other relationships are necessary. He accepted your child, did he not?”
“He did,” Leander said, and the knot of distress in his chest eased.
“So, qidi of Boon Lian, what name will you choose for the paperwork we must file?” she asked.