Chapter Twenty-Two
Leander stepped out of the crowd, moving to a spot behind a Chinese juniper. The gnarled trunk and untrimmed branches gave them privacy.
“Did you spot someone?” Xi asked, his suspicious gaze darting around the street.
“No, but we’re near the hotel.”
“Okay,” Xi drew the word out and stared at him with confusion. “But why are we stopping?”
“Can you control shadows now?” Leander asked. He knew it was his fault that Xi was hurt. Leander’s enemies had targeted Xi, and his attempt to cure Xi had damaged his magical pathways. However, if he wasn’t healed enough to use shadows, he wasn’t safe.
“Some,” Xi said. His tone did not inspire confidence.
“You should wait here,” Leander said. He stepped deeper into the shadows created by the ragged juniper. Its wild strength and unyielding sense of protection made Leander feel safe, and he rested a hand against the juniper’s bark.
Xi’s expression turned mulish. “Why did I bother coming at all if I’m going to stand out here while you go in?”
“Because you’re here if someone comes from the street. You can call for help.”
“While you risk your life? No. If someone targeted Heng and his friend, then I’m going in there with you.” Xi growled.
“So both of us can get caught? One of us should wait out here.” Leander fought to keep his voice quiet.
He wanted to shout and curse and call Xi an obstreperous addle-pated moron who didn’t have the brain processing power of a leaf sheep slug.
But that would attract too much attention.
“If Druwolf sent someone after me, having you out here to call the authorities might be the difference between life and death.”
“Or whoever these people are, they might have come looking for me,” Xi argued. “Besides, having even partial control over shadows is more useful than plants.”
Leander snorted. Xi didn’t know what plants could do—that much was clear. But he had to admit buildings had more shadows than plants. Logically, Xi should come, but Leander didn’t want him to. He wanted him safe out here.
“What is that?” Xi asked, looking down to where Leander was mindlessly fingering his new bracelet.
“Shanlin made it.” That wasn’t an answer, but Leander wouldn’t be distracted from the subject of Xi’s safety.
Xi chuckled. “For someone who insists he’s a terrible person, you’re a stereotypical doting dad with Shanlin.”
Leander jerked his hand away as if the bracelet was made of fire instead of peanut shells and string.
It was an ugly thing with uneven holes drilled into peanut shells carved into.
.. in truth, Leander couldn’t tell. But Shanlin had tied it around his wrist with such solemnity that Leander had promised to wear it. He wasn’t willing to cut it off.
“I’m all he has.” Even as Leander said it, he knew it wasn’t true. Shanlin now had grandparents who provided a stable home. They’d even offered him a new name, one that would hide him from Druwolf. They could provide better than Leander.
“You talk like you’re not enough. You’re a better parent than either Tecca or Finn.”
Leander scowled. “Don’t say that. Finn loved Shanlin.” Tecca did too, but Leander didn’t feel any need to be kind or even fair to the woman’s memory.
“I will say it because I never approved of him as a father. He knew they were in danger, and he and Tecca weren’t willing to run. They were too afraid of having to give up their lives. You’re the one who put Shanlin first, so you’re a better parent.”
That was so wrong it was amusing. Leander gave an inelegant snort. “I don’t know how to be a parent at all.”
“Yet you’re doing the most important thing—protecting him.”
Leander wasn’t sure of that—not if Druwolf’s people had followed them to China.
Wearing ugly jewelry was a poor imitation of fatherhood and no substitute for providing a safe home, but it was all he could offer the boy.
He still remembered making macaroni necklaces in grade school, and his mother had thrown hers away.
He was trying to do the opposite of his own mother.
“If we’re family, I want to help protect you the same way,” Xi whispered.
Leander sucked in a quick breath. He hadn’t expected such a subtle counterattack from Xi. “I’m not a child,” Leander said, his teeth clenched in frustration.
“But you’re family. You have been since we were pre-pubescent kids in that home.
So I’m going with you.” Xi ended the argument by striding toward the hotel with the hand-lettered sign and peeling paint.
Leander hissed his name, but Xi was moving too fast for him to grab.
There was a chamomile close enough that Leander could have distilled the plant’s essence into a powerful knockout potion, but Xi was moving too fast to hit him with it.
Cursing, Leander had to chase the idiot. Who ran toward a potential fight with potential henchmen of Druwolf while possessing a damaged magical weapon? Brainless, boneheaded, moronic half-wits with a death wish. And that was the kindest way Leander could describe Xi.
They had Heng’s room number, and Xi rushed past the desk where a worker was calling out offers of help in a clear effort to prevent them from rushing into guest rooms. Leander took a moment to offer a small bow.
“My brother has called for me to come with haste,” he blurted before he ran after Xi who had reached the stairs.
The third floor was stifling hot and the corridor narrow.
Either someone had painted the walls an obnoxious dull yellow, or a lot of people smoked cigarettes in here.
Xi was already at room twelve’s door, so Leander had very little time to consider interior decorating.
Xi laid his hand on the door and closed his eyes.
A wrinkle formed between his eyes, so pulling on his shadows clearly still hurt.
“Two people, both lying down. I can’t see details,” Xi said, his voice tight with pain.
Leander shoved him aside and shouldered open the door, wincing as his joints protested the physical activity. The room was as dingy as the hallway they’d come from with a single dirty window and two twin beds. Leander rushed to Heng on the nearest bed.
“Are you okay?” Leander dropped to his knees and took Heng’s hand in his. Heng’s hair was dull and tangled, and his modern shirt had several mystery stains.
“Compared to death, I am glorious. Compared to any previous state of being, I am miserable,” Heng said with a groan.
“Not as miserable as I,” said the woman from the next bed.
Huang Min. Older sister of the boy who had abandoned him and Xi when asked to escort them to the river.
Half a second later, Leander realized she was also the servant who had brought him that disagreeable donkey when he had been working for Pill Master Yang Xiangren. “Someone poisoned us.”
“Or we fell ill,” Heng said. “Very, very ill. Dizzy and nauseated and ill.” Heng groaned again.
“I think it’s rather more logical to assume the outsiders poisoned us. We were following them,” Min said. She tried to sit up, but ended up falling back onto the bed with a groan.
“There are people watching from the street,” Xi said.
“What?” Leander went to the window, standing next to it rather than in front as he peered out into the crowded street.
“You won’t see them. They’re in the shadow of the building across. I can’t tell you any details, but I feel three people.”
“Maybe they’re just in the shade to smoke,” Leander said, even though he didn’t believe they would have luck that good.
Heng climbed out of his bed, clinging to the wall as he tried to get to the window. “If there are evil eggs out there, we need to be out of bed.” Despite saying that, Heng took two steps back and sat on his bed. His whole body heaved as if he might throw up from the effort.
“Eggs?” Xi asked. The translation pill apparently didn’t work on idioms, but Leander was surprised Xi hadn’t already heard someone insulted using “egg” since a good dozen different insults used it.
The question caused Min to glare at Xi with a disgusted expression.
Leander thought of the Chinese as having exquisite manners and impressive poker faces, but Min was breaking every stereotype.
Xi, however, ignored her and said to Leander, “You can pull the poison out of them.” Shock transformed Heng’s face, and even Min forgot to look pinched and unhappy for a moment.
“I did that to you, and it almost killed you,” Leander pointed out.
“I was already dying when you pulled the poison out, which is why I almost died. If we have Druwolf’s people in town, they need to be up and moving. Otherwise, it’s not the poison that’s going to kill them.”
“If enemies are targeting us, it is because you brought them to town,” Min said, the pinched expression back.
Leander ignored her. “Heng, should I purge the poison from your system?” Leander didn’t want to take the risk, but Xi was right that they were too vulnerable like this.
If he were healthy, Heng could defend himself against any Westerner.
He had a much more flexible and powerful form of magic than the highly specialized form Druwolf’s people would possess.
Even without magic, he could vanish into a crowd or run for his life.
However, right now he couldn’t even stand.
Heng looked from Xi to Leander and back, a crease between his eyes suggesting either worry or that he was sick enough that he was not quite tracking the conversation. “Can you do this safely, qidi?”
Min flinched.
“I don’t know how safe it is, but I can pull all the poison out of your blood at once. Xi was dying when I did it to him. But it bruised the pathways his qi uses, so his magic won’t flow freely.”