Chapter 4 Rui #3
Us . . . that makes me one of them, Rui couldn’t help but think, remembering again how she and Zizi were on different sides of the magical community divide.
She chewed on her lip. “Heard anything else lately about Hybrids?”
“Unfortunately not.”
Disappointment, painfully familiar, thickened in her chest. For four years, she’d trawled through public records of Night
Hunts, reading every case file she could get her hands on. But there were no reports, no records of any Revenant that bore
a resemblance to a human. Like the Guild said, Hybrids did not exist.
But no record meant no capture and no kill.
The Revenant that murdered her mother—the one that looked human—was still at large. Rui was sure of it. If she could find
him, if she could kill him, maybe the hole in her chest would disappear. Maybe her father would be well again.
“Here you go.” Zizi set a cup of coffee in front of her, his fingers flicking the air.
Rui wasn’t sure if he was casting a secret flavoring spell or saying a dramatic voilà in his head. Both were equally plausible. Closing her eyes, she took a long sip. As rich velvet glided over her taste buds,
a cozy warmth spread through her limbs, like she was curling up on the couch with her favorite book on a rainy day.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Zizi adding spoonful after spoonful of sugar into his own drink.
He preferred his coffee funeral style: too black and too sweet.
It was the traditional coffee served at funeral wakes when descendants stayed up for consecutive nights as a sign of respect for their ancestors.
The same coffee Rui had drunk at her mother’s funeral.
At the sixth teaspoonful of sugar, Rui lost her restraint. “You know that’s going to kill you someday, right? I bet all that
sugar is making your migraines worse.”
“I didn’t think you cared, Rui. I’m touched,” Zizi said, half-sarcastic. He smiled and dropped another spoonful of sugar into
his coffee to make a silly point.
“I merely tolerate you,” she said. “Now show me the spell you need tested.”
Zizi’s lips twitched with amusement. “So tiny, and yet so bossy.”
Rolling her eyes, Rui followed him to the coat closet in the hallway. Inside, there was a leather trench with fancy silver
epaulets, a leopard-print faux-fur midi coat, a garish orange poncho, and a plain black jacket that looked completely out
of place. There wasn’t much room, and they were standing close enough to touch.
Something fluttered in Rui’s stomach, catching her off guard. Maybe she needed food. Maybe she needed a nap. Groaning inwardly,
she grabbed the thing in her stomach by its neck and wrung it dead.
Zizi nudged a pair of spiked boots aside and raised his right leg a few inches from the ground. His slipper fell off.
Rui sighed. “Why isn’t the button up here so we can press it with our fingers like normal people?”
“Because it is a secret button,” Zizi replied with a sideways glance and a lifted brow. “And because I am not, by any measure, a normal person.”
Deliberately, he brought his big toe to the bottom corner of the closet and pushed a button so camouflaged that Rui wouldn’t
have known it was there if she hadn’t witnessed this ridiculous act of his so many times before.
Something whirred like gears locking into place. The back wall slid open.
A large room with softly lit panels on the walls revealed itself.
Scores of rectangular yellow paper hung down from the ceiling like leaves on a weeping willow.
Talismans. Some had red calligraphy already written on them—completed spells—while others were still blank.
The dimness of the room concealed several large pillows and a fluffy blanket, which Rui knew were in the corner.
This was Zizi’s spell lab. It was so different from the spell labs at the Academy. Those looked more like the science laboratories in a mundane school.
Humming a pop song from the previous decade, Zizi retrieved his slipper and flip-flopped in. He meandered around, plucking
a few talismans like they were ripe fruits.
He spread them out like a deck of cards on the single glass table in the corner of the room. “May I interest you in some spells?
Standard stuff—barrier spells, binding spells—the usual incantations will do. I made a few extra the other day. Thought it
might come in handy for you.”
“Are they free?”
He gave her a little bow. “For you? Absolutely.”
Rui swiped the stack off the table just as her phone began to buzz. She ignored it and focused on her haul, carefully folding
the papers in half before sliding them into her pocket. Talismans were nifty little things to have around, and having fresh
ones meant she didn’t have to go through the trouble of making them herself or signing them out from the Academy’s spell labs.
Besides, she wasn’t very good at calligraphy, and skillful penmanship was the difference between an effective spell and a
total dud.
“Take a look at this,” Zizi said, showing her another talisman. “It’s a spell that separates a Revenant’s spiritual energy
from its form for a short period of time, rendering it completely vulnerable. I finally finished it last night. If it works,
it might be my best work yet.”
Rui ran a finger down the talisman. She didn’t recognize the complicated characters written on it.
Most of the spells she tested were devised by Zizi.
The unorthodox way he used magic befuddled her.
He’d been experimenting with it since he was a young child, and the trauma of his magic manifesting too early in life had resulted in his unusual eyes.
Sometimes he went too far in his experiments, and they triggered migraines that consumed him for days, leaving him curled up on the floor in the dark.
Once, Rui found him lying motionless in the rear courtyard. Eyelids fluttering, blue irises so dark they were almost black,
as if he were trapped between worlds, unable to crawl his way out. She had never felt fear the way she had in that moment,
and she was close to tears when he finally roused.
“So? What do you think?” Zizi was watching her carefully with a smug, expectant look. He wanted to be praised.
Rui wasn’t good at giving praise. “Is that why you were snoozing earlier?” she asked instead. “Because you stayed up all night
again?”
“That was a beauty nap.”
“I guess you do need one.”
“You wound me,” Zizi said, a hand on his chest.
Rui shot him a scathing side-eye. He didn’t look wounded at all. He was so melodramatic it was hard to take him seriously
sometimes.
“Is it even possible to separate a Revenant’s yinqi from its body?” she asked. As far as she knew, yinqi existed throughout
a typical Revenant’s body, keeping it alive. There wasn’t a concentration of it in one spot, and she’d never heard of a method
that could pull all of it out.
“That’s what you’re going to find out,” Zizi said. “This is the spell I need tested. Be careful when you cast it. Theoretically,
if there’s contact between two bodies, the spiritual energy may transfer.”
Rui’s phone buzzed again. Who could be calling her?
“Are you listening, Rui?”
She stopped fidgeting. “What did you say?”
Zizi repeated slowly, “When you’re testing this spell, do not touch the Revenant and do not let it touch you. There’s a minuscule
chance that if you do, its spiritual energy may mix with yours, and its hunger will possess you. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Don’t touch the scary monster.”
“Rooroo. Be serious.”
“Don’t call me that. Like you said, it’s a minuscule chance, right?”
“A minuscule chance is still a non-zero chance.”
“Do you think I’m incapable of casting it properly?”
Zizi took the cigarette from behind his ear and flipped it between his knuckles. “The spell needs to be tested. You’re the
tester. So, you test it.”
“Answer my question,” Rui persisted. “Are you doubting my abilities?”
“I’m just . . .” He looked at the talisman, then back at her. “Call it superstition or whatever, but it’s been four years,
and today’s your . . .” He broke off with a sigh.
Today’s your mother’s death anniversary. Today’s your birthday, a day you stopped celebrating four years ago because you almost
died. Today’s . . .
Rui didn’t know what he meant to say.
“Well, I’m not testing it today,” she said. “I’m going on patrol with the other cadets tonight. And you’re being silly . . .
Have I ever failed to test a spell properly for you?”
“You better do a good job then,” he said. “If it works, it’ll be extremely valuable. I could sell it to the Guild for a ton
of money and retire to the countryside with Mao.”
“Convenient how you hate the Guild, but you’ll take their money.”
“A boy has to eat.”
“So does a girl. Double my fee.”
Zizi made an unhappy face.
“I’ll have to find an actual Revenant to test it on. This is beyond the scope of what I normally do. It carries a higher risk.
Double my fee.”
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“I am the best.”
“Fine,” Zizi said, caving quickly.
Rui smirked. “Good.”
Zizi smirked back. “All this negotiation is making me hungry. Why don’t you stay for a while? We can get sushi.”
Rui’s pocket was buzzing furiously again.
“Hang on.” She pulled out her phone.
5 missed calls. 4 voice mails.
They were all from the same number.
She punched in the password for her mailbox and held the phone to her ear. A woman’s voice. Rapid-fire words. Concern and
irritation.
Your father . . .
Rui felt her chest squeezing.
“Something wrong?” Zizi asked.
“Nothing. I have to go,” she mumbled, grabbing the new talisman. Ignoring his questions, she hurried from the room and ran
out the front door.