Chapter 32 Rui
Rui
Rui hit redial on Yiran’s phone. She chewed on her nails, waiting. “Ash isn’t picking up.”
Yiran snapped, “Try again. Why are you giving up?”
“I’m not. This is the fifth time I’ve called. Maybe Ash is busy with the situation. I’m sure we’ll get more news once we get
back to the Academy,” she said, peevish.
Yiran floored the accelerator in response.
Rui slumped against the seat and stared out the window. The roads were empty save for a few emergency vehicles that zoomed
by with their sirens wailing. A pall had fallen, and the streets took on an eerie feel.
Zizi’s fingers grazed her wrist, and she turned to him. The light from outside bathed the car’s interior in shades of gray
and grainy sepia like a vintage photograph, framing his face in alternating shadow and light. She’d thought he should have
stayed at The Reverie, but he’d insisted on coming along. Truth be told, she was glad he did. They still didn’t know what
had happened to the missing mages, and she wanted to keep him close.
Yiran smacked the steering wheel. “How could it even happen? How could those brainless monsters plan an ambush?”
“Ever heard of Hybrids?” Zizi said.
“Not that again. Hybrids don’t exist, even I know that.”
“How are you so loud and so wrong? You’re not exactly the best source of what’s fact or fiction when it comes to Revenants.”
“Didn’t all our troubles start with you and your stupid spell?” Yiran lashed out. “If you didn’t create it in the first place,
if you didn’t give it to Rui—” He halted abruptly.
“Go on, tell me how this ambush on your brother is all my fault,” Zizi shot back. “I’m impressed by the mental gymnastics you just did there.”
Yiran brought a fist down to the horn. The deafening sound dragged on.
When he finally lifted his hand from the horn, Rui said, “I told you, Hybrids do exist.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions without evidence,” Yiran muttered as he took the next turn. “The both of you.”
Rui seethed. “I was there; I know what I saw that night.”
“But—”
“You weren’t there,” Zizi snapped. “Don’t tell her what she did or did not experience.”
Yiran’s eyes flicked to meet Rui’s in the rearview mirror. She could sense his confusion, his desire that the world he understood
remain as it was. The link between them felt stronger than ever.
“If there’s even a possibility that Hybrids might exist, why would the Guild keep it a secret? Why wouldn’t my grandfather
tell everyone?” he finally said.
Why indeed, Rui thought. She could think of a few answers, none of them favorable to the Guild. The tension in Yiran was pulled so taut
it felt like he might break if she provoked him, so she said nothing.
After some silence, Yiran said, “Do guests at The Reverie have to be invited to stay there?”
“It’s like any other hotel, you make a booking, you get a room, and you pay up,” Zizi replied. “Why?”
Yiran faced the back seat. “There was a little girl in the garden looking for her brother. I thought she was a guest, so I
told her to go inside, but she said she had to be invited.”
Just then, something ahead in the otherwise empty sky caught Rui’s eye. The thing was swooping through the air in a way that
didn’t feel birdlike.
“There was something weird about her,” Yiran continued. “She said her name was Seven, and she did this thing with a rose—magic
or maybe it was a trick—sucked all the color out of its petals. Totally creepy.”
Rui grabbed the front seat. “What did you say her name was?”
“Seven. Why would parents name their kid after a number?”
Rui’s blood ran cold. Another King from the underworld was roaming in the human realm, and this King had made a connection
with Yiran. What did that mean?
“What did Seven talk to you about?” she asked.
“What’s that thing in the sky?” Zizi said at the same time.
Yiran peered through the windshield. “What thing—”
The thing descended onto the road in front of them and stood up.
It was a person.
Running toward the moving car.
“Watch out!” Rui yelled.
Tires screeched. But Yiran couldn’t stop in time. The impact flung them against their seats.
Rui’s stomach somersaulted as Yiran wrestled for control of the wheel. The car swerved, coming to a stop on the road shoulder.
Groaning, Yiran unbuckled his seat belt. “Is anyone hurt?”
Rui untangled herself from Zizi’s arms. “I’m okay, just shaken.”
Zizi gave his shoulder a few rolls. “Nothing’s broken. What the hell happened? Did we hit someone?”
“Why were they running at us?” Rui said, rubbing a tender spot on her back.
“I don’t know. I’ll go check.” Yiran opened the car door and staggered out.
Rui watched as he jogged toward the body lying in the middle of the road. The car hadn’t hit the person hard enough to kill
them . . . right?
Feeling helpless, she picked up Yiran’s phone and dialed a few numbers in succession: Ada’s, Ash’s, her dad’s.
No one picked up.
Zizi pressed up against her.
Rui stiffened in surprise. “What are you—”
“Shush.” He was staring out the window. “Something’s not right.”
Outside, a fog had rolled in. Chilly air seeped into the car. In the distance, Rui made out the faint silhouette of Yiran crouching on the ground. He seemed farther away than she thought he would be.
Zizi wound the window down. “Get back in the car!”
Yiran remained in the same position.
Zizi shouted again, but Yiran did not respond.
“It’s like he can’t hear us,” said Rui, uneasy.
“Does he have a weapon or talismans on him?”
Her throat tightened. “No.”
“Do you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
Zizi didn’t answer. Instead, he opened the car door and scrambled out. “Song Yiran—get back here!”
It was the first time Zizi had ever called Yiran by his actual name.
Something was very wrong.
Zizi slammed the door in Rui’s face and stuck a hand in to press a button. The window started to wind up.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “What are you doing?”
Then she felt it. A kind of shiver down her spine like something unholy was scuttling across her ancestors’ graves. The same
feeling from four years ago, the same from outside the karaoke club.
Hybrids.
Zizi was whispering something she couldn’t hear.
Was he casting a spell?
“Zizi, wait—”
But he’d taken off into the night.
Rui tugged at the door handle. Stuck. The window wouldn’t wind down either. She crawled to the front and tried the doors.
Nothing budged. Zizi must’ve used a spell to lock her in.
Rui punched the seat in front of her. How could he leave her here like this? She wasn’t some helpless damsel to be hidden away at the first sign of danger. With or without her magic, she was still an Exorcist-in-training. A protector instead of the protected.
She grabbed one of her swords, turned the pommel around, and smashed it into the window.
“Come on.” She bashed the window again and again, half cursing at Zizi, half swearing at Yiran—what kind of windows were these? She
should’ve known that any car owned by the Songs would be reinforced for security.
Gradually, cracks formed on the thick glass. Rui dropped her sword and stuck her legs up, anchoring herself with her palms
on the seat. She took a breath—and kicked as hard as she could.
The glass broke. Small pieces fell to the ground.
“Yes!” she grunted, prepping for another kick.
She might not have magic anymore, but sometimes all you needed was brute strength.