The Departure #2
None of it is as baffling as this cat.
“The creature,” says a voice from Ren’s collar, “is not going in the basket.”
Tianlong, coiled around Ren’s neck like the world’s most judgmental scarf.
“We’re not leaving him.” I say.
“No,” Tianlong’s voice is dry enough to start fires—which, given that he’s a dragon, is probably not just a figure of speech. “We are not. The creature cannot be trusted.”
“We?” I blink. “You were supposed to stay and guard the palace.”
“I have reconsidered.”
Ren looks down at his collar. The expression on his face is the one he gets when he’s trying to figure out if Tianlong is joking, which is always a losing proposition because Tianlong is always joking and always serious, often at the same time.
“You’ve reconsidered,” Ren repeats.
“If the creature is going,” Tianlong says, “then I am going. I refuse to leave it unsupervised near my bonded for three weeks.”
“You’ve never expressed concern about Dumpling before.”
“The cat has plans.” Tianlong’s tail flicks once, a tiny movement just visible at Ren’s collar. “I do not trust plans I did not make.”
“What plans?”
“I do not know. That is what makes them concerning.”
I look at Ren. He looks back at me. There’s something happening at the corner of his mouth that might be a smile if he were the kind of man who smiled easily.
He’s not. I’m learning to read the almosts.
“So,” I say. “Just to be clear. The ancient dragon who has watched empires rise and fall is changing his plans because he’s worried about being outmaneuvered by an orange cat.”
“I am not worried,” Tianlong says. “I am vigilant. There is a difference.”
“Is there?”
“The difference is dignity.”
Dumpling, from his windowsill throne, begins grooming his other paw. His expression suggests he knows exactly what we’re discussing and finds the whole thing beneath him.
“I love my life,” I say.
The goodbyes are worse.
I wasn’t expecting them to be worse. I’ve left a thousand places. A thousand beds. A thousand lives I built and burned and walked away from without looking back because looking back is for people who think the past will be there when they return.
It won’t. I know that. I’ve always known that.
I’ve left cities as they fell to conquest. I’ve left villages before plague could take me along with everyone else. I’ve left lovers in their sleep and friends in their graves.
I’m an expert at leaving. It’s the one skill I’ve perfected over eight centuries.
So why does walking through these halls feel like swallowing glass?
Wei is first. He’s waiting by the eastern training yard, pretending he’s inspecting the guard rotation, fooling absolutely no one. His arm is still bandaged—the wound from the wedding, the blade he took for me because he’s the kind of man who makes those choices without thinking.
Ren goes to him. They do the military thing—brief words I can’t hear, firm grip, something unspoken passing between soldiers who trust each other with the things they don’t say.
I watch from a respectful distance and pretend I’m not reading the way Ren’s hand lingers on Wei’s shoulder. The way Wei’s jaw tightens.
He has people too. People he’s leaving. People he’ll miss.
Something shifts in my chest. He’s not dragging me away from my life. We’re both leaving something behind.
Mei appears from nowhere, which is her preferred method of appearing. One moment the corridor is empty; the next she’s standing two feet away like she was always there and reality just hadn’t caught up yet.
“The contingency files are in your chambers,” she tells Ren, her voice as flat and precise as a blade. “The secondary contingencies are with Wei. The tertiary contingencies are in a location I will disclose upon your return.”
“Tertiary contingencies,” I repeat.
“For when the first two fail.”
“And if the third fails?”
“Then we’re all dead anyway, so it hardly matters.” She almost smiles. It’s like watching a blade learn to curve. “Travel safely, Your Majesties. Kill anyone who deserves it.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
She vanishes. Probably through a wall. Possibly through some fold in space that only spymasters can access. I’ve stopped asking how she does the things she does. The answers never help.
Then there’s Jing.
She’s standing in the corridor outside our chambers with her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes doing something wet and concerning. She has a piece of paper. There’s writing on it. Neat columns. Headers. What appears to be an outline.
“Jing,” I say carefully. “What is that.”
“A speech.”
“Please don’t.”
“I prepared remarks.”
“Please really don’t.”
She starts reading anyway.
The speech covers: gratitude (for “taking a chance on an assistant archivist who didn’t know her place”), well-wishes (for the journey, the pregnancy, my spiritual fortitude), pregnancy advice (extensive, sourced from seven historical texts), archival recommendations (complete with reference numbers), and what appears to be a blessing in three languages, one of which I’m fairly sure is extinct.
I let her get four minutes in. The speech is clearly going to last longer than our actual marriage ceremony.
“Jing.”
“—and the accumulated wisdom of the Seventh Dynasty scholars suggests that pregnant travelers should avoid—”
“Jing. Stop.”
She stops. Her lip wobbles. This is worse than the speech.
“If you finish that sentence,” I tell her, “I’m going to cry. And I don’t cry. I haven’t cried in three centuries. You’ll ruin my reputation.”
Her face crumples. She hugs me instead.
I let her.
She smells like book dust and jasmine tea and the particular kind of incense they burn in the deep archives to keep the moths away. Her arms wrap around me carefully, minding the bump, and something cracks behind my ribs that I don’t have a word for.
When did this happen? When did I let people matter?
I’ve spent eight hundred years making sure no one got close. Building walls. Burning bridges. Leaving before the leaving could be done to me. I had it down to an art—how to be useful enough to keep around, pleasant enough to miss, forgettable enough that the missing wouldn’t last.
Then I came here. To this palace that tried to kill me. And somehow, while I wasn’t paying attention, a girl with book dust on her fingers and a speech in her pocket became someone whose arms around me feel like home.
“I’m not emotional,” I say into her hair. “I’m pregnant. There’s a difference.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Plausible deniability.”
She laughs. It’s damp. She’s definitely crying now—I can feel it against my shoulder, the small tremors, the wetness seeping through silk.
That makes one of us, I think, except my eyes are doing something suspicious too, and I’m going to blame that on pregnancy hormones until I die. Again.
“Come back,” Jing whispers.
“I will.”
I mean it. That’s the terrifying part. I’ve said those words a thousand times to a thousand people and they’ve always been a lie, a kindness, a way to make the leaving easier. I never come back. That’s the whole point.
But this time—
“I will,” I say again.
The gates are enormous.
I’ve walked through them before. Dozens of times. They look different now. Bigger. More final. Like jaws about to close around the part of my life I didn’t mean to build here.
This is the part where I make a joke.
Nothing comes.