“And you’ll have them,” Lily said. “But having a drink or two before the orientation might help to—”
A loud crash cut Lily off. She jumped in her seat and elbowed a cocktail shaker, sending a waterfall of ice cubes, rice wine, and a measure of joy cascading over the floor.
Raya twisted around. A chair lay broken in the shadow of a petal wall partially hiding a dark figure behind it.
“What in the—” Aki leapt over the bar and ran toward the crumpled man.
“I apologize for this disturbance, Ms. Sia.” Lily dabbed a napkin on the wet spot on her sleeve. “Why don’t you pour yourself a drink while I get this sorted? I won’t be long.” She set her jaw and marched over to the figure on the floor.
“Wait.” Raya hurried after her. “What’s going on?”
“It appears that we have a stowaway.”
Aki helped the man to his feet. At full height, the man stood a foot taller than the bartender. The jellyfish’s pulsing glow alternately lit and hid his face, revealing his features in varying combinations. Brooding eyebrows and a sharp jawline. A widow’s peak and a mouth resting in a slight curl. A slim nose and hooded, almond-shaped gray eyes. A strong neck and layers of dark waves that fell just above his broad shoulders. Depending on where the shadows fell, the young man looked either beautiful or broken. In full light, Raya thought, he was both.
The thickest pair of eyeglasses dangled from the bridge of the man’s slightly crooked nose. He pushed the glasses up, squinting through their cracked lenses. He pulled them off. His eyes quivered, growing large. His hand flew over a gasp. The jellyfish reached down and flicked his hair from his forehead. The man jumped back, stumbling against a petal wall.
Lily strode up to him. “How did you get on board?”
He scrambled to his feet. “Who are you? Where am I?”
Raya’s heart stopped and started, unsure if it should be racing or slowing down. There was a guilty comfort in finding someone who looked and sounded as lost as she felt. She lowered her gaze to hide her relief and found the stowaway’s shoes. One sneaker was a shade lighter than charcoal, the other, midnight blue.
“I’m asking the questions,” Lily said. “How did you get here?”
Raya held her breath. If the man had managed to stow away on the Elsewhere Express, then he had to know the way off it.
His gray eyes shifted. “I don’t remember.”
Lily squeezed the strap of the satchel slung across her chest.“Try.”
“I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t know how I got here. I don’t even know where ‘here’ is. All I know is that I was—” The man’s gaze retreated to the tips of his mismatched shoes.
“You were what?” Lily folded her arms over her blazer, wrinkling it.
“I was on a train.” The stranger kept his eyes down.
Raya leaned forward on her toes, straining to hear him over the rush of blood in her head. “And?”
“And then I…wasn’t. It’s difficult to describe, but I felt as though I was…um…”
“Poured out?” Raya said, remembering how she had felt like a puddle on a floor.
His eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“Aki, look.” Lily pointed to a sake bottle behind the toppled chair’s shattered leg. “The back door. That’s how he boarded.”
“That’s impossible. I locked it.” Aki scooped up the bottle, squeezed one eye shut, and peered into its mouth. Color drained from his thin lips. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Leave us,” Lily said.
“But—”
“Now.”
“I’ll be in the back room if you need anything.” Aki slunk away, his thin fingers wringing the sake bottle’s neck.
Raya did not understand how doors on a giant lotus flower worked, but she was almost certain that if Aki could have squeezed himself through the sake bottle’s mouth and hidden there, he would have.
