“Really?But magic is unique to each person, and each person can only do one thing.”Shanlin was wide-eyed with wonder, too naïve to understand the danger inherent in what Leander was saying.
Leander himself had pushed the bounds of plant magic to the point he did things most Western flora mages considered impossible.And he’d been in China long enough to grasp how different magic users were here.“Magic will always earn respect, but our magic is different.”
“Am I magic?”Shanlin asked, his voice rising above a whisper.Leander glanced over his shoulder to see the driver focused on the road and the drama playing on the radio.The woman was just learning a doppelgänger had replaced her husband.He had missed Chinese dramas.They were so ridiculously over-the-top that he enjoyed the pure fantasy, and the driver cared far more for fictional drama than what his passengers were talking about.
“I’m sure you are,” Leander whispered.“Your parents were so powerful.Your mother—she had more control than anyone I’ve ever heard of with her gift.”Since blood mages were so feared, they got written about far more than boring gifts, like flora magic.
“But I’ve never shown any gift.”
“Your parents hadn’t either by this age,” Leander said.
“What about my grandparents?My mother never talked about them.”
Leander closed his eyes.“She never met her parents.They left her at a firehouse when she was a baby.”She had always suspected they were magic users who wanted to keep her out of the system, but none of them knew for sure.Leander’s father had walked out before Leander was born, and he liked to imagine his father was protecting him, even though it was more likely he didn’t want a pregnant girlfriend.But the overwhelming hope his father had loved him haunted him, even today.
“Your father’s parents died when your father was in grade school, so you don’t have grandparents, but what are you going to tell people about your family?”
Shanlin sat up straighter.“I’m Shanlin Boon.”
“That’s fine, but remember, say your family name first.”
Shanlin winced.“I knew that.I’m Boon Shanlin.My father is Boon Lian, and his parents are both dead.My grandfather on his side died when my grandmother was pregnant, and my grandmother died before I was born.My mother was Nie Tessa, and I’ve never met my grandparents, but we’ve come to live with them because my father needs more family after my mother died.”
Leander patted him on the knee.“Perfect,” he said.
Shanlin shook his head.“I got the names backward.”
“You’re from America.People will expect you to get the name backwards.It’s fine.Now understand, these people will be very formal.They have a history of thousands of years.They don’t want to change, and we don’t want others to judge us, so we have to make sure we are clean and polite.”
Shanlin rolled his eyes.“You said this on the plane.”
Leander’s knees were aching from the cramped space, so he shifted back to his seat.
“I know I’m repeating myself, but it’s important we make a good first impression.Because you’re young, everyone will expect you to be quiet and listen to your elders.”
“Because being older makes you right?”
Leander blinked at Shanlin without speaking, and he slowly shrank in on himself.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
Running his fingers through his hair, Leander looked out of the window at the shop signs in Chinese and the unfamiliar cars.He remembered this—the frustration at being forced into an unfamiliar culture.
“I wish I could make this easier,” he said.“When I was eighteen, I hated how everyone expected me to be so polite when I wanted to tell them to jump off a bridge.”Leander had almost said something more vulgar, but he remembered Shanlin was a child.“But China has magical communities that have survived millennia.Their culture makes sure people are polite to one another, and they don’t have the same hatred between people who have power and those who don’t.”
“People always hate anyone with power.”Shanlin sounded miserable.
“No,” Leander said.“We don’t have power, but if we can find a good family to work for, they’ll take care of us.They’ll give bonuses if I work hard, and they may even give us a place to live.They know that if those who have power share what they have to support the community, then the community will support and care for them.That keeps the power from turning into resentment.Their system works, so please be respectful to anyone older than you.”
Shanlin looked out of the window, but he did nod.Leander didn’t think he would get better.“Can we practice the bow hands?”he asked without taking his gaze off the road.
“Of course.”Leander made a fist with his left hand and rested his right hand on it before he bowed until his head touched the back of the seat.
Shanlin fisted his hand, but he put his fingers in the wrong place, and Leander corrected him.
“Will it be terrible?”Shanlin asked quietly.
“Of course not.”
