Leander froze.On one hand, that would keep Xi away from the other villagers.On the other, Leander desperately wanted to escape all human interaction.Their fight had drained him to the point where his tongue was sore from holding back all the insults he wanted to say.He needed to recharge.
“I could help you find plants.If you show me a sample plant, I could send my shadows to find it.”
“Master Yang is paying me pennies per plant, so I only bring him one small sample of each different plant,” Leander said.
Xi laughed.“You are still a master of malicious compliance.”He lifted his glass as though toasting Leander.
“You’re still annoying,” Leander snapped back.Xi jerked as if Leander had slapped him, but before the guilt could gnaw on Leander’s rougher edges, Xi started laughing.
“I had forgotten what you were like when you were in a bad mood.”
“This isn’t a bad mood.”Leander hated it when others dismissed his rightful and just annoyance as a mood.He had a right to be frustrated with Xi.The smug bastard walked in acting as though Leander didn’t understand the gravity of their situation.He acted as if Leander didn’t even care about keeping Shanlin safe, when he had given up everything to protect Finn’s boy.Xi had only run when his owners questioned his loyalty.He’d saved his own sorry skin.If they had been in the States, Leander would have said all that and more.He would have gone all the way back to when they’d been in freshman algebra and Xi had earned them both detention by being too much of an idiot to hide his copying.
But they had to live together.“Fine,” he snapped.“Follow me and don’t talk to anyone.”
“Except you,” Xi said with a chuckle.
Leander glared at him.If Leander had his way, no one would ever talk to him ever again.Maybe the sages who moved to a mountain peak to sit and cultivate magic had it right.People were a giant pain in his ass.
“Ready,” Shanlin said as he came thundering down the stairs.His voice was too loud and his smile too bright.Leander narrowed his eyes as he studied Finn’s annoying child.That was the expression Finn had always had when he’d been scheming.Shanlin even had the habit of widening his eyes when caught, as though appearing more innocent would fool Leander.What scheme did he have rattling around in that skull of his?Leander was not in the mood for any Finn-style practical jokes, that was for certain.
“Let’s go,” Leander said.He picked up the simplest of the baskets he’d woven yesterday and headed out of the door, touching the vine guarding the entrance on his way past.
“Shadows are almost as cool as plants,” Shanlin was telling Xi behind him, but Leander focused on the village.The longer they lived here, the more other villagers would develop expectations of them.Leander needed to understand how these people interacted with each other and where the power lay.But he dared not use his magical methods to spy.This was a village of magical folk who could have powers of their own.Leander couldn’t afford to anger any of them.
“Do you like the school?”Xi asked Shanlin.
Leander froze and sent a prayer up to a god he didn’t believe in anymore.Please do not allow Shanlin to insult the school, the children of potentially powerful villagers or the teacher who, no doubt, had high status of his own.
“It’s awesome—so much better than in America.I don’t have to avoid talking about magic or anything,” Shanlin said.
Leander blew out a breath, not realizing he’d been holding it until that moment.He walked faster.Two boys were walking toward the teacher’s house, and one called out to Shanlin.Shanlin started running, stopped to look at Leander.Only when Leander nodded did he race to join his two friends.
“God, he makes friends as easily as Finn,” Xi murmered.
Leander didn’t respond, but Xi was right.Finn had always been the social one in the group.Even Leander, who could never figure out how to have normal human interactions, felt normal around him.Too bad he couldn’t figure out how to use a fucking condom.When Leander didn’t respond, Xi sighed, and the disapproval rolled off him like a fog.
Leander ignored it.
When he reached Master Yang’s house, the same servant woman who had given him the worn basket waited in the yard with the disagreeable donkey.It kept pulling on the reins, and the woman yanked the beast’s head around with far more strength than her slender frame suggested she possessed.
“I have found a more appropriate basket for you,” she said with a mocking partial bow so shallow as to not count at all.
Leander kept his expression neutral as he studied the enormous basket with wooden bottom straddling the animal’s shoulders.Half a grocery store would fit in the damn thing.“I thank you for your consideration,” Leander said.
Xi’s gaze flicked from the woman to Leander, clearly sensing something was wrong.Luckily, he kept his mouth shut.
Master Yang threw open the door to his house and stepped out into the sunlight.“How many more outsiders are planning to follow you, Boon Lian?”he demanded, no hint of propriety in his voice.
Leander bowed.“Honored Master Yang Xiangren, pill master to the village, I present my qilin Hu Xi.”
Master Yang scoffed.“I need ginseng.Significant amounts.Do not show up with one root, claiming the basket prevented you from doing your job.”
“Of course not, Master Yang.I am paid by the plant, so I am motivated to bring the skilled master as many plants as possible if I hope to build a future for my son.I am, however, limited by how many plants I can enrich with chi.If I bring you only ginseng, I will still only be able to bring you between fifteen and twenty plants, but if Master Yang wishes to purchase only ginseng, I can only oblige.”
Leander spoke loudly and clearly, making sure that everyone heard he expected to get paid per root, and as he expected, Master Yang turned red, even on his balding head.Miserly, yuan-counting pissant
“I offered ten yuan per plant when you had to search for each separate plant.If you find a cluster of ginseng, then you are not working as hard.”
