Auntie Daiyu turned to Leander.“You know plants.”
Leander frowned, not understanding the statement.It was true, but irrelevant.
“You can strengthen the properties of plants and make potions, can you not?”
“They’re called drugs, not potions, but yes,” Leander said, glancing around to see if anyone else understood her questions, but Master Teacher Wang and the doctor appeared confused.
“Then you can recognize the elements of a plant, the sap, the juice?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” she said.“Then you will study the heartbreak grass and identify the poison.Then you call the poison out of Hu Xi’s body.”
“What?”Leander took a step back, distancing himself from such an insane idea.
“That is not possible,” the doctor said.He shook his head so fast that his weird black hat bobbed around.
“For us, it is not,” Auntie Daiyu agreed.“However, western magic is different.Boon Lian is incapable of many tasks, from cleaning his own clothing to flying, but his skill with plants is unmatched.He can do this.”
“No,” Leander said, “I can’t.I’ve never even tried something like this.We have to find another solution.”
“There is no other solution.You either succeed in this task or your qidi dies,” Auntie Daiyu said.Up to this point, Leander would have said she had a good heart, but right now he considered her a raging bitch.A man ran in, a plant clutched in his arms.He bowed to Master Teacher Wang and then to the doctor.
“I have brought the heartbreak grass you have called for.”He pushed the vine forward.It was stinging with distress, roots ripped from its home, many broken and bleeding.The broken leaves dripped with toxins.The man set the plant on the ground, bowed again, and then retreated to the shadows.
“You can do this,” Auntie Daiyu said.“You are one with the plants in a way we cannot emulate.Learn the poison.Call it out of your qidi’s veins.”She gestured to the plant.“Or accept that his death is part of the tapestry and welcome his journey to the next path.”
Leander snarled at her, but he ran his palm over the plant’s dark green leaves, each shaped like a spear.Like all poisonous plants, it had a sharpness and bitterness that leached into the air, and Leander touched a broken stem, feeling the exact nature of that pricking poison.He sank into himself, letting his magic dance with the plant so he would know the feel from a half-mile away.As he sank into the magic, his fears vanished, and he existed only in the moment.
Someone touched his hand, and he floated toward reality.Then he was touching something warm, and Leander felt the plant’s poison sunk deep into the unfamiliar tissue.Leander knew distantly this was Creek, and he had to call the poison out, but that was a faint concern.All that existed was the plant and this new awareness of that familiar poison running through a strange landscape.
Leander had never been aware of an animal’s existence the way he was with plants, but the poison travelling through this body, revealing rivers and streams of blood that flowed in pulsing bursts.He pulled at the poison.
“Continue,” a voice whispered in his ear.It was full of command, and Leander dared not disobey.
He pulled at the poison again.And again.And again.It resisted, struggling to remain in the body, but Leander would not allow that.He demanded it listen to him until the network of blood that had been so visible to him slowly faded from his awareness as it no longer contained the poison.
“Enough,” the powerful voice commanded.
Leander blinked, falling away from the magic that had held him in thrall.Terror sent him scrambling away as Creek lay on his side, covered in blood and sweat and yellow bile that stained his clothing.The doctor was pushing pills into Creek’s mouth, and Master Teacher Wang knelt next to Creek, his hands pressed against Creek’s back.
“I killed him,” Leander cried in horror.
Auntie Daiyu caught his arm before he could flee.“You have given him his only chance of survival.”
A near-hysterical burst of laughter slipped out before Leander could bury it beneath layers of guilt.This was not the first murder he’d carried out, after all.Life was cheap.He knew that.Auntie Daiyu’s hand tightened on his arm, and since Leander could not flee, he sank to his knees as the doctor and Master Teacher Wang levitated Creek from the room, still stained with bodily fluids and rasping every breath.
