Master Teacher Wang pushed open the gilded doors to reveal a room done in greens and subtle blues.Creek was lying on an ornate Chinese bed with carved panels.He turned toward the open door.“Leander!”His smile was weak but genuine.
“Lian,” Leander corrected him, feeling like a hypocrite because he kept thinking of Creek as Creek, and not Xi.Hu Xi.
Creek’s smile faded, but it returned when Shanlin ran to his side.“I’m so glad you’re awake.When Heng came to get me and said you were sick, I thought you were dead.When father—” Shanlin sucked in a breath.
“Shhh,” Leander said.He didn’t want Shanlin talking about Finn here, around people who thought he was Shanlin’s father.“We don’t want to wear Xi out.”
“There are people in town.Outsiders,” Shanlin blurted, as if Leander had not, with his previous breath, said to avoid wearing Xi out.
Xi sucked in a quick breath and then clutched his stomach.
Master Teacher Wang moved to his side, waving his hands over Xi for a moment before nodding.“Your qi tries to move through damaged pathways.It will hurt for a time, so I would advise you to avoid calling on your magic.You have cultivated enough that you are between the egg drop soup and stew stages, so it is too thick to move easily through injured pathways.”
“Egg drop soup?”Xi looked confused.
Shanlin pushed between Master Teacher Wang and Xi, planting himself at the edge of the bed.“Master Wang explained it all.Magic gets thicker when you develop it.Mine is like air–like a burp caught under my ribs.Yours is thicker–like stew.”
Master Teacher Wang smiled so the lines at the corners of his eyes turned to furrows.“Little cicada friend, I never said yours was air.”
Shanlin frowned.“Yes, you did.”
“No, I said in children, it is like air.For most, it is.For you, the qi is like tea.You can still burp tea, but it is a good deal more messy,” he said in a tone that suggested he was sharing a great secret.Seeing a wise Chinese sage sharing this as some mystical secret startled a laugh out of Leander.Master Teacher Wang winked at Leander, a gesture Leander had not thought stately Chinese adults used.“You, little cicada, are in the foundational stage–in the dantien foundation level.Your father and his qidi are more advanced, which is good.Hu Xi, you never would have survived Craftsman Lian’s inelegant cure had you not completed your body foundation stage.”
Xi frowned.“There is so much in there that I don’t understand that I don’t know where to start.”
Leander stepped forward, resting his hand on Shanlin’s shoulder.“I used my power over plants to pull the poison from your blood, but it made you bleed.Everywhere.”
“Accurate,” Master Teacher Wang said.“Unless you develop more finesse, Craftsman Lian, I would suggest you avoid such treatment unless one has completed their foundational stages.It took a strong body and spirit to survive the cure, but had Craftsman Lian not performed such odd magics, you would have died, qidi of his.”
“Then shouldn’t he be Healer Lian?”Xi asked with an inappropriate grin in Leander’s direction.None of this was funny.None.
“No, I think I shall call him Craftsman Lian,” Master Teacher Wang said with exaggerated seriousness.“Come, little friend cicada.You have not eaten, and your father and his qidi must speak.”He put a hand on Shanlin’s shoulder and guided him toward the door.When Shanlin hesitated, Leander nodded for him to go with the teacher.He would be safe with the old man, although the old man’s ears wouldn’t be safe if Shanlin figured out what a cicada was.Or more precisely, how loud one was.Leander watched Master Teacher Wang take Shanlin away before he turned his attention to Xi.
“How do you feel?”
“Like shit.Like I got run over by a truck.Like I was blown up after being run over by a truck.And I can’t use my magic.Do you have any idea how annoying that is?”
“I can imagine,” Leander said.This expanded space had disconnected him from the network of magic he’d developed around Orange Flower Hills, so he felt blind.But at least he could feel the gardens and the vines crawling along the walls, even if he hadn’t yet tangled magic with those plants.It felt disrespectful to do so in such a magical place.But the lack of connection left him uneasy and cranky.Well, crankier than usual, anyway.
“Tecca told Shanlin that you knew dangerous people.”Leander had never believed in avoiding the cold, harsh truth.
“Yeah.They’re called police,” Xi said with a snort.
Leander considered the room—the ornately carved chairs, the lacquered chest standing against the wall, the calligraphy wall hanging illustrated with a tree and cranes set against stylized clouds.Leander hated all of it.His stomach soured and his chest was tight, and he yearned for an isolated mountain cave and silence.
“Lian?”Xi asked softly.
Leander ran his fingers through his hair.
“What is it?”Xi hissed in pain as he tried to sit up.
Leander pushed Xi back down.“Stop being an idiot.I didn’t pull the poison out for you to kill yourself pushing too hard.”
Xi yielded, settling himself on the embroidered pillow.“Then tell me what’s going on.”
“You’re keeping secrets, and we both remember how badly I react to secrets.”
Xi snorted and then winced as he pressed his fingers into his stomach, right where Master Teacher Wang had said the dantian lay.“You’re a bastard.Finn apologized, if you remember.You’re the one who held the grudge and drove him away.”
