“The fuck part is right.I’m not sure that was holy.It was, however, fucking awesome,” Leander said once he’d found his voice again.
Chapter Twenty-One
Leander was exhaustedby the time they dragged themselves and the surviving baskets back to the Ring City.They trudged through the wide lane that cut across all the circular roads, people coming and going in a colorful mass of embroidered robes and chuihu sleeves and handcarts loaded with hand-woven baskets.Something about the pace, about the sheer alienness of it, soothed Leander’s soul.This wasn’t America with the traffic and the horns and the criminal enterprise he’d sold himself to behind every corner.
Xi did not seem as sanguine.“I’m finding myself sympathizing with five-year-olds who insistently ask, ‘Are we there yet,’” Xi said.
Leander rolled his eyes.“I will tell you what any competent parent would say: Stop asking before I pull out your tongue and tie it in a knot.”
Xi barked a laugh.“I’m fairly sure parents are not supposed to resort to those sorts of threats.”
“How would you know?”Leander demanded before adding in a softer voice, “How would either of us know?”
“Point,” Xi admitted.“So, would you pull my tongue out if I asked how long it’s going to take to get home?”
“You walked out here the same as I did.You should be able to find the Nie house as well as I.”Leander detoured around a flower vendor with a cart filled with pink peonies and yellow, white, and orange chrysanthemums and enormous lotus blossoms.The magic drifting from them was much more intense than in the outside world.The lotus filled the street with a soothing balm that made Leander believe for just one moment that all would be fine.
Xi said, “Yes, but without my shadows, I’m struggling.I think I might rely too much on having that magic live under my skin.”
Leander didn’t want to listen to Xi whine for the next fifteen minutes, so he said, “We have to pass two more circle roads to reach the one with red stone embedded in the paving.Then we turn east.”
“You know, as deeply shadowed as this city is, it would be ridiculously easy for me to navigate if someone hadn’t bruised my magical pathways.”Xi gave him an exaggerated look of disgust.
“Next time I shall remember that you prefer to be dead.”Leander tried to keep a straight face, but his lips twitched, and Xi grinned back at him.
By the time they reached the right road, Leander’s shoulders were aching from carrying the phoenix basket.While he had faith in his own craftsmanship, he did not want to risk the sides collapsing if he held it too tightly, and that meant he had to hold his arms out in a way that was unnatural.It may not have been painful when he started, but his shoulders were screaming at him.Xi hugged a tall stack of baskets in his arms, and Leander wondered if he could ask to switch.
But the phoenix basket felt special to him.This was his masterpiece, and while he had learned to trust Xi with his own body, trusting him with something as valuable as the phoenix basket felt far more frightening.So he struggled through, the muscles cramping before Xi said, “Is that the Nie house?”The familiar gate and its guarding foo dogs came into sight at the far edge of the curved road.
“It is.”
Xi huffed loudly.“Oh, thank God.I don’t have to throw your basket down in the street.”
“Do it, and I‘ll murder you in your sleep tonight,” Leander said in a calm voice.
Xi had the audacity to grin at him as they came up to the carved doors with their colorful trim.Maybe the servants used magic because one appeared when Leander and Xi were a few steps away and pushed the double doors open and bowed.
