“Not as miserable as I,” said the woman from the next bed.Huang Min.Older sister of the boy who had abandoned him and Xi when asked to escort them to the river.Half a second later, Leander realized she was also the servant who had brought him that disagreeable donkey when he had been working for Pill Master Yang Xiangren.“Someone poisoned us.”
“Or we fell ill,” Heng said.“Very, very ill.Dizzy and nauseated and ill.”Heng groaned again.
“I think it’s rather more logical to assume the outsiders poisoned us.We were following them,” Min said.She tried to sit up, but ended up falling back onto the bed with a groan.
“There are people watching from the street,” Xi said.
“What?”Leander went to the window, standing next to it rather than in front as he peered out into the crowded street.
“You won’t see them.They’re in the shadow of the building across.I can’t tell you any details, but I feel three people.”
“Maybe they’re just in the shade to smoke,” Leander said, even though he didn’t believe they would have luck that good.
Heng climbed out of his bed, clinging to the wall as he tried to get to the window.“If there are evil eggs out there, we need to be out of bed.”Despite saying that, Heng took two steps back and sat on his bed.His whole body heaved as if he might throw up from the effort.
“Eggs?”Xi asked.The translation pill apparently didn’t work on idioms, but Leander was surprised Xi hadn’t already heard someone insulted using “egg” since a good dozen different insults used it.
The question caused Min to glare at Xi with a disgusted expression.Leander thought of the Chinese as having exquisite manners and impressive poker faces, but Min was breaking every stereotype.Xi, however, ignored her and said to Leander, “You can pull the poison out of them.”Shock transformed Heng’s face, and even Min forgot to look pinched and unhappy for a moment.
“I did that to you, and it almost killed you,” Leander pointed out.
“I was already dying when you pulled the poison out, which is why I almost died.If we have Druwolf’s people in town, they need to be up and moving.Otherwise, it’s not the poison that’s going to kill them.”
“If enemies are targeting us, it is because you brought them to town,” Min said, the pinched expression back.
Leander ignored her.“Heng, should I purge the poison from your system?”Leander didn’t want to take the risk, but Xi was right that they were too vulnerable like this.If he were healthy, Heng could defend himself against any Westerner.He had a much more flexible and powerful form of magic than the highly specialized form Druwolf’s people would possess.Even without magic, he could vanish into a crowd or run for his life.However, right now he couldn’t even stand.
Heng looked from Xi to Leander and back, a crease between his eyes suggesting either worry or that he was sick enough that he was not quite tracking the conversation.“Can you do this safely, qidi?”
Min flinched.
“I don’t know how safe it is, but I can pull all the poison out of your blood at once.Xi was dying when I did it to him.But it bruised the pathways his qi uses, so his magic won’t flow freely.”
“But will you recover?”Heng showed such concern that guilt swamped Leander.Heng was too good, not just for Leander, but for anyone.He didn’t even know Xi, and yet his concern was so genuine his entire face twisted with it.Ten years.That was how long Leander had ignored Heng.He’d never answered a single letter or call, and yet not only did Heng take him in, but he cared about a stranger who’d followed Leander.A stranger Leander had taken into his bed.Although Leander and Heng weren’t in a relationship, Leander still felt as if he’d cheated.
Leander cleared his throat and pushed all the dark emotions into the smallest possible box in the back of his mind.“Master Teacher Wang Bo says that Xi will fully recover, although he should not be using his magic until he heals.”
Xi snorted.“I’ll rest my magic when we don’t have people trying to kill us.”
Heng seemed to think about that for a moment before he nodded.“Do it,” he said to Leander.He smiled and laid back down on the bed.The trust he was showing took Leander’s breath away.
“Wait,” Min objected.“You should not risk your life on the unknown skills of an outsider.”
Heng glanced in her direction.“I do not ask that you follow me on this, but I would rather be healthy sooner rather than later.I was always the one who took my mother’s hangover cure because a moment of misery was worth a quicker recovery.That is especially important if we have enemies near.”
Leander came to the side of the bed, and Heng smiled up at him.
Guilt crawled out of the box where Leander had shoved it.They hadn’t been together as a couple for a decade, but there also had been no one else until Xi.Before that, Heng had been the only person other than Finn who Leander had ever shared his body with.It was such an intimate thing, sharing a physical body with another.He knew others didn’t feel that way, but he always had.When Leander allowed someone to touch him, to run their hands over him and make him shiver, to control how fast he breathed by making him pant with the need or hold his breath in anticipation, that was power.
Leander did not share his power easily.
He’d shared that with Heng, and now he had given the power to Xi instead.He wished he had the privacy to confess to Heng and ask for his forgiveness.The man was kind enough that he would likely offer it, but Leander would not speak in front of Min.
Leander forced himself to focus on Heng’s body, to sink into his magic and chase the poison in his cells.The teachers at the school had provided a vast range of poisonous plants, and within a minute, something familiar teased Leander’s magic.The poison was warm.Inviting.It danced with Leander’s magic, but he could feel the toxic corrosion hiding in Heng.It took him several minutes before he realized it was night-scented lily.
From there, Leander drew the poison from Heng, forcing it into Heng’s lungs where the poison gathered and thickened until Heng started coughing.He sat up in bed and leaned over the edge and hacked out a clot of corruption and phlegm before taking a deep breath.
“How are you?”Leander asked.There had been very little poison in Heng’s system, but Leander still could have damaged him by pulling it out.
