Light leaked from the window shutters. Yiran heard an eclectic selection of swear words as someone fumbled with the doorknob.
“You better have a good reason for waking me up. I was having the funniest dream about talking pandas.”
The voice was low and scratchy with sleep, and it belonged to someone much younger than Yiran had expected.
Haloed in the light, a shirtless boy slouched against the doorframe. One of his eyes was shut, the other barely opened and startlingly light-colored. There was a tattoo on his chest above his heart: two butterflies hovering together, as if in a dance.
Stifling a yawn, the boy raked the dark mess of hair off his face and peered out, finally seeing what orwhowas in Yiran’s arms. Somethingfragile sparked like lightning across the boy’s face, and like lightning, it vanished quickly, chased by a thunderous rage.
He lunged wildly. “What did you do to her?”
Moving back, Yiran said through his teeth, “It wasn’t me—it was a Revenant.”
Anguish ripped from the boy’s throat. “Give her to me.”
Yiran hesitated. The boy had a look in his eyes, a desperate kind of helplessness that sought a violent release. Yiran wasn’t sure if he could trust this beautiful, untamed creature. But the girl had said this boy was the only one who could help.
“No, we shouldn’t move her too much. She lost a lot of blood.” Yiran pushed past the doorway, bumping a shoulder meaningfully against the boy’s chest.
Inside, he looked for a place to lay the girl down. The shophouse wasn’t what he expected. It didn’t look like a retail space; it looked like someone’s home. If that someone was partial to sandalwood and lemongrass incense, left stacks of funeral paraphernalia on their bookshelves, and indulged in half-finished paintings of people with distorted faces caught either in the throes of ecstasy or extreme fear.
Yiran blinked away from a disturbing painting of a woman crawling out of a crab, her limbs bleeding with what looked like fresh red paint.
The boy with the pale blue eyes motioned at a chaise. Carefully, Yiran lowered the girl onto it.
Her eyes fluttered open and focused on the boy, who had knelt beside her. “Zizi?”
“Don’t be afraid. I’m here,” said the boy named Zizi. He brushed the girl’s bangs aside, tucking the longer strands behind her ear.
The girl struggled to breathe. “Not afraid... you fool.”
The gurgling sound from her throat turned Yiran’s stomach. He whispered to Zizi, “Is she going to be all right? She’s not going to... you know...”
“I can hear you,fool.” The girl closed her eyes and coughed. Blood trickled down her chin. “Not going to die yet. Sorry to... d-disappoint.”
Zizi shot Yiran a scathing look. Then he leaned over the girl like he was about to put his arms around her, but all he did was whisper something in her ear. There was a pause before she nodded.
“Look away,” he said to Yiran.
“What?”
Zizi narrowed his eyes. “I said, look away.”
Too exhausted to argue, Yiran faced the wall, trying his best not to stare at a portrait of a man with dark hair and blue eyes dressed in something that looked suspiciously like a garbage bag. Maybe it was a portrait of Zizi’s future self. Maybe it was a commentary on the state of the environment.
Behind him, fabric ripped, and the girl hissed in pain. Gradually, the air crackled like the beginning of a storm and the room grew hot.
Yiran tugged at his collar. His adrenaline from earlier was gone, and he was drained and lightheaded. He wiped the sweat from his forehead only to realize he was burning up. There was a new sensation crawling over him, like something wasmovingin his veins. It was the same feeling he had moments after the girl had cast her spell.
Magic, whispered his fast-beating heart.
His soul shivered.
This was magic. What he’d just witnessed was magic. And now, some form of it was inside him too. It was thethingin his veins, brought to life by the spell the girl had cast.
It was the strangest feeling.
To his grandfather, Yiran was a constant reminder of the shame that someone carrying the Song family name could be born without the ability to do magic. It hurt. Yiran never showed it, not even to Ash. He played it off like he was relieved he didn’t have to train at the Academy and was happy to waste his days away doing nothing.
