“Watch it—this isn’t your grandfather’s road.” A young girl with heavy eyeliner glared at her and pushed past. A few others threw Rui impatient looks as they carried on, squeezing their way forward.
Drawn by the metallic ringing sound, Rui filtered into a walkway. A kindly-looking old man was standing in the corner with a huge, round metal container propped up in front of him on a table. He worked histools, using one to hit the other, slowly breaking up a large milky-white piece of candy into smaller bite-sized pieces.
The old man noticed her. “Would you like some dingding tang?”
Rui shook her head, breathing hard. The thought of tasting her once-favorite candy made her nauseated.
It was an unspoken rule for Xingshan cadets to avoid places like the Night Market, where the underground magic community held territory. But Rui had stopped coming here for another reason.
It felt like the scene of a crime. An unsolved murder that haunted her days and nights.
Angry at her own weak-mindedness, Rui walked quickly back into the crowd. But the trip was starting to feel like a waste of time. It didn’t seem likely she’d be able to sense anything; it was too crowded tonight, and she was constantly being jostled.
She moved to the sidewalk for air.
Out of the corner of her eye, something blue flashed. She glanced over her shoulder. There was nothing. But she could’ve sworn she’d felt eyes on her back.
“Something bothering you, meinu?” A middle-aged woman with cat-eye spectacles was gesturing at her from a stall. “A little lovelorn? How about a charm? Auntie Lian has everything you need.”
The woman’s stall didn’t look any different from the dozen others that sold jade accessories for luck, calligraphic couplets on red paper, prayer candles, joss sticks, and charms—real and fake. But the old shophouse behind her caught Rui’s interest.
Red lanterns, black markings. Similar to Zizi’s.A mage.Rui might not be able to sense a connection with anyone with the surging crowd, but there was something else the magic practitioners at the Night Market were known for.
Information.
It would’ve been easier if she could ask Zizi for help. But he’d try to drag the truth out of her. A mage who was a stranger, someone who waspurely in it for money, they wouldn’t ask questions.
“I don’t need a charm,” Rui said politely, “but can you tell me whose shop that is?”
Auntie Lian frowned, as if she’d noticed something. “Who wants to know?”
“Just me.”
“You train at Xingshan Academy?”
Rui was dressed in her street clothes, not her uniform.
“I can always tell,” Auntie Lian boasted, taking her silence as confirmation. “Something about you young ones—that look in your eye like you think you’ll smile in the face of death. Until you see it, of course.” She laughed, tickled by her own words. “A mage lives there, but I’m sure you knew that.”
“Are they taking visitors? The lanterns aren’t lit.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“I might have a job for them,” Rui said as if she were confiding.
“What job?”
Rui replied with a winning smile, “It’s a secret job, Auntie Lian. If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it? When will the mage be back?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Rui kept her tone light. “Why not?”
“What do I get in return if I told you?”
“Oh, depends.”
Auntie Lian popped a toothpick into her mouth. “Are you sure you don’t want that charm for your true love?”
