Rui
Rui knocked on the door of the shophouse for a while before impatience got the better of her. Zizi wasn’t one for the usual security measures. The simple lock couldn’t deter a child. She took two steps back and gave the door a good kick.
The lock broke easily, and the door swung open.
She hesitated. If Zizihadsecurity, it would come in the form of spells. Perhaps she had too much faith in him, but she was confident that whatever countermeasures he might have set up, he would’ve made sureshe, of all people, could bypass them safely.
She stepped over the threshold, letting out a loud breath when it was clear she hadn’t lost an arm or an eye. It was quiet inside.
“Zizi?” she called out. “Mao?”
The wind chimes whistled softly. But there was no cat and no boy.
The kitchen sink was filled with unwashed dishes, and a half-drunk mug of old coffee sat on the counter. Zizi wasn’t the neatest, but he always kept his kitchen clean.
The stairs creaked as she went up to the second floor to the bedroom. It looked suspiciously unchanged since the day she’d woken up in it. For a few long moments, Rui stared at the ceiling of stars, wishing for the first time she could name them all.
There were two other rooms left to explore. One turned out to be a walk-in wardrobe full of pajamas sorted meticulously by color, and surprisingly, an assortment of formal wear. Rui tried to imagine Zizi in a tux. She would’ve laughed in his face... if he were here. She inhaled the scent of mint and strawberries and boy, and walked out, a strange twisting in her chest.
Half camouflaged in shadow, the third door was nestled into the wallat the end of the corridor. It was narrower than the other two doors and it had no knob.
Part of Rui wanted to leave it alone. But most of her was too curious. She gave it an exploratory nudge and then, a bigger shove. It held. Whatever was behind that door would remain a secret for now.
She went down to the fake closet, stooping to press the secret button in the corner.
Nothing happened. No gears whirred; no door opened. Zizi’s spell lab was out of bounds.
“Where is he?” she sighed.
Zizi never missed her calls. In fact, he hardly went a day without texting her about something or other. This silence was deafening. Three other mages had vanished since they were hired to create a similar separation spell. Could he be the fourth to go missing? She wasn’t sure if the three other mages were still alive. What if Zizi...
She banished that thought from her mind, sinking down onto her favorite armchair. In some ways, Zizi was her oldest friend. He wasafter Mama, before Ada, a brief time when fourteen-year-old Rui was on the verge of self-destruction. She’d found refuge in a strange shophouse and a stranger boy. Without Zizi around, she felt out of step with everything.
The ticking of the wall clock grew loud in her head. It felt like she was running out of time. She wanted her magic back. She wanted her revenge. But the stakes were higher than that now. Zizi was missing; the Blight was creating more Revenants; and Nikai had said the destruction of the underworld was imminent.
Shehadto find Four’s soul or the vessel that held his power. Yiran’s face surfaced in her mind, but Rui huffed at the empty room. He didn’t fit the bill. He’d been born with a weak spirit core; he couldn’t house the soul of a god.
She glanced at the clock. There was still time to go to the Night Market to scout for information. Maybe Auntie Lian knew something about magical containers.
Something red and black caught her eye on her way to the front door. The cover of an instant ramen cup sticking out of the trash. She picked it up, memories flashing.
Last autumn... the ghost earrings in her hand—a surprise gift for Zizi—he was working on something... an old locket.
Rui dug deeper into the memory. In her mind’s eye, she saw Zizi tearing the seasoning packet for his instant ramen with his teeth.
“Are you even listening to me?” he had said. “I’ve been trying to unseal this locket for three days and it’s not happening.”
Rui was playing fetch-the-sparkly-ball with Mao. Zizi complained a lot about his work, and she’d grown accustomed to it. “Stop whining and try again.”
He’d glared without malice as he paced, twirling his cigarette like a philosopher in an existential crisis. “The client’s expecting to see what’s in this damned locket tomorrow. If I don’t get it done, I won’t get paid and I’m going to starve—Rooroo, are you really stealing my food in my dire time of need?”
Rui put the chopsticks down. She’d zoomed into his ramen while he was distracted and talking. “It was just a bite.”
Zizi looked aggrieved. “It’s almost as if you enjoy seeing me suffer.”
“Don’t be absurd. Are you sure you tried everything? Who did the locket belong to?”
“The client’s mother. It was stated in her will for the locket to be given to her favorite child.”
