Yiran smiled sadly. “Oh, I know—he’s my grandfather. It’s my grandmother’s death anniversary, you see, and he asked me to join him. Traffic was bad, and I’m late, so...” He shrugged helplessly. “I can show you my ID if you don’t believe me.”
“It’s okay, sir,” the waitress said, her expression full of sympathy. “Master Song’s in the Waterlily room, down by the second corridor near the fountain.”
Light chatter from patrons floated in the air as Yiran passed the open spaces and public tables. He tried to hurry, but he didn’t want to drawattention to himself. If he had misread the situation, it was best to be able to leave the teahouse quietly without his grandfather ever knowing he’d been here.
It didn’t take long to spot the fountain the waitress had mentioned. There wasn’t anyone around in this part of the teahouse, where there were five private rooms. Yiran checked the small gold plaques on the wall until he found the right one. He hesitated by the wooden sliding door. If he barged in and it was only his grandfather in there, then the confrontation he didn’t want to have would happen. If hisfatherwas in there too, then what? He’d trusted his gut to come here, but now his instincts were failing him, and he was overthinking as usual.
He was about to press his ear to the door when his anxiety spiked. He couldn’t do this. He wasn’t ready to face his grandfather. But just as he turned to leave, he heard a sharp hiss of pain.
There was a thud, like the sound of something striking the ground dully. Not a teacup or a teapot but something much larger—like abody.
Yiran slid the door open.
His mind went blank as he gaped at the scene in front of him. The tea still steaming on the table, the open window and the cold breeze that drifted in—
Song Wei was crumpled on the floor, his face ashen, a hand clutching his chest. He was shaking, his breaths shallow. Was he having a heart attack?
A rush of clarity crashed into Yiran. “Zufu!”
He gripped his grandfather’s shoulders, dragging him toward the door in a panic. Yiran didn’t know what he was doing, but he knew he had to get—“Help!” he shouted. Would anyone hear him?
Something grazed his cheek.
His grandfather was looking at him, his hand touching Yiran’s face, pushing against it as though he didn’t believe Yiran was real and solid.
“Yiran? My boy, I’m sorry—” The old man’s eyes fluttered shut, and he went silent, his hand hitting the floor.
Yiran could feel the life leaving his grandfather, and he felt his own heart stop.
A flameless fire burst inside him.
Heat rushed through his veins as his vision went completely white. He couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t feel anything. Something squeezed his chest, wringing his insides. He bent over his grandfather’s body, gasping in pain. The fuzzy edges of his vision slowly sharpened. But something else was happening to him. His center, his core, it was—
He caught sight of someone standing at the end of the corridor.
Ash.Disbelief and horror twisted his features.
It wasn’t me, Yiran wanted to say.I didn’t do anything.But his insides were imploding, and he couldn’t speak. The flameless fire inside him barreled up, shooting out of him. He raised his hand to the ceiling.
And the world turned red.
52
Ash
Ash had not shed a single tear since the afternoon, not even when he’d seen his grandfather’s body in the morgue. Spine rigid and face wiped of any expression, he waited outside a meeting room at the Guild’s headquarters. It felt like his body had shut down in the wake of everything that had happened, the stiffness forming a kind of armor to protect his heart. His racing mind was a different matter.
Again and again, Ash replayed the moment he’d seen Yiran next to their dying grandfather. The stricken look on his brother’s face, the guilt in his eyes. The flash of unchecked magic and spiritual energy that came from nowhere, and the destruction it wreaked. Were Yiran’s white-knuckled hands reaching toward—or away from—their grandfather in his last moments?
“The Council will see you now, Captain Song.”
The assistant was smiling, blissfully unaware of the unfolding catastrophe. Updates were still trickling in, and only the higher-ups knew of the Exorcist kidnappings over the last few days and the assault on the teahouse that had just occurred.
The Guild’s head had been cut off figuratively and literally, putting the entire organization in a vulnerable position. And in true Guild fashion, the news of Song Wei’s death was being hidden from the public due to its inconvenient timing. At a more appropriate juncture, a statement would be made, no doubt with an explanation that removed any mention of Song Wei’s younger grandson.
It was the usual playbook. While Ash’s rational mind acknowledged the reason for the secrecy, the rest of him was nauseous that he’d been forced to be part of it.
“Thanks,” he said, somehow managing to smile back at the assistant.
