Eyes round like marbles, Rui said, “It’s good that he’s alive... yes?”
“Not when he’s leading the Hybrids. The kidnapping of the Exorcists? His decision. The one who killed my grandfather? Also him.He’sthe brains behind all the ambushes on Exorcists over the last year too.”
“But he’sSong Liming!” Rui said, her hands clenching into tight fists. “He was a Captain, he was going to be Head of the Guild, he’s a—he’s...” She stopped talking, staring bitterly at the dark sea.
Yiran knew she was feeling betrayed. And he knew what she was going to say. Song Liming was a hero; he wasn’t supposed to be the villain in this story.
Only fromyourperspective, his father’s voice whispered in his head. Yiran shook it off.
“My father thinks he’s found a way to change the world order,” Yiran said. “He wants to use the rogue talisman to imbue yinqi into normies and transform them into Hybrids who can protect themselves against the original Revenants and the Blight, so neither will pose a threat. In some twisted way, he thinks this is the solution for a safer world.”
“But not every normie will survive the transformation, and Hybrids still have tofeed,” Rui said.
“I know that. But my father believes in what he calls the natural law—survival of the fittest. The weak don’t matter. Root them out, have them serve the most basic purpose to sustain the strong. It’s a warped way to think.”
“Hold up—how doyouknow all this?” Zizi asked sharply.
Now comes the hard part.Yiran hoped that neither of them would judge him too harshly. Detail by excruciating detail, he told them about how he’d started seeing Yuki, his kidnapping, and the fight with Noah. He told them everything he knew about his father’s plans and the strange devices in the cellar of the bar. As painful as it was, he decided to tell them about his mother and what his grandfather had done to him too.
As Yiran spoke, he felt the tension go out of his body. It was a relief to talk about it outside his own head.
He gave his friends a weak smile when he was done. “This is the partwhere you start yelling at me for being stupid and a terrible person for not informing anyone earlier.”
“After what happened to you—what wasdoneto you—I can see why you’d spurn the Guild and your grandfather, and even Ash,” Rui said. “Your father took advantage of you. His offer must’ve felt like the only way.”
“But Mochididhave a choice,” Zizi said, though there was no heat in his tone. “Everyone does. That’s the thing about mortals, they have all this free will and yet they choose to believe they’re helpless. But every step they take, every stepwetake, every decision we make—there are choices, even if they are hard ones, even if they feel like ones we’ve been forced to make.”
Rui was staring at Zizi, but he was refusing to look at her. Yiran sensed that something deeper was going on.
“As much as I hate to say this, Lord Death is right,” Yiran said. “I’m making a choice now. I’ll turn myself in to the Guild. I’ll tell them everything I know. They might punish me for consorting with the Hybrids, but maybe I can clear my name regarding my grandfather’s murder.”
“No,” Rui said at once. “It’s too dangerous to approach the Guild when they know you’re an Amplifier.”
“You shouldn’t. I don’t trust the Guild,” Zizi said at the same time.
“This is about me making the right choices for once. About redeeming myself for my idiocy,” Yiran argued. “They can’t do anything to me if I tell the truth, even if my spirit core is different.”
“Amplifiers have been erased from Exorcist history for a reason. Humans fear what they do not understand,” Zizi said. The pain on his face came from experience.
I had friends I cared about who suffered greatly because of the Guild, people the Guild wanted to control because they feared them for what they were capable of....
Song Liming was wrong about many things, but maybe he was right about this one thing.
And even though Yiran couldn’t reconcile everything Rui had told himabout their past selves, he did feel guilty about what Burning Flame had done. He wanted to act. Todosomething. “What, then?” he said. He hated feeling this helpless. “We have to stop my father and the Hybrids.”
“Tell me what you know about their hideouts,” Zizi said. “It’ll give me a starting point to track the rogue talisman.”
“They move and clear out all the time. That’s why the Exorcists have so much trouble finding them.”
“Basic information will suffice. IamLord Death, after all.”
“Then why don’t you Lord-Death-magic everything so our realm will be okay again?”
Something flickered in Zizi’s eyes. “It doesn’t work that way. There’s always a cost when you’re dealing with the underworld. I can’t get rid of the Blight, if that’s what you mean. It exists because humans do. But I’ll handle the spell.” He clasped his hands together conclusively, looking eager to move on from the conversation. “Seeing that Mochi’s a wanted man now, we shouldn’t stay here or go wandering around the city.”
“Don’t worry,” Rui said, “I know someone who can shelter us for the night.”
58
