Yiran frowned.
“Some stuff’s been going down in the city the last few days since I, uh,invitedyou to meet your father.” Yuki smiled apologetically, maybe even hopefully. “But I did save your life earlier, so I guess I made up for it?”
Yiran wasn’t sure why Yuki would care about getting his forgiveness. He was too tired to be angry. “What happened to those Revenants in the forest?”
“Killed them,” Yuki replied in a singsong voice.
“Did my father send you after me?”
“I came after you myself. Can’t believe he let you go without healing you first. Noah did quite a number on you, huh?”
“Won’t my father be upset when he finds out you acted of your own accord?”
“Why would he be upset at me for keeping his precious son alive? Here’s a life lesson for you, Song er shaoye. The trick to surviving is knowing when to show your strengths and when to lean into your perceived weaknesses. Figure out how much you’re worth to those who are important and to those who have power—they’re not always the same.” Yuki flipped another page, and his eyes widened. “Now, this is a great pair of boots,stylishandfunctional—” He clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Why do nice things always cost a fortune?”
Yiran stared at the puzzling, infuriating, contradictory, beautiful mess that was Yuki. From the outset, he’d appeared different from other Hybrids. The others thought less of him because of his inferior combat skills, but the autonomy Song Liming had awarded him implied something else was at work. Yuki could control his hunger for yangqi, and despite having weapons made from yinqi, he could vanquish Revenants. Like the Hybrid girl, Yuki possessed the two qualities Song Liming was obsessed with finding—and creating.
Matthias Lin was special too. Yiran had a feeling that Song Liming had a penchant—maybe even an obsession—forspecial.
The door to the room opened, and a petite young woman entered. She was carrying a bowl and a wooden case the size of an envelope.
“This is L,” Yuki said. “She’s a white lantern.”
Yiran didn’t expect a rogue mage to look so unremarkably normal. L’s doe-like eyes were framed by enormous tortoiseshell glasses, and her thick, wavy hair fell untidily over her slight shoulders. She wore a cozy sweater with a small flower print and looked more like someone who could recommend a good book and a cup of fragrant tea to go with it. Then again, any librarian worth their salt knew where the obscure books with forbidden secrets were.
Yuki warned, “Don’t let her innocent appearance fool you. Believe me when I say she’s dangerous.”
“Leave us,” L said brusquely, putting the bowl on the table.
Magazine in tow, Yuki drifted out of the room.
L closed the door. “Drink.”
Yiran grimaced. The murky substance in the bowl looked like mud soup and smelled of pungent herbs. “Do you have honey or something sweet to go with this?”
“The medicinal properties will lose their effectiveness if you add anything else. Hold your breath and drink it in one gulp.”
The brothwasvile, but Yiran got it down. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, wrinkling his nose at his sweater. It smelled of dirt, sweat, and blood. He wanted a bath. He wanted to go home and crawl into his own bed. But he wasn’t sure how Ash would react to the news about their father.
Was he really trying to draw magic from you?
Yiran’s brain told him that the answers he wanted lay with Song Wei. But his soul shriveled at the thought of confronting his grandfather.
“Thanks for healing me, L,” he said.
“Thank Yuki. White lanterns normally steer clear of Hybrids, but I owed him a favor.”
“What favor?”
“Family business. He saved one of mine, so I’m saving one of his.”
Family or friend or otherwise, Yiran wasn’t sure how he felt about being thought of asone of Yuki’s. As L reached to take the bowl from him, a lock of hair by her neck moved to reveal a tattoo. Symbols that looked like birds in flight. It reminded Yiran of the tattoos the old mage at the Night Market had, the one who’d rejected Yiran’s request for a spell to capture a Revenant. Master Kang, that was his name. According to Zizi, Master Kang was one of four mages who’d vanished, and the Hybrid Revenants were to blame.
“Your tattoo is a clan symbol, isn’t it?”
L’s expression darkened. “Why do you ask?”
Yiran hedged. “I know someone else who had the same tattoo on his bald head, but maybe I’ve got it wrong, since I’m pretty sure he was a red lantern.”
