“I firebent once,” she said, realizing how stupid she sounded as she said it. “Under duress. It, uh, came out of my mouth. Like dragon’s breath.” She thought about trying to do a Fire Fist, but it felt like a bad idea, given the lack of space and how badly her last one went.
“Yeah, I once got food poisoning from dodgy fire flakes too,” Lek said. “Doesn’t mean I’m the reincarnation of Yangchen.”
“Well, I believe her,” Lao Ge said with a proud, upturned chin. Judging by the others’ expressions, his endorsement had the opposite effect.
“Okay, okay,” Kirima said. “Everyone calm down. Take a breather. Let’s consider this rationally for a minute. Assuming she is the—KYOSHI, THINK FAST!”
She’d uncorked her water skin with a sleight of hand. A pellet of liquid flew at Kyoshi’s face.
Kyoshi made an undignified squeal that should have disqualified her from holding any office whatsoever. She still couldn’t bend any piece of earth smaller than a house, and the water aimed at her eyes made her flinch like a prickle snake had wandered into her sleeping bag. She threw her arms over her face.
“Spirits above,” Lek whispered.
Her cheeks burned in shame. Sure, she looked bad, but that bad?
“Kyoshi,” Rangi said, breathless and thrilled. “Kyoshi!”
The fan she’d been holding had come out of her belt as she clenched up in surprise. She was gripping it the wrong way, like a dagger. The tip of the weapon pointed to the little blob of water hovering in midair.
“Is that you?” Rangi said to Kirima. The stunned Waterbender shook her head.
Rangi dove at Kyoshi. The water fell on her back, splashing them both. She squeezed Kyoshi in a ferocious embrace. “You did it!” she yelled. “You bent another element!”
As Kyoshi struggled to breathe with an ecstatic Firebender wrapped around her neck, she stared at the fan in her hand. Her mother’s weapon had made the difference somehow, in both the element and the amount. She was sure of it.
She looked up at the faces of the daofei. Lao Ge had a cool, knowing expression, but the rest were shocked into submission. They’d been smuggling valuable cargo the whole time.
They settled down in one of the innumerable abandoned quarries that supplied the middle and upper rings of Ba Sing Se. The marker of wealth for most Earth Kingdom citizens was whether your house was built with stone from the ground below it. The farther the rock had to travel, the fancier it was.
This quarry followed a seam of marble. The small canyon had been mined out in perfectly square blocks, leaving the edges protruding with right angles. They landed on a flat surface of swirled gray and white, resembling tiny figures on a giant fou
ntain basin. The regularity of the stone fractures laid on top of the natural rock formations made Kyoshi’s vision blur.
The first sign that something was off was Wong. He dismounted first and then reached up to help Kyoshi down. She frowned, assuming he was more likely to pick her pocket than act as a footman. She jumped off the other side of the saddle.
Once they were all on solid ground, the original members of the Flying Opera Company backed away from her. “We need a moment to confer,” Kirima said.
Kyoshi and Rangi shared uncertain glances with each other while the daofei huddled on the far side of the marble cube, murmuring and whispering. Occasionally one of them would poke their head up like a singing groundhog and give Kyoshi a hard, assessing stare before returning to their debate.
“If they turn on us,” Rangi whispered sideways through a forced smile, “I want you to take Pengpeng and run. I’ll buy you time to escape.”
Kyoshi found that scenario too distressing to think about. The sudden end of the gang’s discussion forced her backbone straighter. They filed back over to Kyoshi and Rangi, as grim and wary and determined as the first night they’d met. Kyoshi sucked in her breath through her teeth as Lek stepped forward, a mirror of that night they’d almost come to blows.
“It’s been our honor to have traveled with the Avatar,” he said. “We regret that we have to part ways.” They bowed in unison. Not using the daofei salute, but with their hands formally at their sides.
Kyoshi blinked. “Huh?”
“It doesn’t have to be right now, if that’s not to your wishes,” Kirima said. “I suppose you might want the night to plan your next move and leave us in the morning.”
It was the politeness more than anything that threw her off. “Huh?”
They seemed as confused as she was. “You’re the Avatar,” Wong said. “You can’t stay with people like us. It’d be an offense to the spirits or something.”
“Not to mention too dangerous,” Lek said. He ran his fingers over his palm where a blotchy red line remained, the artifact of Kirima’s imperfect healing. “We’re still obligated to join the attack on Governor Te’s. If we bail, Mok would find us eventually. When he does, well . . . being killed by a shirshu would be kinder.”
“You’ll be safer the farther away you are from us,” Kirima said.
Kyoshi’s mind reeled. Were they protecting her? She’d been so certain that the first people who discovered her identity would take her hostage or rat her out to Jianzhu. The Avatar was a tool. The Avatar was leverage. The master of all four elements lay somewhere between a bargaining chip to get what you wanted and a blunt-force hammer to be swung at the many imperfections riddling the world.