Fox and Phoenix (Lóng City 1)

She stomped out the front door. I threw the bolts and flipped the sign around to CLOSED. BACK SOON. Ma mi would peel the skin from my butt for closing early, but it wasn’t as though clients were banging on our door. A part of me wondered why she needed so many new magical ingredients, but my head hurt too much to think about it.

With a sigh, I shooed Hsin from her perch and pulled out the account books. They made a huge boring heap on the counter. But I promised, I told myself.

You didn’t promise, Chen said. She ordered you to.

Where have you been? I asked.

Around. Looking in corners and holes.

Chen, being cryptic again. I set about sorting through our students’ accounts. By the time I finished with them, my brain would start working more clearly. Maybe.

Once I settled into the routine of checking numbers, the hours slid past like oil. Yún had turned the radio station to something dull and meditative, which suited me just fine. Once or twice, someone rapped at the front door, then cursed loudly when an invisible pig poked his snout into their backs.

When I couldn’t read the numbers anymore, I switched on the wall lamps. Brown shadows spilled away from the light. Outside, the skies were violet and shading into gray. A few stars speckled the clear skies of early autumn, but I noticed a fringe of clouds by the horizons. Soon the rains would start.

Very slowly, my brain clicked over a few key thoughts.

Dark. Watch-demons. Ma mi.

Once the sun set, and twilight poured over the horizon, the royal guards released the watch-demons of Lóng City to patrol the streets. They were better than any human sentries, and twice as dangerous. Only the bravest thieves dared to venture out after dark. Most of them didn’t survive. Yún and I had once, along with Princess Lian, but that was a different story.

I poked my head into the kitchen. “Ma mi?”

No one there.

My heart thumping double-time, I ran up the stairs to the second floor, where my mother had a private workroom. No one answered my knock. I pressed the latch down, sure it would be locked.

It wasn’t. The door swung open onto a dark and empty room.

All Ma mi’s dire warnings echoed through my brain as I stepped inside. No trespassing, Kai-my-son. Unless you like a three-year itch.

No itch. No spells at all, so far as I could tell. Just a shadow-dark room made strange with abandoned vials and beakers and the white-dusted coals of a dying fire. That pricked my curiosity. Why did Ma mi need a fire so early in autumn? I lit a candle and scanned for more clues.

The vials were all empty. The beakers were coated with a thin silvery residue that emanated magic, both potential and unleashed. Now I knew where all those special ingredients had gone. Dozens of empty boxes and canisters and stoppered vials littered her desk. Among them, I found stacks of scribbled sheets and astrology readings, but none of them made sense.

By now I was scared. Sure, my ma mi was stronger and fiercer than any human I’d known. Maybe even fiercer than a watch-demon or two. But never, ever, had she failed to come home at night, without leaving word.

Vanished. Just like Lian.

I hurried from the workroom, across the landing, to her small bedroom. It was empty, too.

A nudge at my arm recalled me. The griffin hovered in midair, its golden wings glittering in the faint light from the hallway. When it saw it had my attention, it leapt on my shoulder.

“How did you get up here?” I asked.

It gave an odd keening sound and butted my head.

“Go on. You’re dead.”

The griffin nibbled at my ear. Just as you might expect for a pet chosen by my mother, it was not gentle.

“Ow! Okay, not quite dead.”

It butted me again and keened. Cautiously, I scratched the griffin behind its ears. It gave a rough trill that sounded like a purr.

“What’s the matter?” I said. “You miss her?”

The griffin tucked itself under my ear, its tail curled around my neck. Its feathers were cold and stiff, its tiny paws hot. I could feel its nervous heartbeat against my skin. For a dead thing, it was acting very much alive.