I dumped my backpack onto my new bed. The room was tiny, but stuffed full of gadgets. One handle swung out to reveal a basin with sweetly scented running water. Another door hid a small cabinet with a vid-screen and calculor tucked away as neatly as a cat. More fancy devices crowded the shelves and the bedside table, which was no bigger than a handprint. Jing-mei would like these, I thought, turning over a glass cube that showed different videos on each of its faces.
Thinking of magic and gadgets, I made another, more careful inspection. Inside a handful of moments, I uncovered six s
ecret microphones. No doubt there were a dozen more.
I blew out a breath. Not that I was surprised. Lian had told me about the hidden cameras in Lóng City’s palace. It was something royals and nobles did. The important thing was the emperor didn’t trust me or Yún. Which meant he didn’t trust Lian.
She probably knows that already. Strike that. She definitely knows.
A soft chiming sound echoed from beside my bed. “Kai? Kai, are you there?”
Yún. She must have figured out the talk-system already. “Yes?”
“I’m tired. I think I’ll take a nap. Call you when it’s time for dinner.”
“Okay, but what about—”
A click told me she’d cut the connection.
I blew out a breath. What was that about?
(She doesn’t want to see you, bright boy.)
(Or maybe that wasn’t a real truce and she’s still mad at me for no reason.)
Or maybe she just wanted to be alone. After all, we’d spent the past month and more together. Even spirit companions didn’t spend every single hour with their humans. They popped in and out of the magical plane. There were times when I had accused Chen of holding secret parties with the other spirits.
Hardly daring to hope, I sent out a whisper-soft call to Chen.
Nothing.
Damn you, Chen. Show yourself!
No answer.
I ran a trembling hand over my face. It had been four days since Qi and Chen left on their search for whatever. They never had explained; they had both simply vanished. I hadn’t worried too much at first. After all, Chen liked adventures. That’s why we fit together so well.
(If he won’t come to you, maybe you should look for him.)
(As if I could.)
(You could, if you remembered your meditation lessons.) Only one way to find out about anything.
I settled onto my bed and closed my eyes. My heart fluttered uncomfortably as I took my first breath. Ma mi said that lighting a fire was harder than feeding one. The second breath came more easily; with the third, my thoughts spiraled down inside myself. I was floating between the spirit plane and the outer world.
Chen?
Ghosts and spirits gibbered at me from beyond the rift. I felt the faint traces of those who had died in these chambers—ordinary servants dead from fever, a nobleman killed by the scullery girl he tried to force, an old woman who took her own life with a thin, sharp dagger. I could sense the presence of animal spirits, too, as they flitted between the worlds. But no sign of Chen.
Deeper and deeper, I told myself. Another old lesson recalled—that a human spirit cannot dwell long across the rift—but I would be quick. Just a peek to see if Chen was there, hiding among the slithery shadows. But as I felt my soul dipping and diving closer to the rift, I smacked against a strange invisible shield.
Snow-cold fingers gripped the essence of my spirit and flung me backward. I lurched back into my body, rapping my head against a shelf.
“What the hell?”
Bright points of light circled in front of my eyes, and my stomach was flipping this way and that. Fuzzily, I tried to figure out what had just happened. Something . . . something had stopped me from exploring the rift. But what? And why? I wiped a hand across my eyes and glanced around my small bedchamber. Nothing moved. I sniffed, smelled no sign of recent magic.
I rubbed the knot on my head. I’ ll ask Yún tonight. She might understand what’s going on.