Fox and Phoenix (Lóng City 1)

Lian’s fingers closed over the man’s arm. “Excuse me. Your patient is my father. My beloved father. Make way for the physician I choose.”

Quan laid his hands over Wencheng Li’s chest and closed his eyes. His lips moved rapidly in recitation of healing spells, a staccato dance of syllables that seemed never to repeat itself. And then I caught the pattern, one so very complicated and delicate, as though I watched the pattern of snowflakes in a blizzard. The air around us drew tight. More and more magic flux flooded the room.

Pêng! Yao-guài materialized at the foot of the bed. His gaze fixed upon the king, he crept closer, panting audibly. Quan paused in his recitation. His eyes widened—I wished I could read his thoughts—then he laid a hand over the griffin’s folded wings and recited a new series of words...

... and the king drew a long breath and opened his eyes. “Lian,” he whispered.

“I am here.” Lian touched her father’s cheek, his forehead. “I was wrong—wrong to leave you, wrong to—I will never do it again.”

“Not wrong. My brave daughter.”

Quan had stepped back to make way for Lian. He was studying the king with narrowed eyes. A troubled, uneasy look—the look of a doctor who dislikes the signs in his patient. Everyone else had frozen again, so I sidled between to courtiers to reach his side. “What’s wrong?” I whispered.

“I’m not certain. There’s a strange blankness over his heart.”

... a blank, a void, where the sickness eats at him.

The ghost dragon’s words came back to me. “But you cured him.”

“Not exactly. Not completely. That . . . thing still eats at him. And there are signs of other magic at work. Magic that heals and doesn’t—”

He broke off. “Hei! You, there. Stop!”

He swung around and grappled the stranger physician to the floor. A dozen palace minions threw themselves on the pair. More servants and guards surged forward into battle. Animal spirits materialized from everywhere: pig, crane, fox, and phoenix. Other spirits—from the guards and courtiers—flickered in and out of view. Gan and I waded into the mess, both of us throwing punches. Someone grabbed me around the waist and hauled me away. It was Yún.

“Don’t make trouble,” she said.

She had a lump over one eye and a bloody nose. My lip split as I grinned at her. Then we turned back to rescue our friends. In a few moments, we’d separated Danzu and Jing-mei from two hulking guards. The stranger physician crawled out from underneath a pile of minions. He was covered in bruises, and someone had ripped the lynx tails from his collar. He looked like he might dart for the nearest exist, but then Nuó appeared and seized his arm in her teeth.

Quan emerged from the chaos. He gripped a chain in one hand. The links were tiny, fashioned out of a whitish-grayish material that made my stomach turn queasy when I tried to look directly at it. Dangling from the bottom was a twisted mass of the same material. Its shape reminded me of a squashed spider, its legs sprawled in all directions. I noticed that Quan held the chain well away from himself and Lian.

“The spider of death,” he said in a thick voice.

Yún turned pale. “Are you . . . never mind. You would know.”

Quan rounded on the stranger. “Where did you acquire this loathsome thing?”

The man’s eyes popped wide into moon circles. “I didn’t. You can’t prove it. You—”

“Shut up.” Quan squeezed his hand over the chain and spoke a word. A loud crack echoed through the chamber and my stomach lurched into my throat.

The thing vanished in a puff of acrid smoke.

Lian cried out. We all turned to see Wencheng Li attempting to rise. He fell back almost at once. When Lian dropped to her knees, he laid a hand on her head. Sweat poured from his face, but he was breathing, deep strong breaths, and there was an angry gleam in his eyes. “Begone,” he said to the minions that hovered over him. “I would talk to my daughter. To her alone.”

“Take this man way,” Gan said to the guards. He glanced at Nuó. “If you don’t mind.”

Even though Gan was a grunt and no officer, the guards rushed to obey. Soon the crowds had melted away. Jing-mei, Danzu, Yún, and I hesitated, uncertai

n where to go. All our companions—except for Nuó—had vanished into the spirit plane. Quan remained where he’d been standing, his hand still clutched around what had been a necklace. Slowly, he unfolded his fingers. Ashes floated to the floor.

“You did it,” I said.

“Yes.” But his expression flitted from confused to more confused. “Nothing can withstand the spider of death,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. “And yet the king has lived nearly two months. Almost dead, but not quite. I don’t understand . . .”

Another ear-popping crack reverberated through the chamber. An enormous ghost dragon materialized, filling the room with its translucent body. Silver scales, like wisps of mist and snow, coiled around us all. My breath hiccupped as I realized their pattern was a magical one. Of course. And yet, I’d never paused long enough to notice before. The king of Lóng City’s ghost dragons caught my gaze. His inner eyelid quivered in a wink for me alone, then he swung his head toward the king. My friend.

His voice made the air and stone tremble.