Fox and Phoenix (Lóng City 1)

“But you didn’t.”

I scowled, knowing I sounded like a spoiled child.

“I didn’t tell you because I had no time.” Her voice was softer, slower. “I had gone to the market to buy more herbs and a special-order powder. And to make arrangements with Bin Chu and Hai-feng Lo. Not a li from the piaohao, I noticed two men following me. Amateurs. Oh, some might call them professionals, but I could tell right away. So I lured them into an alleyway and disposed of them. Unfortunately, a squad of royal guards were patrolling nearby and witnessed the event, so after that, I had to disappear myself. The ghost dragon king was quite accommodating.”

My lungs squeaked dry. “You killed them?”

My mother made a tch-tch noise in her throat. “It was a minor spell, calculated to displace their wretched bodies into an alternate plane of existence. Ah, that reminds me. I really must release them soon. Today, perhaps.”

You always said she was scarier than watch-demons, Chen said softly. Why are you surprised?

Because . . . because she’s my mother.

And she should have her own adventures, no?

My brain hurt at the thought. I rubbed my temples with both hands. “So what about the shop?”

“It can wait. Another month or three. After the wedding.”

Gently my mother dislodged Yao-guài from his napping spot. She kissed him on top of the head, and he scrambled up the shelves to curl around the old radio. I thought she had finished with me, so I turned to go, but she beckoned me behind the counter.

“You didn’t open the safe,” she said quietly.

My face turned hot. “We tried, Chen and I.”

“Ah. Another item I forgot to tell you. Well, and, you weren’t ready before today.”

In between her odd tone and the sudden change of subject, I didn’t know what to say. I mumbled something about trying the simple spells. She nodded. “Good choice. I did choose a simple one, only not what you guessed.”

She laid a hand over the lock and said a name.

My father’s name.

The lock clicked; the door swung open.

The safe was stuffed full of scrolls, boxes, and more envelopes. Ma mi extracted an especially thick envelope and handed it to me. “For you,” she said. “From your father. He wrote you a letter before going off to war. He wrote several more before . . . before he died. He told me give you them all when you had become a man.”

I was too stunned to do more than take the envelope. My blood thrummed, just like when the ghost dragon bit my fingers underneath Lóng City. Ma mi fiddled with another scroll, but then plucked back her fingers, murmuring something about how dreams were best remembered from afar. I wanted to ask what she meant, but her expression had softened to a strange and wistful look.

Silently, I retreated from the front room and crept up the stairs to my room. The light was dim there. Afternoon was falling toward night. Snow pattered against the wooden shutters, interrupted now and then by the tick-tick of sleet. A whiff of cold air filtered into the already chilled room. Even as the door swung closed behind me, a magic-powered heater clicked on.

I still clutched the envelope in one hand, the leather cylinder from Lian in the other. I set the cylinder on my desk and lit an oil lamp. By its light I examined my father’s packet of letters. It was thick, stained with water and wine and dirt. He had used the cheapest paper. No doubt a soldier couldn’t take his finest writing kit to war.

My legs went limp and I sat heavily on my bed.

This is scary, Chen, I whispered.

I know.

My hands shook as I broke the wax seal and lifted the flap.

There were a dozen thick parchment sheets crammed inside. They were just as dirty as the outside, and stiff from waiting ten years. It took me several minutes to unwedge them without ripping the envelope. I laid them on my lap and stared down at the top sheet.

Dear Kai-my-son . . .

It wasn’t the letter I expected. But it was the letter I needed right now. My father wrote about a spring day in Lóng City, how the clouds were like great white birds soaring over an ocean of mountains. How the sun glinted off palace and plain red tile roofs alike. How the warmth felt good on his back, how the fresh snowmelt tasted. He was going off to war, he said. And he wanted to fix the good memories of home, of his wife and son, in his mind to keep on the dark nights and in the midst of battle. The day’s light faded as I read through all twelve letters. When I looked up, I saw Yún sitting on the floor, gazing up at me. She must have arrived while I was lost in the world of my father’s letters. The golden lamplight made her eyes shine like ebony and her skin like polished bronze.

“How are you?” she asked.