Blood Magic

ELEVEN

THE stairwell was well lit, utilitarian, and not entirely deserted. Lily heard feet moving somewhere above.

So it made her a little twitchy when Rule stopped her, turning her to face him so he could press a kiss on her forehead. “You’re worried about your grandmother.”

“No. Yes. Yes, I guess I am, though it seems pointless. I mean, we’re talking about Grandmother. She left a note,” Lily added abruptly. “Not Grandmother. Li Qin. It was taped to the wall facing the front door.”

“I didn’t realize you had a key to their house.”

“Grandmother gave it to me years ago. I’ve never used it.” She’d hesitated a long time before using it tonight, but finally decided she had to be sure no one was lying in a pool of blood.

“The note was addressed to me. It said she and Grandmother had to be gone for a while, and that it would be foolish to tell me not to worry because words don’t amend the anxiety caused by mystery, but they were both well and would return when they could.”

Rule frowned. “When they could?”

“Yeah.” And that was a big part of Lily’s worry. Grandmother was not given to taking off this way. The only other time she’d done it, there’d been a nutty telepath, a hellgate, and a couple of Old Ones involved. But she hadn’t taken Li Qin with her that time. “Grandmother’s old Buick is gone, too,” she added.

“She needed Li Qin to drive her, then.”

Lily nodded. Grandmother either couldn’t drive or refused to—Lily had never been sure which. “I’m pretty sure Grandmother wouldn’t take Li Qin into a dangerous situation, so whatever she’s up to, it probably isn’t too dire.”

The footsteps above them ended with the sound of a door opening and closing. Lily still felt twitchy. She started up the stairs. “I couldn’t tell how much stuff they’d packed, but they definitely took some clothes. That suggests they don’t expect to be back right away.”

Rule kept pace beside her. “I know Madame Yu speaks English, but does she write it as well?”

“Sure. She claims to prefer hanzi, but she claims to prefer everything Chinese when she’s in a mood. Why?”

“I wondered why Li Qin left the note rather than your grandmother.”

“Good question. Grandmother may not even know she did it.” Lily considered that a moment. “Li Qin wouldn’t give anything away if Grandmother wanted secrecy, but she wouldn’t make things up.”

“You’re sure it’s Li Qin’s handwriting.”

“Unless someone’s an expert forger. No one writes like Li Qin. Pure copperplate. Besides, it sounds like her. The note opened with her hope that I was well and her regret that their sudden absence might distress me.” Lily frowned. “Though maybe Grandmother’s decision to disappear wasn’t as sudden as it seems. Beth said Grandmother has been acting funny lately. She wanted me to go see her, find out what was wrong.”

“Ah, I see why you’re upset. If only you’d gone to see her last week. No doubt she would have unburdened herself to you instead of indulging in all this secrecy.”

She had to smile. “If you mean that she wouldn’t have told me anything, you’re probably right, but—”

“Probably?”

“Okay, okay, you’re right. If she’d wanted me to know what was going on, she would have told me.” And no one and nothing could force, persuade, trick, or cajole Grandmother into revealing one iota more than she wanted to. “But I should have noticed something was up. Beth did.”

“So the problem is that you aren’t your sister.”

Lily grimaced. “I can be illogical if I want.”

“You know, if you feel it necessary, you can always ask Cynna to Find Madame Yu.”

“I guess I could.” That made her feel slightly better, though she didn’t want to do it. Not with what Cynna had on her plate already. “What do you think? Grandmother takes off on some secret business. A few hours later, Cullen gets attacked by a mysterious assassin who’s able to do impossible things, magically speaking. Those events don’t seem connected by anything but the timing, and yet . . . Am I trying to tie them together just because I know both people?”

“If so,” he said grimly, “I’m making the same connection, and not liking it.”

They’d reached the fourth floor. She hesitated, then faced Rule without opening the door. “You’re afraid she’s involved somehow. The one we don’t name.”

“Aren’t you?”

Yeah. She was. “I don’t want to blame everything I don’t understand on her. That’s not helpful. But . . . well, we’ll talk about it, but not in the stairwell. Maybe Cullen will be able to fill in some blanks—such as why someone wanted him dead so badly they tried for him in such a freaky public way.”

CULLEN’S room was interior, so no windows, which Lily liked. Admittedly, they were on the fourth floor and the killer was unlikely to do a Spider-Man up the outside wall, but this killer did unlikely things. Windows meant vulnerability.

One other thing she liked about it: it was in infectious diseases, not cardiology or critical care or any of the obvious places. According to the hospital records, “Adrian Fisher” suffered from a rare tropical disease and had enough money to pay for private nursing in his quarantine room. For now, making Cullen hard to find was their best defense.

Lily considered that a temporary ploy, though. They should be okay tonight and probably tomorrow. After that, she’d better come up with a way to guard Cullen against someone who might be able to look like anyone.

Or no one. That’s what one of the witnesses had seen. No one at all.

Lily knocked on the door of number 418, then pushed it open. And was pleased to see Jason standing at the ready a few feet away—and Cynna standing by Cullen’s bed, weapon drawn, her other hand outflung.

“Okay,” Cynna said after a second. “You’re you.” She put her weapon on the table by the bed. “I’ve figured out what to do to check people out,” she added. “If it’s anyone but you two, I’ll check for magic. That’s quick and easy, and whoever is hiding behind other faces is using magic to do it. He won’t be able to hide that.”

“That’s good.” Lily’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s very good. I should have thought of that.”

“You’ve been busy. I’ve been waiting. It gave me time to think. I’m going to set a ward on the door, too—a visual one. That way, if I get drowsy, Jason will be able to tell that someone with magic is trying to come in. He can stop them.”

“Can you hold a ward when you aren’t here? I’ll be relieving you, so—”

“No, you’ll be going home to get some sleep once you’ve talked to Cullen. I’m not going anywhere tonight, and there’s no point in both of us standing guard. And you’re the investigator. I want you focused and rested so you can catch the rat bastard.”

Lily’s eyebrows went up. After a moment she nodded. Tonight was probably the safest period, anyway. “Okay. I will relieve you in the morning, though, at least until we can figure out how to properly guard Cullen.”

“I’ve a suggestion about that,” Rule said, moving ahead of Lily so he could hug Cynna lightly.

He did that sort of thing easily, naturally. Lily wished it had occurred to her to hug Cynna. “Go ahead.”

“Max.”

Relief bloomed. “Of course. He claims he’s immune to mind-magic, so . . . you’ll call him?” Max was surly, lecherous, and train-wreck ugly, though the last was probably because his standard of beauty was wildly different from hers, since he was a gnome. A rather oversize one who for some reason didn’t live underground like his fellows—gnomes were said to be very clever with stone—but a gnome nonetheless.

“He’ll come. He’ll bitch about it endlessly, but he’ll come.” Rule smiled at Cynna, his arm around her vanished waist. “You’re doing okay.”

“Sure.” She glanced at the bed and its sleeping occupant. “Sleeping Beauty doesn’t look so hot right now, but Nettie says he’s hanging in there.”

Nettie was on the other side of the hospital bed. She’d barely glanced up when they came in. “He’ll wake in less than ten minutes. When he does, you can talk to him briefly, then I’ll put him under again.”

Lily nodded and moved to the foot of the bed.

The man occupying that bed was hooked up to an IV and a heart rate monitor, which beeped quietly. He was deeply asleep or unconscious. And much too pale.

Cullen Seabourne was the opposite of Max—as breathtakingly gorgeous as the gnome was ugly. Rule was sexier, in Lily’s opinion, and possessed more sheer presence. But Cullen was the kind of gorgeous that makes strangers on the street stop and stare. At the moment, the perfect architecture of Cullen’s bone structure was all too clear. He was pallid, the skin drawn and tight, and naked at least to the waist. A lightweight blanket covered him from there down.

His chest was a ghastly orange-yellow where they’d splashed it with Betadine. The incision to the left of his sternum had been left unbandaged. It was long and punctuated by staples. It looked fresh. She glanced at Nettie. “He hasn’t healed the incision.”

“The intrusion is localized around his heart, but it’s like wolfsbane in one way. It keeps his healing magic tied up fighting it. I can help some with the incision after I’ve rested.” Nettie’s voice was lower and hoarser than normal. She needed sleep almost as much as her patient did.

Lily nodded and made a decision. “Cynna, I should talk to the Rhej about this, but you’re here, so . . . Rule and I were wondering if the one we don’t name could be involved.” The Old One who was the lupi’s most ancient enemy had a name, or maybe several . . . but lupi folklore said she could hear it when her name was spoken.

“Oh. Oh!” Cynna frowned, then shook her head. “I see why you’re wondering. We’ve got an assassin with weird-ass abilities. But whoever he is, he’s not her agent. It’s possible she gave him some help in a roundabout way. We don’t know how much she’s able to do along those lines, but it’s safe to assume she does have some agents here on Earth again. But the rat bastard assassin wasn’t one of them. An agent of hers couldn’t get into Clanhome secretly. The Rhej would know if one tried.” She considered a moment, then added, “The Rho would, too, but he might not recognize what was wrong.”

Rule’s eyebrows lifted. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“Sure,” Cynna said. “Clanhome is claimed by the mantle holder, so the mantle knows it. The mantle is from the Lady, and the Lady recognizes her enemy. So the mantle would be aware if one of her agents was in Clanhome. I don’t know how that would feel to Isen, but he would feel something. You might, too.”

This time Lily’s eyebrows lifted. “You know a lot about mantles all of a sudden.”

She shrugged. “It’s stuff from the memories.”

The memories were literally that: incredibly vivid memories of various long-dead Nokolai that had been passed down from Rhej to apprentice for thousands of years. Since many of the memories involved battle and other calamities, there was a lot of pain and fear involved. A lot of stress for a pregnant lady, in other words. “I don’t get why the Rhej changed her mind. She was going to wait on that part of your training until you had the baby.”

“There was a reason not to wait any longer.”

“You’re sounding like a Rhej now. Cryptic.”

Cynna offered a vague, apologetic smile and an equally vague gesture. “I’m not supposed to talk about some stuff.”

Great. Lily dragged herself back on topic. “When you say ‘agent,’ you mean something specific, but I’m not sure what.”

“Someone touched by the enemy. Someone using an object or spell touched or created by her. Uh . . . by touch, I don’t mean physically, but contacted or acted upon.”

“So if she’s involved, it’s indirectly.”

“Real indirectly. Someone like the Great Bitch leaves traces. Take the incognito spell the assassin seems to have used—it couldn’t have come from her. Even if it passed through others before the assassin got it, it would retain something of her energy. The Rhej and the Rho would have reacted to those traces because the Lady would feel them.”

Lily cocked her head. Cynna was sure sounding cozy with the lupi’s Lady. “Are you—”

“He’s waking,” Nettie said crisply. “Rule—?”

Quickly Rule moved beside Nettie and placed one hand on Cullen’s upper shoulder. Nothing happened. Cullen looked as deeply asleep as before—right up until the second his eyes flew open, bright and burning blue.

“Be still,” Rule said firmly. “You’re safe. Cynna’s safe. She’s fine. The baby’s fine. You’ve been hurt.”

Cullen blinked. “No shit,” he said, his voice faint. “Cynna . . .”

She’d taken Cullen’s right hand. “Right here, not a mark on me,” she announced cheerfully. Lily could see the strain in her eyes, but it didn’t show in her voice. “And the little rider seems to like staying up late. He’s frisking around like crazy.”

Cullen’s smile was small, but the relief behind it looked large.

“Cullen,” Nettie said, “I know you’re in a great deal of pain, but I need to know if your wound feels odd in any way.”

Even his scowl looked weak. “Feels like I’ve been stabbed, stomped on, and cut open.”

“Accurate,” Rule said, “except for the stomping.” He swallowed. “Cullen. I didn’t like thinking you were dead.”

The scowl eased to a thoughtful frown. “I came close?”

“You did. There was a magical component of some sort on the blade. It would have killed you if Nettie hadn’t been close, and if the Rhej hadn’t been able to channel power to Nettie. It’s still interfering with your healing. That’s why Nettie asked how your wound felt.”

“Shit.” He paused and lifted his head slightly. “Ow. Shit.” His head fell back. “Can’t see.”

Lily knew why he’d been trying to see the wound. She felt magic. He saw it. That, according to him, was what made someone a sorcerer—the ability to see the energies he worked with. “Are you up to answering a few questions?”

“Gods. You here, too?”

She had to smile. That was such a Cullen thing to say. “Do you have any idea who stabbed you, or why?”

“No. Cynna, lift my head up. Can’t see my chest.”

Nettie shook her head. “Cullen, you’ve had your ribs cracked open and your heart stitched up. You aren’t healing at your normal rate. You’ll stay still and prone, and in a few minutes I’ll put you back in sleep.”

“Need to look,” he insisted. “Find out what’s wrong.”

“Let me see what I can learn.” Lily glanced at Nettie. “If that’s okay?”

She nodded. “But we’re not moving him one jot more than we have to, so no turning him to check the entrance wound. Scrub first. We don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t want to take any chances.”

Lily’s eyebrows rose. Normally lupi didn’t worry about infection, but with something messing with Cullen’s healing . . . better safe than sorry, she supposed. She went to the small sink in the corner and squirted stuff on her hands. “Cullen, who was close to you when it happened?”

“Cynna. Mike. I was talking to him. Uh . . . Sandra, I think. Gods. Hurts like hell.”

Nettie’s voice was soft now. “I can put you back in sleep.”

“No.” He was quiet a moment. “Behind me . . . I heard Phil behind me. Uh . . .” His voice sank so much Lily couldn’t hear the rest, not over the sound of the tap. She looked at Rule.

“He said that your sister was near, and Jason, and Teresa. I believe he means Teresa Blankenship.”

“Okay. Didn’t have her on my witness list, so that’s something.” Lily rinsed and used her elbow to shut off the tap. Jason handed her a towel. She dried her hands and moved up beside Cynna. “What about Rule? Was he near?”

“No.”

“Did you smell anyone or anything that didn’t belong?”

“No.” His voice was blurry.

“An Asian man, maybe? One who didn’t look like my brother-in-law.”

“Don’t know your damned brother-in-law. Can’t . . .” He frowned, his eyes closing. “Can’t remember anyone like that.”

“That’s okay. Did you see anything funny with your other vision?”

“Nothing funny. Some sorcéri.”

“Okay. I’m going to touch your shoulder first, then your incision. Lightly. I’ll do my best not to hurt you.”

He grunted.

She took that as permission and laid her hand on his shoulder. The skin was warm, but she barely noticed.

Cullen’s magic didn’t feel like anyone else’s. There was what she called fur-and-fir magic—the lupus magic that felt like fur yet reminded her subtly of evergreens. But mixed with it was a dancing tickle of heat. The heat meant a Fire Gift. The dance, though, that was how she read the sorcerous part of his power. As motion.

She drew her hand toward his chest.

There. Weird. She felt a little bump or ridge. On one side of the ridge, everything felt normal—fur and tickly heat. On the other, warm skin with just the faintest overlay of magic . . . and something else. Something smooth.

She tried coming toward the incision from another angle. Another. Soon she’d mapped out the edges of . . . whatever it was. And whatever it was, it was remarkably uniform.

Lily straightened. “There’s an area five inches in diameter where your magic is thin, as if it’s only skin-deep. I can feel the . . . Call it a barrier. It feels smooth, uniform. Shaped. I can’t tell what kind of magic is involved, not with your skin between it and my hand.”

“Need to look.” Cullen spoke more strongly, but his eyes didn’t open.

“We should let him,” Cynna said. “He needs to know. It might help.”

Nettie hesitated, then said, “All right. You can hold his head up.”

Cynna slid her hand beneath his head and lifted. His eyes never opened. Lily knew he didn’t need them to, not for his other vision. He’d still “seen” that way after his eyes had been gouged out.

But it looked pretty odd, the way he studied his chest with his eyes closed. Finally he spoke. “Hell.” He took a careful breath, winced. “Nettie . . .”

“I’m here.” She took his hand. “You’re going back in sleep now.”

“Yeah. Lily.”

“Yes?”

“You’re right. Shaped. It’s shaped. Someone stuck a goddamned spell in my heart along with their knife.” He took a slow, careful breath. “I can tell you one thing about it. It’s blood magic. And the sorry bastard’s using my blood to power it.”

TWELVE

The city of Luan; Shanxi Province, China; sixteenth day of the eleventh month of the forty-fourth year of the Ching Dynasty* * *

THE winter wind was like death—importunate and intrusive, poking its cold, bony fingers through Li Lei’s layered rags to find flesh. She did not disdain the contact. She disliked being cold, but death was a powerful acquaintance.

She could have been warm. Had she been in the midst of a blizzard rather than squatting on the cold cobbles of the street, Li Lei could have been warm. That was one of the more useful tricks she’d learned from the one she called Sam in the past year and seven months—how to craft a second skin out of will and magic, one that warmed her precisely as she wished.

She didn’t dare. Not in Luan. Sam had told her to assume the sorcerer could track any use of power in his city. They did not know that he could do this, or that he did so constantly, but the caution made sense. In the eight days since her return to Luan, Li Lei had confirmed that those who had actively practiced magic had been among the first to die.

Many others had died since. Some were killed outright when they opposed the sorcerer. Some were killed more cruelly as they—or those they loved and trusted—fell through the open door of madness.

A door opened by a demon. The sorcerer’s lover. The Chimei.

Li Lei stared at the silent house in front of her. Had it been her father who went mad first and killed the rest, slicing or bludgeoning those he loved more than life? Had it been his wife, Li Lei’s pretty, ambitious, and stupid stepmother, who’d first fallen through the cracks the Chimei opened in her mind? Or had it been one of the children who caught the nightmare and somehow infected the rest?

She had heard various tales. She could not, of course, ask directly, but she’d managed to steer the talk in the marketplace now and then to the story of the deaths in Wu An’s house. The gossips had only a mishmash of tales, unhelpful save for the way they kept the wound open. No one knew. No one save, perhaps, the Chimei, who had caused it all.

The Chimei, who could not be killed.

Li Lei watched the house where everyone who mattered had died. And waited.

It was a finely crafted structure with beautiful carving on the lintels, built from the best materials, but it was not pretentious. The doors were red lacquer, centered amid the four columns upholding the roof, yet that roof possessed but a single tier. Li Lei’s father had scoffed at merchants who aped the nobility. Wu An had been a commoner, only a few generations removed from pure peasant, and proud of it. How did you honor your ancestors, he said, by pretending to be other than they had been?

Used to say, Li Lei corrected herself. He said nothing now. Nothing she could hear, at any rate.

She did hear the giggles and stumbling feet approaching. Before their owners rounded the corner she reached for a small stick she’d selected earlier. She didn’t look up. Her ears told her enough—a small group of young men, drunk enough to be foolish.

Few other than the drunk, the mad, or the desperate were out at night in Luan these days. Li Lei began drawing in the dust that covered the cobbles with her stick, pausing to grunt like a satisfied sow and move a few pebbles around, then “writing” with the stick once more.

One of the drunks called out, “Hey, you! What’s your stinking carcass doing here, eh?”

“Leave him,” another voice muttered. “Leave him ’lone, Zhi.”

“Gonna get him outa here. Don’t need stinking beggars hanging around—”

“He’s no beggar.” This voice was hard, the words less slurred than the others’ had been. “He’s one of the eaten, you fool.”

“Still stinks.” That young man was sullen now. He’d moved close enough that Li Lei saw his feet out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t need this smell on my street.”

Li Lei continued her meaningless writing as if she had no idea the others were there, but she wanted to look up, to see who claimed this street. She didn’t know the voice, but that meant little. For all her father’s leniency when they were in the country, in the city he’d followed custom. She’d seen her male neighbors from time to time; she had never spoken with them.

Her focus didn’t let her avoid the kick he aimed at her side, but it allowed her to roll with it—roll like a log oddly determined to stand upright, for she ended up on her feet, staring blankly at the air directly in front of her. Not seeing the three young men so close.

She began writing in the air with her stick.

“Come on, Zhi,” the tallest young man said to his friend, taking his arm. “Leave the poor bastard alone. You need more wine, eh?”

“Not enough wine in the whole cursed city,” said the third one—the one whose speech wasn’t slurred. “Not enough.” But he, too, allowed himself to be chivvied onward.

Li Lei continued painting the air as they left, but her heart was pounding. She’d recognized Zhi. He was the youngest son of the merchant Jiao, who trafficked in salt and spices. Her father had invested with Jiao sometimes. She wondered if he was still alive. And his wife, the sharp-tongued Yi Mé—had she survived?

Most had, actually. Death and madness might stalk the city, but the sorcerer was canny enough to leave most of the population alive. He needed the people of Luan to continue in their usual paths, or what was his power for?

His lover needed them for other reasons.

Li Lei sank down onto the street once more, sitting cross-legged. Thank you, Li Lei told her father silently, wiggling her toes. Had it not been for his disdain for commoners who aped the nobility, she might be teetering around now on tiny lumps of flesh, their bones liquefied after years of binding. No one would mistake her for a youth then, no matter how clever her disguise.

Or perhaps not. Her mother had not believed in foot binding, and her mother had been . . . fierce, she thought with a smile, for that loss had faded enough for smiles. Qian Ya Bai had been fierce indeed.

Of course, she added with fair-minded practicality, had her feet been bound, she would not have been able to run off in the first place. Perhaps her father had regretted his decision to leave her feet whole. She’d hurt him, she knew. Surely he had understood why she left . . . She had told herself he would, once he traveled past his anger. Understanding did not always wipe away pain, but it helped, surely?

Her own hurt had been keen when he remarried so swiftly after her mother’s death, but she had grown into understanding. He had needed a wife, and grief had led him to choose one very different from the fierce and beautiful Ya Bai. In time, Li Lei had understood that, and if understanding did not eliminate troubles, it eased the sense of betrayal.

Li Lei had never grown close to her stepmother, but she had adored the babies—Ji Wun, the boy whose arrival thrilled her father so, and the girls, little An Wei and An Mei . . .

Pain struck like talons ripping her gut. She folded over that grief, bending up like an old man passing a stone. But this stone wouldn’t pass. She rocked herself as she could not rock An Wei, who had been only a baby when Li Lei left. Ai, little An Wei, who had always laughed for her big sister, reaching up pudgy arms . . . Ji Wun, who had strutted around so imperiously in his new finery on his birthday . . . An Mei, whose shy smile had surely charmed the flowers into early bloom. Each so different from Li Lei, and so precious . . .

Time passed. She did not know how much. Eventually she was able to straighten and resume her wait.

She owed them this much. It wasn’t her gift, the ability to speak with the dead. But if any of those dear ghosts lingered—if they could reach her and wished to scream their anger or cry or simply be close—why, she could give them this.

Such an easy gift, when she herself wanted it so much! Wanted it in spite of her fears. She couldn’t help but wonder if her father blamed her for what had befallen his family . . . but she did not think he would. Surely madness didn’t accompany the dead into their land, and in life Wu An had never been one to make a sauce of blame to serve others while leaving his own plate unsauced.

But she had thought so herself, when she first heard. When Sam told her what had befallen Luan, and that her family was dead, she had feared the sorcerer had struck them down because he sought her.

Li Lei’s mother had been beautiful and fierce, yes. And if she’d passed all that ferocity and very little of the beauty to her daughter, that was just as well, for great beauty could be a trap. But along with her nature, she’d passed a more rare gift to her daughter. Magic.

Ya Bai had grown up in the tiny mountain village near the mine that produced much of Wu An’s wealth. Many there had some trace of demon blood; it was not unusual. Ya Bai had had more than a trace. No one was sure the type of demon, or else they would not say; nor did they know how far back the mating had occurred. But Li Lei’s mother had carried strong magic in her veins.

The sorcerer would surely have killed Li Lei with the others who possessed magic, but she hadn’t been here. Anyone could have told him she’d been gone for some time. His own vision would have told him that. He hadn’t set the Chimei to destroy her family in an effort to kill Li Lei.

She was almost sure of that.

One year and seven months ago, Li Lei’s stepmother had brought to their house the man she meant for Li Lei to marry—a merchant’s son, bashful and dull. A man she could easily have ruled. That was her stepmother’s thinking, and it was kind in its way, for Li Lei would infuriate most men.

But he lived in Beijing. So far away! Yet even that she might have forced herself to accept, were it not for the other gift from her mother, one which was bound up in the magic. Li Lei had seen the man and known she could not blend her bloodline with his. Not would not. Could not.

Perhaps her stepmother could not have been expected to believe her. Her father should have. She’d told him she would never bear children to that man. Just as her mother had known she would bear Wu An’s daughter, and only the one daughter, Li Lei had known she would never have babies if she married as she was bid.

She had to have babies—at least one baby. Her mother’s blood demanded it. As did her own heart.

And bah, how tedious that she circled back through that stale story now. She’d learned better than to let her thoughts run her, hadn’t she? Li Lei settled herself, body and mind, to the moment. However bitter and hard, she had this moment.

Her left knee ached. She’d banged it yesterday while avoiding the blow of a carter who had at least given up beating his beast to aim a fist her way. Her middle hurt, tight with grief. Her mind slowed.

After a time, the acrid scent of smoke tickled her nose. Smoke was a common scent, with so many cook fires in the city, but along with the smell came another sensation. One she knew well, but had no name for.

Several streets to the east, the darkness glowed red. Another fire had bloomed, this one in a good quarter of town. It was still small, but it would grow, for neighbors would not act together to extinguish the blaze. They didn’t dare. What if the sorcerer himself had caused it? Instead they would bundle up what they could of their belongings and flee, hoping the fire was dealt with before their own houses burned.

They were right in one way—the fire would be dealt with. The sorcerer did not want his city to burn down. He did not object to a chance to strut his power, either, Li Lei thought. She’d been among the crowd who gathered to watch him attend the other fire, which was huge and roaring by then, having engulfed several houses.

He’d made a show of it, arriving in a litter carried by six slaves, his silk robe so heavily embroidered with gold thread one might have mistaken him for the emperor. Li Lei had asked herself: why did he not ride on a showy stallion or fly through the air, as sorcerers were said to do?

She had answered the second question by adding her own extrapolation to what Sun Mzao had told her. The sorcerer could fly, but not through his own arts. That skill belonged to his demon lover, and while she could carry him, she would be unlikely to make the effort in such a cause.

The answer to the first question was even easier. The sorcerer did not know how to ride. He was known to be a commoner. She believed he was actually a peasant.

Now, Li Lei believed commoners were no more stupid than the nobility, and were perhaps a shade smarter, on the whole. But much of the peasantry existed in such profound ignorance and need that they were forever warped in their thinking. Whatever the sorcerer’s innate intelligence might be, his thoughts, plans, and goals were distorted. He behaved as a child—shrewd in his way, but always grabbing for whatever shiny object caught his attention, lashing out when it broke, then moving on to the next bit of glitter.

At the fire he’d made himself impressive, raising his arms and commanding the flames in a loud voice—and fire answered him, yes, but sluggishly. He had triumphed over the blaze, but he had used a great deal of power to do so.

Fire was not his by nature. So Sam had said, and so her own observation confirmed. Li Lei smiled at the dark house where she had once lived, where so many she loved had died so horribly.

No, fire was not his. But it was hers.