by Ella M. Lee
Nicolas and I had stayed up very late, talking in the darkness with our limbs entwined. He had temporarily restrained his visions once again, and it warmed my heart to see him relaxed and open and playful with me for the first time in what felt like ages. I was sick of him sounding absent and weary lately.
He was gone from bed when I awoke, and I wandered around the soubou but didn’t find him anywhere. It was a bright, beautifully sunny day, and the colors were finally coming in across our wooded and grassy property.
I found my phone and sent him a text.
Morning. Where did you go?
Instant response.
Come out to the head monk’s quarters.
I slipped on my shoes and padded across the cool ground to the small building across the lawn from the main house.
When I got there, I was surprised to see that Ryan had arrived sometime this morning. He and Nicolas were sitting back to back in the center of the space. Ryan had his shirtsleeves rolled up and was holding a piece of charcoal, sketching on a pad of paper while he and Nicolas talked quietly. Nicolas was looking up and gesturing, and I could tell they were discussing the space. Ryan’s sketches were an echo of the walls and windows and wooden beams.
“Morning, gentlemen,” I said, going to sit by them. I touched Ryan’s shoulder lightly. “Good to see you.”
“You look well,” Ryan said. “Japan agrees with you.”
“I love it here,” I said with complete honesty. “What are you working on?”
“We’re coming up with a design for this space. Dan suggested I take it as my apartment,” Nicolas said.
I glanced out the windows toward the main house. Yes, this building was definitely far enough away from the soubou to be outside of Nicolas’s fifteen-meter mind-reading radius so he could get some peace and quiet here.
The space was, as of now, a large rectangular room, with a bathroom through a door at the far end.
I examined Ryan’s sketches over his shoulder. I wasn’t that creative when it came to things like this, but I could imagine the changes he was envisioning—sliding doors dividing the space into a bedroom and an office, huge glass skylights, exposed wooden beams, a walk-in closet, and a raised platform for the grand piano.
“Any suggestions?” Ryan asked me.
The casual reminder that I would be spending a lot of time here made my breath catch. It gave me a lot of confidence to know that Ryan accepted me as Nicolas’s girlfriend. They were as close as brothers, and his approval mattered.
I shook my head and lay myself down on the floor. Nicolas ran his fingers through my hair and down my back absently as he talked, and I relaxed under his touch, warm and content.
I had never felt truly settled in Water. I had come into a very established group as an outsider, and almost immediately, disaster after disaster had struck. There hadn’t been enough time for settling.
I was glad to be starting from scratch with Shatterfall, crafting this project from the beginning and seeing it through, connecting with everyone in our group through our shared work.
I couldn’t wait for the rest of our family to gather here and start our clan.
When I got back to Hong Kong, I wasn’t surprised to find that everything in our groups was under control. Nicolas’s people were some of the best around—talented magicians, but also dedicated workers. They were on top of packing for our move and doing it discreetly. They were on top of our task list, going through all the usual motions. They were on top of our issues with Smoke, although nothing helpful was coming out of that clan—even for Nicolas, with all his excellent connections.
Shortly after my return from Osaka, it was Nicolas’s birthday. He had told me before that he didn’t celebrate it, that not even the members of his group knew when it was, but I wanted to do something nice for him. He was still under a lot of stress, back to letting his visions run amok, and I wanted him to know how much I appreciated him.
With some sneaky help from Ryan, I managed to get my hands on a bottle of wine that Nicolas didn’t have in his extensive collection, something he would really love, a red from Burgundy. I wasn’t the best cook in the world—not nearly as good as Daniel—but I had a few go-to recipes that were impressive. I did my best to not think about this around Nicolas, because I wanted to surprise him with something good for once.
So on the day of his birthday, I acted as normally as I possibly could until he left—and then I set about my plans. I cleaned his whole apartment. I went into the city to the fancy British grocery store to collect ingredients for dinner. I retrieved the wine from where I’d stashed it in my apartment. I asked Dan to handle anything that came up so Nicolas and I could have a quiet night alone. I also collected some cookware from him, and the rest from my own hardly used kitchen.
I texted Nicolas.
You are out of your meetings at 8pm, right?
His calendar had seemed to indicate that, but I could never be certain that he wouldn’t tack on more agenda items and not come home until past midnight. I was relieved when he texted back:
Yes, I’m coming home right after.
Excellent. I didn’t even have to cajole him into going along with my plan.
At eight o’clock, the lights were dim, and I had set out candles that flickered sweetly, casting warm shadows on Nicolas’s pale walls. Nicolas had a sound system, and I had set it to play an assortment of classical music. Nicolas liked fresh vegetables, so I had made an antipasto and an elaborate salad, both of which waited on the table alongside the place settings. I was enjoying the opportunity to make use of Nicolas’s beautiful but often-forgotten fine china dishware.
When he came through the door at five minutes past eight, I was just pulling the osso buco out of the oven and finishing up the polenta.
“What is all of this?” he asked quietly, dropping his bag on the floor and taking off his shoes. His expression was a strange mixture of amazement and incredulity, his smile delighted.
“Happy birthday, my love,” I said. I added the serving tray with the osso buco to the table and gave him a quick kiss. I pointed to the wine. “Will you open that?”
He picked up the bottle. “Wherever did you find this?”
“Ryan helped,” I admitted. “The wine is your birthday gift. You don’t need any more things, so you get a night of indulging your own ego by telling me about this vintage instead.”
He caught my hand and kissed my knuckles. “Have I mentioned lately how perfect you are?”
I pressed a finger to his lips, smiling. “Hold that thought, I need to get the polenta.”
When we were finally settled with dinner and two glasses of absurdly expensive red wine, Nicolas spoke.
“Your food is excellent. Why do you not cook more?” he asked.
“I’m busy,” I said, tasting the osso buco. It was good.
“I should have forced you to cook for me while I still owned you.”
“Ah, yes, I can just hear that explanation in my head. ‘You have freedom within the walls of my apartment, except at the times of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, when you shall be required to prepare three-course meals for me,’” I said, and Nicolas laughed at my cheap impression of his lazy drawl.
“I do not sound like that,” he said.
“You’re right—your accent is worse,” I said, and he narrowed his eyes at me in playful annoyance.
“Does this meal have three courses?” he asked, still amused.
“Of course it does. I hope you like tiramisu.”
He laughed. “Show me a person who does not like tiramisu.” He took my hand, letting his fingers stroke mine. “You worked hard today. This is very thoughtful. Thank you.”
“It’s nice to spend a quiet evening with you. I know we sleep together, but we hardly have time for anything else. I miss getting the chance to talk to you.”
He gave me an unbearably sweet look, his eyes sparkling in the candlelight. “I miss that too.” He looked around. “These might be some of our l
ast nights in this place.”
I followed his gaze, surprised at how sad that made me. I hadn’t been here for very long, but I loved Nicolas’s home. Despite the cold, despite the fact that bumping into something could break a precious artifact, his apartment was special to me. I’d felt grief and despair here, but it was also here that I’d been healed and encouraged and supported.
I watched Nicolas’s frown and heavy sigh, trying to think of something that would make him feel better. He still occasionally twitched when he blinked, and I was worried about adding any more stress to his overloaded life.
“I know you’ve been here for a long time,” I said. I held up my wineglass. “But let’s toast to even more years in our new home—Lightning.”
He touched his glass to mine, and I was glad to see some of the fire return to his eyes.
It was eerie to walk around our floors at the Water clan house and see them so barren. We had moved the furniture and personal items to Osaka via portal over the course of the last couple of weeks. Nicolas’s grand piano had been a spectacle to move, as well as Ryan’s extensive workshop and Teng’s gigantic computer setup, rack of servers, and drug lab.
But now it was mostly done, and my chest had turned into a hollow cave filled with anxiety. I knew no one in Water Clan had noticed. No outsiders were allowed on Nicolas’s personal floors. No one in Water had any idea at all of what we were doing.
But I felt unstable and unbalanced, once again having my life upheaved and moved somewhere else.
This is what we wanted. This is all according to plan, I told myself. This is good.
Joushin-ji was a beautiful place, and it was homier and livelier than when I’d been there alone for a week.
It was impressively lively, actually—full of the sounds of music and moving furniture and minor repairs and my family yelling to one another across the rooms.
The soubou was large enough that we could all spread out, everyone picking the rooms they liked most. Nicolas had his outbuilding, which we had dubbed “The Aviary”—an Auspex joke—and he and Sylvio had begun the renovations on it themselves. While I’d always known Sylvio liked to work with his hands, I had never seen Nicolas do physical labor himself. It was both disconcerting and shockingly attractive to watch him covered in sweat and sawdust, using his strength and magic and eye for detail on something like home repairs and design.
Ryan had set himself up with a bedroom and an office at the far end of the first floor of the soubou, and Keisha had moved herself in nearby. Teng and Cameron had ensconced themselves in the middle of the second floor, right above the first-floor common room. Athena, Irina, and Chandra had taken rooms somewhat near each other on the second floor, overlooking the smaller of the two inner courtyards. Farhad was off on another operation, but Sylvio had picked rooms for the two of them, also on the second floor, overlooking the front gate.
There weren’t that many rooms on the third floor—it was the smallest floor, and a large part of it was dedicated to the onsen baths. Daniel and I had opted for it, though, not caring that we’d be closer to each other than we might be on other floors. He took a spacious room with vaulted ceilings and a view of the main temple building and the mountains beyond. I took a smaller, quieter room down the hall, overlooking the large central courtyard.
I liked that even on the third floor, I could still hear the commotion of the downstairs rooms. The insulation was good, but it was just porous enough to allow the echoes of laughter and cooking and news from the television to drift up to me. Eventually, we’d put silencing wards in place on our rooms for when we needed them, but for now we were open and free.
As we worked on stocking the kitchen and equipping the gym and designing the lab that we’d use for researching our new magic, I settled in, content. I checked off tasks on my Shatterfall list and realized we were closer than ever to making this very real. Excitement roiled through me as I finally felt confident about our future.
Chapter 27
Another couple of weeks went by, and only Dan’s adherence to traditional Chinese culture and holidays made me realize that we were near the spring equinox. I had been in Water Clan for just about nine months, but it hadn’t ever felt like I’d truly been part of the clan. Instead, I’d been embedded in Nicolas’s life and goals, and I was still immensely grateful that Nicolas had kept me.
Our new life in Lightning Clan called to me. Every moment I spent working on Shatterfall planning was a delight. I liked shaping the new clan. Not as much as Daniel did, though—he was dedicated to this plan, in love with the idea of his magic creating something new. He and Ryan worked on setting up the lab together, and they experimented with building the final sanctum for the clan. The others helped with this as needed, when they weren’t working on restoring buildings or planning our defense strategies or keeping our cover with Water Clan intact.
Lucky for us, Nicolas’s group had always been aloof, and by default, Daniel’s as well. We got into a rhythm, with Keisha making daily portals between Joushin-ji and the Hong Kong clan house so that we could conduct business as usual.
One day, while I was sitting in the kitchen about to eat lunch, Teng wandered in. He studied me for a moment and then said, “Come with me.”
“Where?” I asked, looking between him and the egg salad sandwich I’d been dying to inhale.
“You can bring your lunch,” he said, turning and beckoning with a gloved hand.
I took my food and followed him upstairs to the set of rooms that made up his office and server room. The hardware was mostly set up now, in a special room with tight climate control and advanced wards. The tall rows of black boxes blinked demurely on the other side of a panel of thick plexiglass.
“Take a seat,” Teng said, gesturing to one of the two workstations. These were normal computer setups, with laptops and monitors.
Teng pulled up a chair next to me and set his laptop on the desk. I took a bite of one half of my sandwich and pushed the other half toward Teng, who gave me a small smile before taking off one glove and gingerly picking up the food.
Food was always a good way to Teng’s heart.
“I don’t really know anything about computers,” I said, wary of the daunting black screens and white text on the monitors in front of me. They looked like something out of a spy movie.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I just need you to input some data and configurations for me.”
“Dan doesn’t usually want me to touch the servers.”
That was an understatement. I’d never had any sort of programming or technology training. Teng was a great hacker and coder. Cameron had done information technology work for the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service before joining Sky and then Water. Daniel was good at everything and had easily picked up the basics of computer science along with everything else he’d done in college.
I had never studied anything of the sort. Teng’s work intimidated me, and Daniel knew that my anxiety spiked when I was put into unknown situations. He’d specifically told me that I never needed to concern myself with that sort of work. While Nicolas often wanted to stretch people like rubber bands to see how far they could go before they snapped, Dan was a bit gentler with his management style. Or, at least, he was gentler with me.
“Fi-ah,” Teng said in an exasperated tone, and I cut my eyes away like a guilty child.
When I’d first heard Teng say my name like that, I thought that he was dropping out the middle syllable as a shortening, or because it was hard to say. Daniel corrected me later, telling me that saying ah after someone’s name in Cantonese was used to get their attention or otherwise express emphasis.
“It means Teng is sick of your shit and wants you to listen,” Dan had told me, rolling his eyes. “But… like… in a nice way, sort of. Like… a close way. He wouldn’t say that at all if he didn’t care.”
I glanced back at Teng. “Yeah, okay,” I said, cowed.
He took the keyboard in front of me and turned it toward
himself, navigating through a bunch of screens and commands.
“Your magic looks good lately,” he said.
I blinked, startled. “Um, thank you. Yours is… always good.”
His lips twisted into a smirk.
“I’m going to type in a bunch of commands here, and then you’re going to do the same there,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
His dark eyes sharpened on mine. “Do you care?”
“I’m curious, yeah.”
He smiled slightly. “Do you want me to teach you?”
“Sure. I mean, if it’s not too much trouble. I don’t want to distract you.”
He shrugged. “No problem there.” He paused and then gestured toward the server room. “I’m going to give you a tour first…”
When Daniel found us a few hours later, Teng and I were drinking green tea and still adjusting server configurations. After his initial teaching, we’d been rather silent with one another, but it was a comfortable silence that felt a lot like old friends.
I recalled my first glimpse of Teng—terrifying—and thought it was very funny that he seemed so normal and tame to me now. It was shocking to find that I could be comfortable with such powerful, frightening people.
Even more shocking—that I might now be one of those powerful, frightening people.
Although I had my own room in the soubou, complete with a Japanese-style futon and hand-painted screens in my sliding doors and windows, I usually slept in Nicolas’s large studio apartment. It was mostly finished now, all according to Ryan’s grand designs.
Nicolas had bought all new furniture, expensive and understated, and none of it was Japanese-style since he didn’t like it. His huge wooden desk was stained so dark it was almost black. His sitting room had plush gray couches arranged around the grand piano. Further into the room, under an impressive bank of skylights, was a four-poster bed. The dark wood made the pale linens look extra luxurious in the abundance of light.
