by August Li
I snorted. “Assholes might have their hands full.”
“I still think it’s a bad idea,” he said.
“Do you have a better one?”
“Actually, I do. It isn’t something I like doing, but—”
“Em, no.”
He lifted a hand, and Jet fell quiet.
“But in this case, I don’t think we have another option.” He held one hand a few inches above the map. “I devised my own kind of magic. I don’t practice it very much, and I make most of my living by translating magical texts, but it’s actually quite effective. It involves probability.”
If there was one thing I’d hated in school, it was math, and I sure as hell didn’t know how it was going to help. My doubt must’ve shown, because Emrys smiled. The son of a bitch was really hard not to like. Then he continued.
“Right now, there’s a basically equal probability of these thirty-seven locations being the one where we’ll either find your sister or find something to lead us to her. With this magic, I can improve those odds. Not only can I perform an enchantment to help us see the probability better, I can do a spell to improve our probability of success. As it stands, our probability of finding what we’re looking for by tomorrow is around 4 to 5 percent.”
Blossom clapped. “Ingenious! What are you waiting for? Do the magic and make our probability of success 100 percent!”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Emrys said. “It’s extremely difficult to achieve a full 100 percent probability, and besides….”
“What?” I asked. “Just get it as high as you can.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t come for free. I-I don’t entirely understand it, and I’ve yet to work out a way to predict…. Say a man is driving home from work somewhere in the city. If he’s careful, his probability of making it home safely is likely over 99 percent. However, by increasing one probability, I alter others. That man’s chances of reaching his home without a fatal car accident might drop to 38, 39 percent. Imagine: a child with a good probability of recovering from an illness; a burning candle with high odds of being blown out before it burns down a building; an airplane with an almost certain chance of landing without incident. Any of these probabilities could be affected, and I have no way of knowing which. Any freak accident that happens in the city over the next week could easily be my fault.
“And the higher I try to increase our probability of success, the more I will potentially lower someone else’s.”
Blossom arched an eyebrow. “Of course. Everything is a bargain.”
“But I see little choice except to boost our odds somewhat.” Emrys nodded once, and it seemed like a response to an argument he was having with himself. “Otherwise this might be doomed before we even get started.”
We all sat in silence while he went to the kitchen sink, washed his hands, and dried them slowly, finger by finger, on a tea towel. He circled around the table twice, behind those of us who were sitting down. I started to feel weird, like I was supposed to be somewhere else, had to get there even though I didn’t know where it was. Corazón’s kitchen with all its crappy knickknacks seemed wrong, like it shouldn’t exist, like it had just appeared in front of me. I had a nagging feeling of not knowing how I got there, and then a sense that here might not be real—like it could change into something completely different if I even blinked. I expected it to change. I wanted it to change, but at the same time, I was scared shitless it was going to. Just when I thought I was going to change, when I started to consider that the things I remembered about my life might’ve been dreams or my imagination, the air kind of… shivered, and Emrys sat back down.
Almost instantly, I felt normal again. Something occurred to me. “That magic. Could you increase your probability of winning the lottery? Or of finding a bag of money?”
Emrys chuckled, sounding a little tired. “I suppose I could try, but I don’t even want to imagine the price I would have to pay for doing something like that. Now, let’s see if my efforts have gained us anything.”
“Let me refresh this.” Jet pushed some buttons, and the little red dots on their map danced around, appearing and reappearing for a few seconds before they seemed to make up their mind. This time there were only two of them.
Inky whistled through his teeth. “That’s cut our work down to size.”
Jet nibbled their lower lip as they squinted at the dots. “We should get a couple of hours of sleep and then go. If we split into two groups, we can search both locations at once.”
“Blossom should stay behind,” Inky said. “It’s too dangerous to let these goddamn mages learn of his presence. Er, present company excluded.”
The faerie opened his mouth, probably to argue, but Jet beat him to it. “Nope, if I’m going where it looks like I’m going, then he’s coming with me.” They pointed to one of the dots on the map. “This import-export business in Chinatown is almost definitely a front for Wú Cháng. Even though they scare the shit out of me, I’m the best person for the job. Emrys is a rogue; him going is out of the question. Besides, I’m Asian, so I’ll stand out less. I can probably even convince them ESM is interested in their, uh… services. But I’m not going in there without all the firepower I can get at my back. And that means Blossom.”
The smug look the faerie gave Inky reminded me of a kid my sister’s age.
“The rest of us should gather information and plan our part of the mission,” Emrys said.
I guessed I would be the muscle for our group. I wished somehow I could talk to Raf, get him to give me some better weapons—but without explaining why I needed them.
When my phone hummed with a text from Raf seconds later, I thought about Emrys’s weird probability thing, and a chill ran up my back.
Dante, I insist you call me. It’s important.
I rubbed my forehead. Whatever Emrys had done left me with a dull headache and a low throb in my temples. Standing up, I excused myself. I might as well get it over with. If there was even a chance Raf had found some information about Ros, I couldn’t afford to let it go.
I put on my coat, went to stand on the stoop, and called him.
“Dante, I was worried about you. Where have you been?”
“Just looking into some leads about what might’ve happened to Ros,” I told him.
“And have you found anything?”
I considered, and it didn’t take me long to decide I didn’t want to try to explain all of this. He probably wouldn’t believe it anyway, and he’d likely think I’d lost my fucking mind. “Not really.”
“Well, you’re supposed to go on deliveries with Carl in the morning.”
Damn, I’d forgotten. I went along for protection—not that Carl usually needed it. It was easy work—and easy money—but I didn’t want to put off looking for Ros. Not now that we might actually have a chance. “Look, I can’t do it. Can you find somebody else?”
I braced myself for one of the lectures about responsibility and loyalty that were worse than if he’d just screamed and sworn at me, but he said, “Sure. I understand. You’ve got a lot on your mind. But I would like to meet with you. To replace the item you lost.”
My Colt! That was fucking perfect, and I might need it if we got into trouble wherever we were going. I hadn’t expected him to offer after I’d been blowing him off the past couple of days, and I wondered if it was more of that probability stuff at work. It would certainly help my chances of success. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be great. Let’s meet tomorrow. Is six too early?”
No matter what Emrys had said, if there was a downside to this magic, I couldn’t see it.
Chapter Twenty
“WHAT’S IT like where you come from?” the mortal called Jet asked me as we rode in their small turquoise carriage. I finally had my chance to witness the tall towers of glass up close, or at least to observe their walls reflecting the somber striations of the predawn sky as we traveled past. At this proximity, they were not as impressive as I had imagined they woul
d be—just human buildings cobbled together from stone and ore with little artistry and less originality. Utilitarian, like all things the mortals favored. It should not have disappointed me as much as it did.
“It is not like any one thing.” I felt suddenly quite wistful. “My lands alone are so vast that they encompass deserts of shimmering golden sands, forests where the trees are wider around than these structures. Their branches twist together in patterns like the finest lace, and the ivy that covers their trunks shines like cut gems. Then there are other woods where the trees are gray and their branches and leaves droop like a stream of steadily falling tears. They are full of whispers, of memories. Those places are shrouded in mist, and some places are so thick with bracken that the light never touches the ground. Dark things live there.
“And then there are meadows where the light shines all the time, day and night, in soft golden shafts. The colors of the flowers are so bright they would hurt your eyes and plant in your mind thoughts of the earliest days of your life, those hours before you forgot how to see magic. And they dance with the wind, and together with crystal clear brooks, they sing such songs that if you ever heard them, you would spend the rest of your days trying to remember the melody.” I sighed. “And I have estates. Thirteen of them.”
“You sound like you miss it.”
“Of course. There is always entertainment, balls, dancing. Performances. Tell me. Do you hunt?”
“Hunt?” Jet laughed. “I play first-person shooters, if that counts.”
“I don’t know if it does,” I said, perplexed. “It is great fun. You should try it.”
“You’d take me to your lands?”
“Of course!”
“Why?” Jet looked away from the road for a moment to study me with eyes lined in sparkling kohl. A streak of light like a shooting star raced across the left one. “I mean, why me?”
It surprised me that they did not know, but then mortals were blind to so much. I honestly didn’t understand how they managed to stumble through their brief lives, but I tried to remember to be patient. “You are a special kind of human. You stand with one foot in one world and the other someplace else. You see different things with one eye than the other.”
After a sharp intake of breath, Jet said, very softly, “I suppose that’s true.”
“Then will you come? After this plodding little drama has played itself out?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t leave Emrys.”
“Emrys?” Could they be serious? “That dull boy with his dull brown hair? What does he have to keep you here compared with what I can offer? The wonders I could show you?”
Jet shook their head. “Emrys is not as dull as you think. He makes me better. Maybe you aren’t seeing with both eyes.”
“I always see everything.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “And since I have been in this world, I have yet to see anything out of the ordinary.”
“Well, maybe you haven’t been keeping the right company.” Jet winked. “I could show you some things.”
“Indeed?” This prospect intrigued me, as Jet held knowledge of things not familiar to me. What was the magic I felt in the strings of numerals? There was a language to it, as sure as the voice of the clouds scraping across the sky, but I did not understand, and I wanted to. I might encounter something new after all.
“Yeah, and maybe I will, you know, after this. Assuming we’re alive and not blind, crippled, or riddled with lesions or cancer….” Jet shuddered. “You know what these mages can do, right? They can manipulate your flesh in almost any way they can imagine—turn your blood to dust, stop your heart, make your bones too brittle to stand….”
I laughed. I did not mean to mock Jet’s distress, but I could not help it. “How do you know I have any of those things? How do you know I’m not made up of wild air and the light on the sea and the dreams the poets can’t quite remember upon waking? I am not afraid of these mortals.”
Jet arched a brow. “Well, that’s nice for you. Maybe I’ll get lucky too.”
After that, we sat in silence except for the music coming from a little device attached to our conveyance. Finally Jet guided the carriage into a vacant lot and got out to hand some slips of paper to a man in a booth. Then they got back in the carriage and turned to me. “You need to disguise what you are. If they know you’re a faerie when we walk in there, we won’t be walking out. You can do that, right? The glamour?”
“Yes, though mortals like Corazón can see through it. And Dante. I took the cowl away from his left eye.”
“Then we’ll just have to hope they still have the cowl. Make yourself look like you belong here.”
I peered out the glass, which was quickly becoming covered with an etching of frost, for an example of the kinds of mortals who lived in this area, but aside from the attendant—too old and fat for me to ever consider emulating—I found none of them on the street, the early hour and chill in the air likely persuading them to enjoy the warmth of their beds a little longer. “Who belongs here?”
“Well, it’s Chinatown.”
“So I should make myself look like you?”
“I’m Japanese. But close enough, I guess. Better than nothing. Though not too much like me. It’ll be weird if we seem like twins.”
“You’re giving me very little to work with,” I complained. “Why don’t I just make myself invisible? I can make it so I’m not seen at all.”
“That probably works on average people, but a lot of mages can sense energy. I don’t care if you’re made of sea-foam and unicorn farts, you have a life force. If these people detect a life force and don’t see a person emitting it, they’re going to get suspicious. That’ll be bad.”
“Then I’ll need some kind of template.”
“Here.” Jet picked up the small rectangle that had been providing our music and dragged their finger across it. Then they turned to me and showed me an image of a very handsome young man in a dark suit. “Can you do that?”
I did as I was asked and looked to my companion for approval.
Jet nodded. “Okay. Just follow my lead and keep quiet. Don’t use any magic unless there’s no other option; it’ll only draw attention to us and maybe give us away. And if there’s no other option, nothing fancy. Just get us the hell out of there.”
I bristled at this mortal telling me what to do, assuming they knew better than I did, but curiosity proved more compelling, and I followed Jet through the snowy streets for over a quarter of an hour. We passed beneath an ornate archway and into a compact and colorful neighborhood full of shops and eateries. I assumed one of these would be our destination, but Jet led me beyond them, to an area of plainer buildings and down an alleyway that dead-ended at a stone wall. Finally we stopped in front of a set of glass doors with the words Yan Luo Imports written in red paint edged with gold. I wondered how in the world those people who wanted to patronize the establishment would ever find it.
Inside was dark, the only illumination provided by domed lights set high among the metal rafters of the ceiling. Subtle scents of cedar and sandalwood drifted on the otherwise stale air, and shelves held statues and sets of dishes, their gilt edges glittering softly. I reached out to trace a finger along the back of a ceramic dragon.
“Don’t take anything,” Jet hissed, leaning in.
“I wasn’t.” I frowned. In truth, the objects sparkled so beautifully they were hard to resist.
“Uh-huh.” Jet continued past the long rows of metal shelves and through a set of doors at the back of the building. Beyond them, a man opened wooden crates with a metal bar. He looked up from his task and grunted to acknowledge us.
“Nǐ hǎo,” Jet said. “Máfan nǐ?”
The man stood and brushed his palms on his trousers, his suspicious expression lessened by the sound of his native tongue. “Nǐ hǎo ma?”
“Xièxiè. Wǒ jiào Zama Jet. Wǒ zài zhǎo lǎobǎn. Actually—” Jet sighed and shook their head. “Nǐ huì shuō Yīngyǔ ma?”
“Oh good,” Jet said. “My Mandarin is pretty rusty.”
“Is there something I can do for you?” The man was guarded if not outright impatient. I watched his hand move to clutch the iron rod he’d leaned against the wall even though his eyes never left my companion.
“I do wish to buy something,” Jet said. “But I don’t think I can get it here. Maybe what I need is somewhere else in the building?”
“That depends what it is you need,” the man answered.
“Impermanence.”
The two of them stood staring at each other for several moments until I felt sure the man would refuse. But then he nodded once and opened another set of doors. “This way,” he said. “Cōngmáng!”
We followed him through another door and into a storage room where boxes and crates filled all the available space, with only narrow trails between them. The next room was more of the same, but the third was empty save for a huge silk tapestry depicting a compelling scene—mortals skinned alive by all manner of interesting creatures—hanging on the back wall. Our host pulled it aside to reveal yet another small door. He turned to Jet and smiled. “As long as you are Wūshī, the door will open.”
“Okay.” Jet put their hand on the brass handle and closed their eyes. I waited as they released a little wisp of magic into the mechanism sealing the door, and then it was swung open.
“You will need to go down to the third level,” our guide told us. “From there, follow the main walkway straight back until you see a red door. I would suggest you do not stray from the path.”
“Very good,” Jet answered. “Thanks for your help. Xièxiè.”
The man harrumphed, and we stepped into the darkness.
By the time we descended the first stair, every particle of light had disappeared, and the blackness enveloped us until Jet produced a beam of bluish light from one of the bracelets they wore. It allowed us to find the next stairwell and then the next. Finally we reached a thick metal door marked with a trio of horizontal lines that increased in length at the bottom.
