Sharon Shinn - Gateway

“What an amazing place,” Daiyu said, turning to Aurora with her eyes wide open.

Aurora handed her a silk parasol. “You’ll want to use this as we walk around. Otherwise you’ll come home with bird droppings in your hair and on your lovely blouse.”

Indeed, the smell of avian excrement was pretty strong, though not intense enough to be truly unpleasant, and the whole narrow walkway that wound through the interior was covered with white and gray spatters. On the other hand, the thick greenery kept the temperature inside the aviary noticeably cooler than the air outside, though the aviary was just as humid. Daiyu could already feel her carefully styled hair start to loosen and frizz.

“Why are all the birds red?” she asked, snapping the parasol into place over her head.

“The story is that red was the favorite color of the wife of the man who built this place nearly a century ago. So he collected red birds from all the corners of the world and had them installed here. Some of the species here are extinct in other parts of the world. Zoologists from all over Jia come to study them.”

“I can see why,” Daiyu said, and began strolling forward.

The stone path meandered around some of the giant trees and past a variety of fountains and shallow pools filled with birds dipping into the water and shaking off their feathers. A flock of tiny creatures skittered by at eye height, so small that Daiyu at first thought they were butterflies. Now and then she felt a small splat on the top of her parasol and was increasingly grateful that Aurora had brought it along.

Scattered in strategic places along the path were stone and wooden benches, many of them occupied by bird-watchers with viewing glasses or students with sketchpads. Not far away, a young man with a bucket was scrubbing the bird droppings off a black wrought-iron bench. Daiyu imagined that he faced an unending task in this place. At their approach, the worker looked up and grinned. It was Kalen.

Daiyu had to choke down her squeal of delight, but she absolutely could not contain her smile. She was so glad to see him that she wanted to run down the path and throw her arms around his neck, but of course she couldn’t, not in front of witnesses. None of the people nearby looked affluent enough to be friends of Xiang’s, but too much was at stake for Daiyu to be stupid.

“ Aurora,” she said in as stately a voice as she could manage. “Let us sit for a time on that bench that has just been cleaned.”

“Yes, young mistress,” Aurora replied.

Kalen, too, was exercising self-control. After that first grin, he schooled himself to look solemn and deferential. He bowed when he saw them approach and extended his arms as if to present the bench to them. “Would you like to sit for a while?” he asked. “I could hold the young lady’s parasol to protect her head.”

“She will sit,” Aurora said. “I will continue my walk.”

And so, seconds later, Daiyu and Kalen were alone. Well, if you discounted the young girl sitting ten feet away, apparently engrossed in her easel and paints, and the couples ambling past, and the mothers with their young children spilling off the pathway into the untamed bushes. Kalen stood respectfully behind the bench, holding the parasol at a deliberately low angle. It would be hard for anyone walking by to see Daiyu’s face. Of course, she couldn’t see Kalen’s face either, and she wanted to-she wanted to hang over the back of the bench and gaze up at him while she told him everything she’d seen and everything she’d done since she left for Xiang’s. But she had to sit here and appear elegant and bored and proper.

“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” she said, her voice warm even as she tried to keep her expression cool. “Tell me everything.”

“My life is the same as it always is,” he said. “Quieter now, with you gone.”

“Did you pick stones the other day? I heard the bell ring.”

“Yes, I was at the river all morning. But I only came home with one qiji.”

“Well, that’s better than none!”

She heard the smile in his voice. “That’s what I thought.”

“ Aurora told me you took the job here. Does that mean you’ll stop being a stonepicker?”

“No, I can do both. Gabe’s been working here for the last couple of months and he helped me get hired.”

“Were you worried about money?” Daiyu asked softly. She thought about all the food that went to waste in one day at Xiang’s. Enough to feed Kalen for a week.

There was a slight sound, as if he’d shrugged. He transferred the parasol to his other hand, never lifting it away from her face. “Everyone worries about money.”

“Maybe you could sell your earrings,” she suggested, “if you ever get too desperate.”

He laughed softly. “They’re just made of cheap metal, so they wouldn’t even fetch the price of a meal. But I like having a second job. When Ombri and Aurora leave-”

She twisted around to look at him. “When are they leaving?”

He gave her a lopsided smile. She thought his face looked thinner than before. “Once you send Chenglei away, they won’t have any reason to stay in Jia.”

For some reason, that had never occurred to her. “But then what will happen to you? Will you have to give up the house?”

He made a circular motion with his free hand, indicating she should face forward again. Unwilling, she obeyed. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “We haven’t talked about it. It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, of course it does! I hate to think of you sleeping outside in a tent once cold weather comes-”

“You won’t be thinking of me at all when cold weather comes,” he said lightly. “Not if you’re back in your own iteration by then.”

The words made them both fall silent again. Daiyu’s rush of pleasure in the meeting instantly dissipated; she actually felt sick to her stomach. She clasped her hands together hard.

“I’m sorry,” Kalen said. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that I think about it a lot.”

“It’s so unfair,” she said in a subdued voice. “Ombri and Aurora descend on you and draw you into this escapade and change everything in your life. And then they disappear and everything they brought with them disappears, and you’re left with a story you can’t tell anyone and memories that no oneelseshares. I am in despair just knowing that all of this will evaporate the minute I’m back home. I can’t stand it, thinking I won’t remembe ryou. But it might be just as bad to remember all of it and know you can never have any of it back again.”

“I don’t mind,” he said. “I mean-I do mind, knowing that I’ll never see any of you again-but I’d rather have had the adventure than not. I’d rather know the people and lose them than never have them in my life at all.”

“It’s so hard,” she said, her voice very low.

He changed the subject, his voice determinedly cheerful. “So what’s it like at Xiang’s house? As frightening as you expected?”

She managed a light laugh. “Just about! Xiang is a bitter little spider in this golden web, and I always have the idea that she’s plotting things all the time, some of them not very nice. She seems to like me, though. At any rate, she doesn’t scream at me or call me names. And once or twice she’s said things that make it sound like she’s considering keeping me here past the ball. As if I really were her niece and she was thinking of adopting me.”

Kalen laughed. “There’s a thought! You could stay in Shenglang. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about me being lonely after all.”

Daiyu laughed. “I like the idea of staying in Shenglang with you, but I don’t think I could stand to keep living with Xiang,” she said. Belatedly, she added, “Besides, I couldn’t leave my parents like that! They’d be so worried about me and I’d miss them too much.”