Sharon Shinn - Gateway

Her hands clutched his forearms as she stared up at him. She had been so focused on getting to safety that she had not bothered to come up with a good lie. “I…” she said, “I fell down.”

He did not release her, did not lift her up into the car, just continued to watch her. “What were you doing,” he said slowly, “here on the north side?”

He made the north side sound like the pit of hell. She was willing to bet that all sorts of illicit commerce happened in this part of town and that Quan was suddenly wondering if Daiyu was addicted to drugs or some other unsavory excitement. The so-traditional Quan would be disgusted to think she was drawn to such pursuits, Daiyu thought. But he had caught her in extraordinarily compromising circumstances. Only partial truth would do-very partial.

“I got lost,” she said, letting her eyes fill with tears again. “I was disobedient! I begged my aunt Xiang to allow me to go to the aviary, telling her it would calm my anxious mind, but I was lying to her because I wanted to get out of the house. I am a country girl! I am not used to being so bound and restricted, and I wanted to see more of the city. So I snuck out of the aviary, and I got on a trolley, and I rode around the city. But after I got off and walked a while, I couldn’t remember how to get back, and I went the wrong way, and I was so afraid! Those houses ! Have you seen them? They’re falling down! But people are living in them anyway. Someone asked me for money and I said I didn’t have any, and then someone else asked me, and I started to run away, and then I fell down, and I-I-oh, my aunt Xiang will never forgive me.”

Now she allowed herself to cry in earnest. “She won’t take me to the Presentation Ball! She’ll say I’m no good, like my mother, that I don’t deserve good luck and beautiful things. I just wanted to see the city, and now I’m ruined. She’ll send me away tonight!”

Just for a second, Quan hesitated, but when Daiyu turned her head, trying to hide her face, he drew her in for an awkward hug. “No, she won’t, she’ll never know,” he said. “I’ll tell her you have been with me all afternoon.”

“And she’ll think you have been beating me with your fists,” Daiyu wailed into his shoulder. “I must look like I have been savaged in the streets.”

He laughed softly. “We can take care of that. We’ll find a place where you can straighten your hair and wipe your face and get something to eat. You will look perfectly fine by the time I take you home.”

Daiyu allowed herself to be comforted; she pulled back to stare at him with red-rimmed but hopeful eyes. “But I left the driver at the aviary,” she said. “He has been waiting all this time.”

“We will first tell the driver that you have come into my possession,” Quan said, and the way he said possession wouldhave given Daiyu pause if her circumstances had not been so dire. “You will see. I can make all of this unpleasantness go away.”

She smiled at him through her tears, trying to make her expression melt with gratitude. “Thank you, Quan,” she said. “You are the kindest man. I am so glad you found me.”

He helped her into the car and climbed over her to start the engine, and soon he was racing through the streets with the reckless speed she remembered. She squealed, which made him laugh, and she laughed back at him. In ten minutes, they were at the aviary, dismissing the driver; five minutes later, they were walking into a small, casual café. Quan ordered for both of them while she disappeared into the bathroom to clean up. When she returned to the table, she thanked him shyly, flirting a little from under her lowered lashes.

All this time she was trying to hold back an urgent, untamable terror. All this time she was finding it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to do anything but succumb to hysteria. All this time she was thinking, Whathashappened to Kalen?

Xiang was not at all displeased to learn that Daiyu had spent the afternoon with Quan. She tapped two of those long red fingernails against Daiyu’s cheek, staring up at the taller girl with her dark eyes brightened by excitement.

“So the bird cage is not so interesting after all,” the old woman said, her face crinkled into a smile of satisfaction. “I am glad to hear it.”

“No, I-I did not go there to meet him,” Daiyu said, knowing Xiang would not believe her denial. She had balled up her left hand, which was scraped from her fall, and hidden it against her black trousers. Good thing she would be wearing gloves tomorrow night. “I promise you, Aunt.”

“Well, you would have done better to stay home and soak your feet in oil all afternoon, but you have not done so badly,” Xiang said, dropping her hand, but still smiling. “I suppose he asked you for nine dances?”

“Yes, but I told him I could only grant him three.” This particular ritual of courtship Xiang had drilled in her head so often that she had made the proper response without even thinking about it.

Xiang nodded. “Excellent. This is turning out even better than I hoped.”

Daiyu wondered how quickly Xiang would revise that opinion once Daiyu vanished into the night.

She was so worried about Kalen that she could hardly get through dinner; her stomach nearly revolted when she tried to eat. “I am nervous about tomorrow evening,” she said when Xiang demanded what was wrong with her.

“Well, do not show your nervousness to the prime minister,” Xiang snapped. “He does not like cowering girls.”

Daiyu lowered her eyes and toyed with the food on her plate. “Yes, Aunt.”

Once she was in her room, she could do nothing but pace and stare out the window as she waited for Aurora ’s visit. Over and over again in her mind, she replayed those last few minutes-the guards charging at Kalen with their weapons raised, Kalen fearlessly running to meet them. She heard the sounds of fists hitting flesh and boots hitting bone. And she had run away, she had left him there-

She practically pounced on Aurora when the blond woman finally slipped through the door. “How’s Kalen? Did you talk to him? Is he all right?”

Aurora shut the door firmly and stared at Daiyu. “Why should anything be wrong with Kalen?”

Daiyu strangled a sob. “I was with him this afternoon-and some of Chenglei’s guards attacked us-and I ran away- Aurora, he told me to! I wouldn’t have left him, but he pushed me aside-”

Aurora ’s face was a study in apprehension. She glanced at the door, as if afraid spies hovered on the other side, then pulled Daiyu all the way across the room.

“Quietly,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”

Daiyu stumbled through the narrative, clumsy with the words as she saw the darkening expression on Aurora ’s face. “And I don’t know what happened to him,” she finished up.

“You have to tell me! You must go to the house to find out, then come back here to let me know.”

“I can’t do that!” Aurora exclaimed, her voice soft but her anger unmistakable. “Daiyu, you have risked everything! If any of those guards had caught you-if Xiang were to find out where you had been-”

“I know, I know, I’m very sorry,” Daiyu said hastily. “Xiang would throw me out of the house and I would have no chance to get close to Chenglei-”

“Worsethanthat!Wecouldbeexposed!Ifyouwerearrested and searched, the bracelet would be found, and Chenglei would instantly know what it was! He would realize that Ombri and I were here looking for him, and he would put up so many safeguards that we would never get close to him again. We have always been prepared for the possibility you could fail, but as long as you are not discovered, there is no great harm done. It would take more time, but we would find another sojourner and try again. But if he knows we are on Jia, if he knows we are trying to send him back-he will seal himself off so effectively, we will never get another chance.”