Sharon Shinn - Gateway

Quan-who was starting to seem just a little too faithful-was standing with Xiang when Daiyu and Chenglei made their way back to her. In his hand Quan held a much larger glass filled with the lemony mixture. Daiyu sipped from it while Chenglei made his proposition to Xiang and Xiang instantly accepted, with only the barest attempt to disguise her gleeful satisfaction. Daiyu didn’t bother to listen to them talk, didn’t bother to make conversation with Quan beyond thanking him for the drink. She merely took another swallow and wondered just exactly what kind of luck she had bargained for.

Daiyu slept late the next morning, or at least that was what she hoped Aurora would believe. As soon as she had gotten to her room the previous night, she had locked her door and she had not opened it when Aurora knocked quietly on the wood. She did not open it that morning, either, when the knock came again. She just stood in the center of the room, her hands at her throat, her heart in turmoil.

She didn’t know what she had done; she didn’t know what she should do.

She needed desperately to talk to Kalen.

He would not be at the aviary today; he would be at the river. While Daiyu was sipping lemonade punch at the ball, she had heard the great bronze bell toll out its call for workers.

But she knew how to find him on the river…

“Aunt, may I go to the aviary this morning?” she asked Xiang when she joined the old woman for the second meal of the morning. She was hungry, since she had skipped the first one.

Xiang looked smug, clearly believing that any trip to the bird house was cover for an assignation with Quan. But Daiyu knew that Quan would be out of the city for two days, running errands for Mei. There was no risk that he would come to the house and expose Daiyu’s deception.

“I suppose you may,” Xiang said. “You do not need to bring one of the servants. I think you know your way around the city well enough by now.”

“Thank you, Aunt.”

“But we have much work to do in the next two weeks to prepare your wardrobe for the summer holiday! You will want to look your best for the festivities. The dressmaker will be here tomorrow morning. Do not make any other plans.”

“Yes, Aunt. Thank you.”

By now Daiyu was an old hand at arriving at the aviary with some pomp and exiting in stealth. Once she was back out on the crowded street, she had to ask several people before she found someone who could tell her what trolley to take to the river, but in fact the journey wasn’t long at all.

She jumped off as soon as she saw the red gate and made her way across the yin-yang patterns of rock that bordered the riverfront. It was only about an hour before noon, and stonepickers were already starting to climb out of the Zhongbu, bags over their shoulders, boots making a creaking, squishy sound as they trudged through the mud. But there were still several hundred people bent over the riverbed, sorting through rocks, snatching up the occasional treasure. Daiyu cast back and forth along the bank, trying to pick Kalen out from the dozens who looked just like him from a distance. It would be so easy to miss him. Did she have time to go to the house? Would she be able to get free again tomorrow, after the dressmaker left, perhaps? Could she trust Aurora to take a message?

Shewouldn’thaveto-therehewas,lankyandlooselimbed, strolling out of the sucking mud as if it did not tug on him at all. She ran toward him, arms outstretched, so impatient she almost dipped her fine shoes in the wet riverbed. He looked up when she called his name, and his face broke into a delighted smile. From both sides of the river, high-pitched chimes began to send their fluttery, urgent message. It was as if his smile had triggered the music, as if the sight of his face had filled her head with silver excitement.

He slung the bag more securely over his shoulder and caught both her hands before he was completely out of the river. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, taking the last noisy steps out of the mud and onto the bank. “Did something happen?”

She was examining his face, bruised around the eye and cut around the lip but not permanently disfigured. “How badly were you hurt?” she demanded in turn.

Other stonepickers brushed by them as they trudged out of the river, and Daiyu heard the sibilant sound of the first threads of water seeping under the gates. “Not so badly,” he said. “Come on, we can’t just stand here. Someone might notice you.”

“I can’t stay very long.”

“You shouldn’t be here at all.”

It was as if they couldn’t settle into the rhythm of a proper conversation. There was too much to say, there was no privacy, everything was too important. “I have to talk to you,” she said.

He nodded and glanced around as if looking for a place of safety, then his face lit with a grin. “The bell tower,” he said. “Gabe’s just leaving. He’s got a girl now, so he doesn’t stick around long once he’s sent the signal.”

Casually they headed toward the tower and casually Kalen tried the lock on the gate to the stairs-which, as Gabe had told them, was broken. Daiyu was so determined to talk to Kalen that even the perilous spiral staircase did not slow her down for longer than it took to inhale a deep breath and begin climbing. She didn’t look down, didn’t let herself think about how high she was above the ground. Kalen was right behind her, his hand just below hers on the railing, ready to catch her if she slipped.

She didn’t, and finally, finally, they were alone together on the narrow catwalk at the top of the tower. Daiyu turned immediately into Kalen’s arms and, needing no other invitation, he bent down and kissed her thoroughly. She thought he tasted like rainwater and sunlight and the indefinable fizz of qiji stones.

When she broke the kiss, for a moment she leaned her head against his chest and shut her eyes. “I was so afraid they would kill you,” she whispered. “I couldn’t bear to leave you, and yet I did. And I almost didn’t believe Aurora when she told me you would be all right.”

“Oh, I’ve been beaten up a time or two in my life,” he said, his voice soothing. One of his arms was still wrapped securely around her waist; his free hand was stroking her hair. “It takes more than a few ugly guards to do me any damage.”

Her voice muffled against his shirt, she said, “I didn’t put the bracelet on Chenglei at the dance.”

Hishanddidn’tfalter.“Iknowyoudidn’t.Theworldwould be a much different place today if you had.”

“I suppose Aurora and Ombri are very angry with me.”

Now his hand stilled. “They just assumed something went wrong with the plan. That you didn’t have a chance to slip the bracelet on his arm.”

“I could have,” she whispered, “but I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

She burrowed her head deeper into his shirt, catching the familiar scent of his skin even under the odor of mud and fish and river stink. She didn’t know how to answer.

“Daiyu? Why didn’t you?” The hand that had been patting her head came around to tilt up her chin. “I hope it wasn’t because of me.”

She let him lift her head and she stared up at him in hopeless confusion. “Maybe it was-maybe that was a part of it,” she said. “But I think even more it was just that I can’t be sure. How can I do such a dreadful thing to someone else when I’m not positive he is guilty as charged? It would haunt me the rest of my life.”

He attempted a smile. “The rest of your stay in Shenglang. Not so long.”

“I think I’d remember some of it,” she whispered. “I think part of me would remember I had done something wrong. I wouldn’t know what, but I’d know it was dreadful. And it would eat away at me. Forever. Kalen, I can’t do it.”