Eileen Wilks - Blood Magic

It was five minutes after noon. Her mother was late. Her mother was never late. The atomic clock could be set by Julia Yu’s punctuality. Lily couldn’t decide whether to be worried or annoyed.

Maybe she’d had trouble finding parking. The place was packed. If . . . Oh, my.

A slim, upright figure escorted by a deferential hostess was making her way through the crowded tables toward Lily. She wore pristine white silk trousers and a tunic with a Mandarin collar. The tunic was the color-soaked red a 1940s movie star might have worn on her lips and nails. “I am joining you,” Grandmother announced as the hostess held the chair for her. “Your mother is delayed. She will be here soon.”

A dozen impulses and questions whirled through Lily. Did her mother even know Grandmother was joining them? Or was her mother late because Grandmother told her to be? Or had Grandmother persuaded her the actual time was twelve thirty, or . . . .

In the end, Lily smiled helplessly. “It’s good to see you, Grandmother. You look fantastic.”

“Red is a good color for me.” Grandmother waved the hostess away. “We will not order yet. You may bring me some tea. You are drinking coffee,” she informed Lily.

“Yes, I am.”

“Hmph. Li Qin sends her love. She is very glad to be home again. She wonders why you have not yet been to see her.”

Lily’s eyebrows rose. “ She wonders that, Grandmother?”

“I assume she does. I do not wonder. I know. You feel shy with me.”

Lily’s mouth opened to deny that—and closed again. Because suddenly, unaccountably, she did feel shy, or something very like that.

Grandmother patted her hand and spoke softly. “You have just woken to your name. You do not understand it, but you know it. I am the only one you might ask, but you do not know what to ask.”

Wordless, Lily nodded.

The server set a small china pot on the table. Grandmother inspected it, sniffing the steam. “You have prepared it correctly, I think. Loose tea, no bags? Yes. Thank you. I will let it steep.”

Grandmother folded her hands on the table as the slightly flustered server departed. “I will tell you the secret of true names. We know them when we understand the secret about death—which is, of course, the secret about life. Which is not a secret at all.”

“But I—I don’t understand death. I remember it happening. I don’t understand it.”

“You mean you do not understand what comes after death. No more do I. This does not matter. A baby reaching for her mother’s breast does not know what comes after not-baby. She sees not-baby around her, but she does not truly see until she becomes not-baby herself.”

“You mean that death is a transition.”

“Silly word, transition . All words are silly when we speak of this, so mostly we do not, or we let silly people do the speaking. I like the Buddhists, who do not mind being silly. They speak of the fallacy of duality, the confusion of either-or thinking. These words are as close as any to what you and I know.”

Lily shook her head. “They aren’t my words. They don’t . . . they don’t touch what I know.”

“Lily. You know now that having been, you can never not-be. Just as I, having been dragon, can never not-be dragon. And while I was wholly dragon, I was also human, for I could not undo having been human. Living does not undo life. Death does not, either. Life and death are not either-or.”

Words that would have been gibberish to her last week unlocked everything now. “You mean it’s all real. It’s all true. Cullen said a true name comes from the part of us that doesn’t change, but he was wrong. Mostly wrong, anyway, because it’s all change, and it’s all true.”

“Yes. Now, stop carving up what you know with words. The pieces left from that carving do not make sense.” She took a moment to pour her tea. She inhaled, frowned faintly, and sipped anyway. “Sandra learns, but she does not yet have the art.”

Lily grinned suddenly, thinking of a limousine. Black, not white, because Grandmother disliked the white ones. “And having been a child, we can’t not-be a child.”

Grandmother’s eyes twinkled. “I do not know what you mean.” She took a sip of tea, shook her head, and set the cup down.

Love and amusement mingled in Lily, making her next words softer than she wanted, more tentative. “I have some questions about things that can be chopped up into words.”

Grandmother snorted. “You wish to know about myself and Sam. Very well. You may ask. It is good for children to acquaint themselves with their ancestors.”

And that was the kernel, wasn’t it? “Most people don’t have an ancestor around to ask! I mean . . .” Lily gestured vaguely. “Over three hundred years, Grandmother! That’s . . . How is that possible?”

“I have been dragon. I cannot not-be dragon. Dragons live much longer than humans.” She shrugged. “I do not share in their longevity fully. My life will be longer than most, but not as long as a dragon’s. More than that I do not know.”

Lily’s heart beat faster. “Will my father live longer than most, too?”

“Ah.” Sadness clouded the old woman’s eyes. “I do not know, but . . . the magic did not go to him, did it? There is a property of my lineage, passed to me by my mother from her mother and back for many generations: our magic wakes only in the females of our line. It can be passed along through a son, but the son cannot touch it. The magic I passed down was not my original magic, of course, yet it still wakes only in the female, not the male.”

Lily grappled with a jostling crowd of questions, trying to order them. “What do you mean, it wasn’t your original magic?”

“When I was young, my magic took the shape of fire, but I burned out that Gift. When Sam transformed me, he breathed into me the magic of dragons. This is the magic I have passed on to you, though it takes a different shape in you than it has in me.”

“Did Sam turn you into a dragon to reward you for stopping the sorcerer?”

“Oh, no. He did it to save my life. Dragons possess great healing, but they cannot heal humans, and Sam did not wish me to die.” Her expression softened as her gaze focused on a memory only she could see. “Later, he said he had known my death was very likely, but he did not accept this. Dragons wish always to have their way.” She chuckled. “As do we all, but dragons wish this with great intricacy.”

“Is Sam precongitive?”

“This is a human word, a modern word. I do not use it. Sam knows certain things. Back in China, he knew the Chimei would come, and he prepared me without telling me what use he would make of me. The treaty restrained him from that, but he could warn his apprentice, and he did. He told me that one day a Chimei would come, and I was to persuade my family to leave their home. He said he would release me to flee, too, if I wished. Though he did not intend that I leave,” she added pragmatically. “That is the way of dragons. They do not constrain, but they manipulate. But Sam did not know the Chimei’s lover would murder my family. His planning did not include that.”

She sighed once, softly. “In the end, the choices were mine. Vengeance is the choice of a dark heart, and my heart was very dark. I had to be close to kill the sorcerer, so I became a servant in his palace. I guessed that I would have to use what the lovely Cullen calls mage fire.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Many things Sam did not speak of until I was dragon and entitled to such knowledge. But he had instructed me in the use of black fire—an oddly dangerous teaching for a new apprentice! When the sorcerer came, I understood why.”

“You did use mage fire, then? Cullen says that only a sorcerer can call it safely.”