A LAND SOAKED IN BLOOD
1902—New York
Barefoot and wearing nightclothes that were too large for him, Jianyu took a moment to test his balance while he had the bedpost to hold on to. The movement still made his vision waver, like he was looking through a fog, but he took a deep breath and forced himself to stay upright. It had been too long. Far too long.
By now, certainly, the boy Esta had warned him about would have arrived. By now the boy would have made contact with Nibsy. Which meant that he’d failed. Again.
He was not completely sure where he was, and he could not be sure how long he had been there. The times he had woken, he found that he could barely hold on to consciousness before the ground fell out from beneath him and he drifted back into the heavy darkness. But finally he had managed to claw free. The sun was slanting in through the thin curtains covering the single window in the room, and the air was warm and heavy with the smell of something laden with spices that were unfamiliar to his nose. But then he realized that he could pick out the sweetness of clove and the pungency of garlic, scents that reminded him of a home he would not see again.
Spurred on by that thought, he forced himself to take a step, pausing to make sure that the earth remained steady beneath him, unlike a day—or was it two?—before. Then, his desperation to find the boy Esta had warned him about had been so urgent, he had pushed too far and instead collapsed to the floor, jarring his already tender head again.
He took slow, tentative steps at first, testing himself, and when he was satisfied that his legs were steady, he followed the sound of voices through the door of the small bedroom and down a short hallway to a narrow living area, where he found three women sitting and stitching piles of men’s pants. Cela was one of the three, but where the other two were engrossed in conversation with each other, she was working with her head bowed, concentrating on the task in front of her. She seemed separate from them somehow. Where the other two wore simple dark skirts and faded shirtwaists, Cela was wearing a gown the same shade of pink as a tea flower. It was a simple day dress, like any might wear, but again he was struck by the cut of it, the sharp tailoring that made it seem like something more. Her nimble fingers finished the cuff of one leg and moved on to the next, but her expression seemed far away—more sad than thoughtful.
He had spent only a few moments in her workshop at the theater, but that space had been neat and organized, the bolts of fabric stacked in straight lines and the bowls of beads and crystals arranged without even a spangle out of place. But nothing in this room sparkled. There was no silk or satin, and Cela herself looked tired.
The older of the other two glanced up and noticed Jianyu standing there, leaning against the doorway to keep himself upright. She cleared her throat, causing Cela to look up as well.
“You’re awake,” Cela said, the low tones of her voice making it sound like an accusation. “You shouldn’t be up.”
She was right, of course. The words were no sooner spoken than Jianyu felt himself swaying, and Cela was on her feet in an instant, helping him to the chair she had just been sitting in.
He thanked her, but along with gratitude, he felt the burn of shame. To be so weak here in front of these women. To be unable to fulfill his promises . . .
“You okay?” Cela asked, settling herself on the floor and taking up the pants she had been working on a moment ago.
He nodded rather than speaking, but the movement of his head caused his newly shorn hair to brush against his cheek, reminding him of all that had happened.
The older woman was watching him as she stitched, while the other one, a woman just a few years older than Cela, kept sliding glances his way as well. But it was the older woman who was the first to speak. “So, Mr. Jianyu . . . how long will you be staying with us, now that you’re up?”
“Auntie—” Cela said, a note of warning in her voice. But the words that came next, Jianyu could not follow. They seemed to be in English, or some of them did, but Jianyu had trouble making sense of them. His head, perhaps . . .
But Cela’s aunt seemed to understand. She answered back using the same unfamiliar tongue. The two women spoke for a minute, trading words, and Jianyu did not need to know the language they were speaking to discern their meaning, especially when the older woman’s eyes kept cutting to Jianyu as the two spoke. After a moment, the older woman put down her sewing and motioned for the other to come with her, leaving Jianyu and Cela alone in the suddenly quiet apartment.
Cela made a few more stitches, but then her hands went still and she let out a long breath. Jianyu could see the tears turning her dark eyes glassy, but he had nothing to offer her.
“If I have caused you trouble with your family—”
Cela shook her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. “My auntie is just like that sometimes. My cousin Neola is a bit easier to abide.”
“The other girl?” Jianyu asked.
Cela nodded. Then she put aside the sewing she’d been doing. “How are you?”
“Well,” he said, feeling that it was not a lie so long as he remained sitting.
“You look better,” she told him. “That knock to the head you took was something awful. For a couple of days, I wasn’t sure that you’d wake up.”
There was something in her voice that sounded broken and brittle, but Jianyu felt he had no right to ask. “Thank you,” he told her, his voice stiff. “You did not need to trouble yourself for me.”
She gave him a doubtful look. “You’re right about that, but seeing as how you got me out of the theater and away from Evelyn, I couldn’t just leave you half-dead on the streetcar. And don’t worry about my family,” she said.
“Your aunt . . . she seemed angry,” he told her.
“She usually is, around me,” Cela said, waving away his concerns, but at his questioning look, she let out a sigh and began to explain. “My mama’s family came from the Windward Islands. They always did think they were better than the people who’ve lived here for generations—definitely thought they were better than my daddy, who came from down South and whose parents weren’t even born free. She’s probably happy to see me sitting here stitching pants. They all told me I was a fool for trying to find a job in the white theaters. Said I didn’t know my place, and if I just listened to Mr. Washington, I’d know I need to cast down my bucket where I was, not go looking for other oceans.” She shrugged. “I always thought they were jealous because they didn’t make half as much money as I did. Maybe my mama didn’t give me her light skin, but she did give me her skill with a needle and her backbone. . . .” She hesitated, her gaze sliding away. “But maybe they were right all along.”
Her words stoked something inside of him, some small ember of frustration he had carried over an ocean. He didn’t understand her situation, but he understood the note of disappointment in her voice. “I doubt that,” he told her, hoping that it was true for him as well.
“I don’t know,” she said with another deep sigh. Her eyes were shining again with the wetness of unshed tears. “Maybe I should have just been happy with the lot I’d been given rather than searching out greener fields. I got that from my daddy, though. He was never happy with good enough—and neither am I. But all his wanting cost him his life in the end, and all mine cost me everything I had. My home. My brother.” Her voice broke, and she paused for a second as though trying to collect herself. “Now I’m back here, stitching some old pants, just like they said I would be. And the one person who understood me no matter what is gone.”
“It seems, then, that I am doubly in your debt,” he told her.
She shook her head. “We’re even now, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Darrigan sent me to protect you and the ring,” Jianyu told her. “I have done neither.”
“I didn’t ask for no protecting,” she told him, her expression tight.
“That matters little,” Jianyu said. “It was not well done of him to give you the burden of the ring, to put you in such danger without warning you of what might come. But it was I who failed to protect you.”
“That stupid ring,” Cela said, pulling herself from the floor. “I wish I’d never laid eyes on it, or Harte Darrigan.”
“I’m sure there are more than a few people who feel that way about the magician,” Jianyu said dryly.
She looked at him, a question in her eyes. “Does that include you?”
He inclined his head. “Most definitely. Although, if I had not known him, I would also not have met you, and it seems to me more than a fair trade to know that someone with your strength and kindness is a part of this world.”
She looked away, her cheeks flushing with what could have been embarrassment or pleasure, but at least the sadness in her expression had eased, if only a little. “You know,” she said after an almost comfortable moment of silence between them, “I could help you with that hair of yours.”
His hands went to the shorn strands that hung around his face. There cannot be any help for this.
“I’m pretty good with a pair of shears, and I used to cut my brother, Abel’s—” She lifted her fist to her mouth, as though she was trying to keep the pain inside instead of letting it out. After a moment, she spoke again, her voice softer this time. “I used to cut Abel’s hair all the time after our mother died. I can’t put things back the way they were, but I can clean up the edges for you.”
This was an offering he had not expected. It was also a gift he did not deserve, but somehow he could not stop himself from accepting it.
They sat in the small kitchen, a worn towel around Jianyu’s shoulders to catch the clippings. At first, Cela was tentative, as though she was afraid even to touch him. But eventually the shyness and reluctance between them dissolved, and her fingers were strong and sure. The scissors whispered their steady tale as she worked.
“So, tell me about this ring,” she said, letting her voice trail off, giving him the space to speak.
He told her what he could of the ring and of the rest of the artifacts, and once he started speaking, he found that he could not stop. He had often sat with Dolph in the evenings, speaking of any number of things—news of the city and hopes for the future and even thoughts about power and magic and its role in the world. But in the days before Khafre Hall, Dolph had been too busy plugging leaks on the bursting dam that was the Devil’s Own to sit and visit, and after Khafre Hall they had all been alone in their grief—Jianyu, maybe, most of all. He had been so silent for days now that just having Cela’s ear felt like a balm.
Cela listened without interrupting, her fingers and the scissors moving steadily over his head.
“So I must find the ring and keep it from those who would do harm with it,” he finished.
She was silent for a moment as she worked, snipping at the hair along the nape of his neck. “You know, all this fuss over magic. People are so busy trying to keep it and control it that they’re willing to do all sorts of evil for it.” Her hands went still, and she stepped back to look him over. “But maybe nobody’s meant to have it. Maybe it’s just meant to fade away.” She tilted her head to the side and then trimmed another piece of his hair.
“If you ask me,” she continued, “it’s because there’s something wrong with this land. The people who were here first—the ones who truly belong here—got killed off or pushed aside, and that does something to a place, all that death and violence. Magic can’t take root in blood-soaked earth. If you ask me, maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe nobody should have that kind of power over anyone else.” She brushed off his shoulders. “Go on. See what you think.”
There was a small square mirror hanging on the other side of the room. Jianyu stepped toward it tentatively, in part because he was already unsteady on his feet, and in part because he was afraid to see the person who would greet him in the cloudy glass.
He didn’t really look like himself. The hair that he’d once worn pulled back now framed his face. It wasn’t his father’s son that looked back, but some new version of himself. American and unrecognizable. He felt a thrill of something that might have been fear . . . or maybe it was simple readiness.
Cela was safe. He would find the ring. He had not yet failed, and he would not allow himself to.