THE WEIGHT OF BELONGING
1902—New York
Leaving under the cover of darkness without so much as a good-bye was hardly any way to repay the kindness Cela’s family had shown him over the past six days as he had healed, but Jianyu had already allowed too much time to pass since the ring had gone missing from her possession. He had been delaying the inevitable, but now he had another promise to keep. A wider world to protect.
Jianyu told himself that Cela would be fine, even if the tension in the house was thick enough for him to swim through. He saw the way they looked at her, but they were her family. She would be safe now that the stone was no longer in her possession, and they would take care of her until she was on her feet.
Perhaps he was a coward for not telling Cela that he was leaving, but if anyone came looking for him, she would be safer for not knowing.
He could have used his affinity to conceal himself, but his head still ached occasionally, and using the bronze disks would be too much of an effort. Besides, he was still unsteady, and he needed to save his strength for what was to come.
When he reached the corner of Amsterdam Avenue, a familiar figure stepped from the entrance of one of the saloons. He could have opened the light to hide himself, but it was too late. She had seen him. To run now would be disrespectful and insulting.
“I had a feeling you’d leave tonight,” Cela said when he finally came to where she was waiting for him, her hands crossed over her chest. “That’s it, then? You were just gonna go without so much as a good-bye?”
He did not respond. What was there to say? She was correct in her words and in the anger stirring behind them.
“After all I did for you? After I made my family take you in?”
“I owe you all a debt of gratitude—” he started, but Cela’s temper snapped.
“This don’t look anything like gratitude.” She glared at him. “Where are you going, anyway?”
“It is better that you do not know,” he said softly, hating the emotion in her eyes. Suspicion. Disgust. It was the emotion he regularly saw mirrored back to him in the eyes of those he met, the eyes of those who looked at him and saw not the person he was or the heart he carried, but the skin he wore. “You will be safer,” he tried to explain.
“Safer?” she asked, a bark of ridicule in her tone. Then her brows beaded together. “You’re going after that ring, aren’t you?”
He did not respond, but from the way her expression shifted, she understood.
“Why? After all the trouble it’s caused for everyone, why not just leave the blasted thing be?”
He gave her the only answer he could: “Because I have to.”
“Why?” she pressed.
“I made a promise,” he told her. “I gave Darrigan my word that I would see you safe and protect the ring. I have done the first, and now I must turn to the other.”
“You don’t owe Darrigan anything,” she said, more softly now, a frown tugging at her full lips. “Neither of us owe him a single thing more.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded. “But I explained to you what the ring could do, did I not? In unworthy hands, it could have devastating effects. I cannot allow that to happen. I cannot allow the Order or anyone else who might do harm with the stone to obtain it.”
Cela stared at him for a moment, her dark eyes sharp in their intensity as she considered his words. Then she let out a jagged breath that was as much frustration as it was understanding. “I’m coming with you, then.”
“No—”
“I’m the one who lost that ring, so I’ll help you find it.”
“This is not your fight.” Jianyu shook his head. “You will stay here, with your family, where you belong.”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Were you in that house with me? I don’t belong there.”
He had seen, had felt the tension between them, but . . . “They are family. Your blood.”
“They might be my mama’s people, but they’ve never really been mine, blood or not.” Her jaw was set and determined. “My grandparents didn’t ever approve of the choice my mama made when she married my daddy for lots of reasons, but mostly it boiled down to his skin being too dark. Didn’t matter that he worked his knuckles to the bone to give us a good life: a roof over our heads and shoes on our feet. According to them, he was low class, and when we came out with skin every bit as dark as his, so were we,” she told him. “They never said it outright, but we knew.”
Her shoulders seemed to sag with the weight of her confession. “My mama’s people put up with us for her sake, but they never were any sort of safe harbor, even when she was alive. They blamed my daddy when she died a few years back from consumption, and now they’re blaming me for Abel’s death. I can see it in their eyes. They heard the whispers about how I ran from the house, and maybe they don’t say it outright, but they’re sure as hell thinking I had something to do with it. So no, I don’t belong there. If you’re leaving, I’m coming with you.”
Jianyu understood the expression Cela wore as she lifted her chin, daring him to contradict her. It was the same as the mask he often wore himself, the steely armor that served as protection from the never-ending menace of a world that did not welcome him. But because he recognized it, he also knew what was beneath—the soft, essential parts of the soul that could be damaged beyond repair.
He frowned. “This is my burden to carry.”
She let out a long sigh, and she looked suddenly fragile. “That’s where you’re wrong. The moment they came and took my brother, it became mine, too.”
“But—”
She cut him off. “Tell me, did you have a plan for finding Evelyn?” She paused for his answer, and when it did not come, she shook her head. “What were you gonna do, wander around until you ran into her? It’s a big city. At least I know where she lives.”