Gateway (17 page)

And she picked up a short strand of exquisite pink gems thickly clustered on a slim gold chain.

Daiyu could only stare.

There had to be a hundred
qiji
stones on this necklace, so many it would take a stonepicker months to mine them from the river. That was shocking enough all by itself, but Daiyu also was amazed to finally see what a polished
qiji
looked like—and to realize that she recognized it. It was a
qiji
that the old woman had handed her back at Fair Saint Louis; it was a
qiji
that had pulled her through the Arch into this iteration. She had been enthralled with the very first one she had seen, and she’d had no idea what it was.

“My dress is—is blue,” she stammered.

“Yes, but the accents are not,” Xiang said. Very true; the neckline and the last quarter of the sleeves were heavily embroidered in pink and rose and coral. “Just think how this color would draw out those shades!”

“I would love to wear something as beautiful as this necklace,” Daiyu said honestly. Xiang still held it out in her extended hand, so Daiyu gently touched the glowing pink gems. An electric tingle ran up her fingertips, magnified by the number of stones.

“And the earrings,” Xiang said. “And the bracelet. Here. Try them on.”

It was like wearing a collar that hummed and buzze daround her throat; the earrings jangled against her cheeks, and her wrist was alive with sparkles. Even against the ordinary dull beige of Daiyu’s shirt, the gems glowed with a scarcely banked fire. She gazed at herself in the chrome mirror, astonished that the
qiji
gems weren’t throwing out visible flares.

“Oh, if I could take something like this home with me,” Daiyu said with a sigh. “Even one
qiji
. I would remember my days in Shenglang for the rest of my life.”

Xiang didn’t seem offended by the covetous note in Daiyu’s voice; she actually seemed pleased at Daiyu’s reaction. “Well, as to that, who knows how long it will be before you go home,” she said in her usual calculating way. “You might choose tostay. You might choose to marry. You never know what could happen.”

Daiyu nodded silently and continued to watch herself in the chrome, turning this way and that to see how the pink of the shimmering stones threw a subtle color into her cheeks. Xiang, of course, was imagining Daiyu married to Quan instead of returning to her dreary parental home in the disease-stricken northwest; but Daiyu was wondering what it would be like to live with Kalen in Shenglang instead of returning to St. Louis where she belonged.

Two days before the Presentation Ball, Aurora brought her a note from Kalen. “He drew this for you because he thought you might want to remember the stonepickers once you’d gone home,” Aurora said, smiling a little. “But he’s not much of an artist.”

Daiyu took the picture from her and laughed out loud. It was obvious he had tried to sketch in the dam, the bell tower, the red gate, a pedestrian bridge, and the stonepickers themselves, bent double over the muddy riverbed as they dropped items into their shoulder bags. But the perspectives were sadly off and a number of erasures had worn the paper through in spots.

“I don’t suppose I would have done any better,” Daiyu said. She gave Aurora a straight look, somewhat challenging. “Can I see him before I go to the ball?”

Aurora assumed the speculative and tense expression she usually wore these days when Daiyu mentioned Kalen, as if she was always wondering how Daiyu’s fondness for the
cangbai
boy could bring this whole delicate mission crashing down. “Unless Xiang permits you to visit the aviary again, I am not sure how.”

“Then afterward?” Daiyu said. “Once the ball is over? And Chenglei is—is gone? Can I see him then?”

“Before you return to your home?” Aurora said. “Yes, I’m sure we can arrange that.”

Daiyu nodded, as if that satisfied her. “Good. Make sure you thank him for sending me this picture.”

“I will.”

The minute Aurora left, Daiyu examined the paper intently, looking for a hidden message. Not until she turned it over did she see the careless words scrawled on the back and crossed out, as if this page had been used as scrap paper before it had been turned into an artist’s canvas. There was a column of numbers added up, a list that might have been a reminder about groceries, and then two words: TOMORROW AFTERNOON.

Daiyu carefully folded the paper and tucked it inside the red silk pouch that held the rose quartz stone. She never went anywhere without the quartz in her pocket; if she suddenly had to depart for her home iteration, she didn’t want to risk leaving this precious memento behind.

Xiang was not enthusiastic about Daiyu’s plan to visit the aviary one more time, but Daiyu allowed herself to show a little agitation over breakfast. “I keep thinking about how important tomorrow is—and what I must say and must not say—and it makes me very nervous,” she said, casting her eyes down and biting her lip. “I find the birds and the garden very soothing.”

Xiang hunched an impatient shoulder. “Fine. You would do better to lie in your room and sleep, but go let birds dump their excrement on your head, I don’t mind. But I need Aurora’s help. You must go alone.”

“Thank you, Aunt. You are very good to me.”

Xiang made an annoyed sound and turned away.

Kalen was hovering just inside the front gate at the aviary. She could not run to him and fling her arms around his neck, as shewantedtodo;instead, she nodded at him coolly and walked on by, and he fell in step behind her. The driver had told Daiyu he would wait out front with the car until she was ready to go home again, so she and Kalen had to exit by the back entrance. Even once they were outside, she could not take his hand as they negotiated the crowded streets. She had worn the plainest of the clothes that Xiang had given her, but even so, Daiyu was dressed like the daughter of a wealthy family. Beside her, Kalen looked more than ordinarily unkempt. It would be bad enough if someone saw them together, but she could always claim she was paying a
cangbai
laborer to perform some task for her. Less easy to use that excuse if she was clinging to his hand, smiling in a wide and foolish manner, appearing to be half in love with the boy.

Or wholly in love.

“I’ve missed you,” she said when they were far enough from the aviary that it seemed safe to talk. “I thought about you a couple of nights ago when I heard the river bell. Did you find any
qiji
stones when you went out?”

“Two,” he said. “Small ones, though.”

He sounded indifferent, but she was instantly concerned. “Are you worried about running out of money?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’ll be all right.”

“But—”

He looked down at her with an odd, sweet smile. “There are other things that worry me more right now.”

He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. “I know,” she said softly. “Sometimes I can’t think about anything else but what happens when I go back to St. Louis.”

“Well,” he said, “you haven’t left yet.”

They were some distance from the aviary before Kalen finally hailed a trolley, having let at least three others pass by. This one was more battered than most, its wooden seats worn and stained, its motor loud and doleful. The clientele was exceptionally grungy. Daiyu was even more conscious of her expensive, finely embroidered shirt, her silk trousers. Most of the other riders ignored her, but one older
heiren
woman watched her for the next ten minutes with a look of sullen resentment.

“This is our stop,” Kalen said, and they hopped off in a truly disreputable part of town. Daiyu couldn’t even guess where it might correspond to any part of St. Louis. It was worse than Kalen’s neighborhood, where the residents at least tried to maintain- what amenities were still in place. Here, there were almost no whole buildings standing; the shells of wood and brick structures made an erratic skyline against the glaring sun. In some spots, weeds and shrubbery partially obscured the rubble of fallen houses. Other lots were completely barren, littered with trash and glittering piles of glass.

Yet children ran playing through the streets, and women paused in their endless tasks to share news and heartache. Campsites set up among the shattered foundations and fabric hanging from the ruined windows proved that vagrants and squatters called even this desperate vicinity home.

“Are you afraid?” Kalen asked her.

She shook her head. “I wish I was wearing something else,” she said. “A shirt like this just mocks their lives.”

“Turn it inside out,” he suggested. They ducked behind the half wall of a fallen house and he stood with his back to her to offer added protection from curious eyes. The embroidery was scratchy against her skin but she felt a little less conspicuous as they moved forward again. Casually Kalen took her hand, and casually she allowed him to keep it.

Another five minutes’ walking took them to an intersection where four large buildings apparently had once stood; even their hulking ruins were impressive, gray and heavy and throwing long silhouettes of welcome shade. A small crowd had started to congregate in those patches of shadow. Daiyu could hear a voice proclaiming excited, angry sentences before she got close enough to see the speaker or make out the words. She noticed that the crowd was made up of more men than women, more
cangbai
and
heiren
than Han, but it was still a pretty broad mix.

She edged around the back of the crowd, Kalen a reassuring shape beside her, until she could get a good look at the speaker. He was standing on a chair, and his head and shoulders were visible above the mob. His face was long and a little narrow, framed by neglected shoulder-length black hair. He had the build of a muscular man, but the gauntness of someone who had missed a lot of meals for a long time. While they watched, he raised his hand above his head in a hard fist and spoke with passion.

“That’s Feng,” Kalen murmured in Daiyu’s ear. She nodded andlistened.

“Bad enough that he has quarantined the northwest provinces, effectively condemning every living soul above the Maiwei River to death,” Feng was shouting. “Bad enough that he has made it a felony offense to help an individual infected with
zaogao
fever. If your mother is dying, you cannot go to her! If your sister is sick, you cannot fetch her! If your father is starving, you cannot cross the Maiwei and bring him food.
But no one else can either!
He has closed the roads, he has cut off the supplies. Everyone in the territory will die!”

Appalled, Daiyu stared up at Kalen. “Is that true?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“How does
he
know?”

He shook his head and shrugged again, his expression sad.

Feng was bending down to pass out stacks of paper to the people in the front of the crowd. “Look, these are copies of the official order that was sent out a week ago, signed by Chenglei himself, to stop all aid at the Maiwei River. The last shipments of food and medicine went out eight days ago. Nothing has been sent across the border since.”

The crowd began to shift and murmur, growing more disturbed. The papers were scrutinized and handed around. One copy made its way to the back row with surprising swiftness, and Kalen plucked it from someone’s hand. He bent down so he and Daiyu could study it together. It was a bad reproduction of what looked like an official document, decorated with a river-and-dragon device that Daiyu guessed was the city seal of Shenglang. The wording was complex, and she had a much harder time translating written than spoken language, but it indeed appeared to be an order to terminate supply shipments to the northwest provinces.

It was impossible to tell if the document was authentic.

Deeply troubled, Daiyu looked up and began listening to the rest of Feng’s speech. “Did you know that Yazhou has passed a resolution to send relief to the northwest territories?” he demanded. “We are the richest country in the entire world, we have the most sophisticated medicine, and yet foreigners are crossing the entire
ocean
so they can take care of our people! These sick and starving people are not
cangbai
or
heiren
—these are not the people Chenglei
despises.
These are Han! People with whom he shares a bloodline! And yet he will let them die because it is too much trouble to keep them alive.