Page 28 of Song of the Crimson Flower

“What am Idoing?” she half shouted, and he saw with surprise that she had tears running down her face. “I was saving your life! Commander Wei, Wren, Lady Yen, the soldiers... All of them are in the courtyard getting ready to leave, and I was out there waiting for you and you never came. So I went to find you, and a good thing, too. You were almost gone!” She fell back on the floor, her face pale except for two spots of red, panting as she stared angrily at him.

“Gone?” Bao repeated. He took in her disheveled hair and her nostrils flaring, and realized how frightened she had been. “Do you mean I was fading?”

“What else would I mean?” she demanded. She took in a few deep breaths and wiped her face. “I came in and I could barely see you lying there. I thought the bed was empty at first. Your body was almost gone. Completely disappeared.”

He lifted the blanket cautiously, so she wouldn’t see anything of his chest, and looked down at himself. He was as solid as ever, but a moment ago... Bao thought of that sensation of floating on the cloud and leaving the earth behind. “I didn’t know,” he said, feeling foolish. “I guess it was because I had spent so long alone in here...” He felt blood rush to his cheeks at the implication that she should have stayed with him. “That is, I meant—”

“Save your breath, Bao.” Lan seemed to have recovered somewhat.She stood up and smoothed her hair, and he noticed a little trickle of perspiration along one temple. She had been truly worried about him—terrified, even. “Hurry up and get ready. Everyone’s waiting outside, and the sooner we find this stupid witch, the better.”

Bao nodded, still clutching the blanket to his neck, frozen with shock at almost having vanished entirely, flustered that Lan had seen him almost naked, and embarrassed that he hadn’t immediately realized what had happened. A small thread of panic, too, had blossomed in his gut at the thought of stern Commander Wei waiting on him. Why was Lan still standing here, glaring at him? He couldn’t think what he had done wrong.

“Well?” she asked. “Isn’t there anything you want to say to me for my trouble?”

“Um...” Bao’s mind felt as though it was moving at half its usual speed. “I’m sorry.”

Lan threw her hands up in the air, exasperated, and stomped out of the bedchamber. Perhaps it wasn’t what she had wanted him to say—but there was no time to linger on it, not with everyone waiting. Bao hurled himself out of bed and dressed as quickly as he could. He counted in his head as he gathered his belongings, trying to figure out how many more nights he had until the full moon.Ten, he thought, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek. Just over a week until the enchantment was permanent.

All at once, his thoughts came like fire-tipped arrows, reminding him of everything he would never do if he failed to break the spell. He would never row his boat or see his friends at the river market again, never see joy in the faces of a patient’s family when he helped them, never carry a small son or daughter in his arms, never kiss Lan...

He was feeling faint again. He took a moment to breathe deeplybefore running out to the courtyard. Commander Wei and a dozen Imperial soldiers were readying the horses, four of which had been designated for Wren, Bao, Lan, and Lady Yen. Bao had expected Lady Yen to take a palanquin, but supposed that she hadn’t wanted one since everyone else was riding.

“Want a boost onto your horse?” Wren asked. She stood almost eye to eye with him and was dressed all in black, as she had been the day before. He marveled at the strength in her hands as she lifted him onto a calm chestnut mare.

Bao thanked her and looked around for Lan, who wore a simple blue tunic and matching pants and gripped the reins of a bay mare. She glowered at him when he rode over. “I’m sorry I didn’t say thank you earlier, Miss Vu. I didn’t quite know what was happening.”

Lan’s lips pressed tightly together. “You gave me the fright of my life. But I’m sure it was much scarier for you,” she said, looking at him sidelong.

“It was. I’m grateful to you,” he said, and her face softened a bit. “I was floating...”

He struggled to find words to describe how it had felt to drift away from earth and then come back to her again, to a version of Lan he could never have imagined after years of adoring her from afar. There was the perfect Lan he had imagined, and the Lan who had shouted insults at him, and now this Lan, whose face had been wet with tears of worry for him. This Lan whose hands had brought him back, this Lan who cared, this Lan he was glad to have by his side.

But how could he tell her all this in words?

She was still staring at him, and Bao realized he had taken too long to continue when she turned away. Cursing his awkwardness, he watched Empress Jade, Lord Koichi, and another man come out to bid themfarewell. He didn’t need introductions to know that the second man was Lord Koichi’s father. He was bent and gray, but had the same eyes, smile, and voice as his son. Bao wondered what it was like to have a father he resembled. He wondered if his own father was still alive, like his mother.

Mother.Short-lived as his vision had been the day before, he remembered it with sharp clarity. The woman had looked like a queen, tall and imposing, with the assuredness of a leader whose armies would follow her in death at one command. She had spoken to Bao in a voice like rich, warm honey: “I’ve missed you, my child, but soon we will be together once more in the Gray City. I will embrace you as your mother at long last. I am Mistress Vy, and you will come to me...” Bao had been drawn to her like a lonely moth to a flame he had longed for. This woman was claiming kinship with him, which no one had ever done in all his life.

Bao’s attention snapped back to the present as Empress Jade came to wish them a safe journey. He bowed from the waist, watching as Her Majesty moved to hug both Wren and the Commander and marveling at the familiarity with which she treated her friends. As one, the company turned their horses out of the Phans’ gates and rode back into the grasslands.

Wren pulled her sleek black horse alongside him. For some reason, Bao didn’t feel at all nervous around the keen-eyed warrior. She had a kindly, straightforward manner that made him feel as though he had known her a long time. “Is your flute safe?” she asked. “Jade told me about your curse.”

“I’ve checked my sack a thousand times to make sure it’s in there,” he confessed. “I don’t know what would happen if I were parted from it, but I’m not eager to find out.”

“May I see it?” Wren accepted the bamboo flute and examined it. Keeping her eyes on Bao, she urged her horse slightly ahead of his, still holding the instrument. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.” Bao looked down at his hands and body, which were both still solid.

Wren nudged her steed until she rode abreast with Lady Yen, two horses’ length ahead.

“I’m fine,” Bao said again, when she glanced back at him. But this time, he felt a scratching sensation in his throat, as though from a cold, when he spoke.

The warrior nudged her horse forward so that now she rode side by side with two of the soldiers, about fifteen feet away from Bao. She looked back again, then rode forward toward the Commander, and Bao felt a sudden powerful pressure on his windpipe, like hands gripping his neck and blocking the air to his lungs. He coughed as he tried to call for Wren, but the feeling intensified until he could no longer think about anything else but getting another breath of air.

“Wren, come back!” Lan called, looking anxiously at Bao.

The minute the warrior doubled back and rode beside Bao once more, the feeling eased. “Well, you weren’t joking about the curse,” she said, watching him massage his neck painfully.

“I can’t ever lose that flute,” he wheezed, his throat as raw as though it had been scraped by a blade. “I think it might kill me. It felt like being underwater, and the flute was the surface.”

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