Page 43 of Song of the Crimson Flower

“But eventually, you did decide to look for her. You sent people to bring her back to you five nights ago. I came to her home shortly after she was taken, hoping to persuade her to remove the curse,” Bao explained, seeing her startled look.

“I had been redoubling my efforts to find you both in the last year or so,” Mistress Vy explained. “I found Huong first, and I knew she would help me find you. I didn’t want to bring her to the Gray City against her will, but I knew she wouldn’t come with me any other way. She hates me, as much as I love her.” She turned to face the smiths’ fires, the flames flickering across her grief-stricken features. “I have been too longwithout family, Bao. I need you both by my side. I don’t pretend to be anything other than what I am. I make no excuses for the ruined lives my family has left in its wake, but I am just one woman, and outside forces are closing in around this city our family has paid for with our lives.Everythingwe have worked for might well be destroyed, and I am so desperately close to finding the right formula.”

“But how many more lives must be taken?” Bao demanded. “Your cause, your intention may be noble, but the impact is devastating.”

“I don’t deny the harm we have caused. Each and every life lost because of our family’s work will rest on my conscience forever,” Vy said, her eyes still on the flames. “But I am driven by the knowledge that with more time, I can and will save thousands of lives more.”

A growing chill filled Bao’s heart as he watched her. He sensed her remorse was genuine, and that the deaths of her husband and family had irrevocably marked her. And yet she refused to lay down the Gray City’s legacy and end its generations of bloodshed. She would barrel steadily on in her search to save mankind—and in doing so, continue taking lives without hesitation. She was no better than a murderer, he realized, and yet he pitied her, he understood her, and he longed for her and the love she would freely give him. He felt sick with the confusion of it all.

A bell tolled somewhere in the darkness.

Mistress Vy blinked out of her reverie. “Now I have said everything I wanted to say, and it is time for us to part. I don’t expect anything from you, not your love or understanding or respect. Come to my city freely, and you are welcome to stay or to go just as freely when Huong lifts the spell. You’re a man now.” She gave him a smile tinged with pride and sorrow. “Look how you’ve grown. That birthmark on your shoulder must seem very small now. I know that some believe the number three tobe bad luck, but I always liked it. I was happiest when I had the three people I loved most with me—Huong, Sinh, andyou.”

Her words wrenched at Bao’s heart. Even with all she was and all she had done, she was his mother, his family, for whom he had longed his entire hungry life. Tentatively, Vy reached out and laid her fingers upon his cheek, and he fought the urge to pull away.

“Goodbye, son,” she said softly. “I’ll see you soon.”

The firelit city’s winding roads and gold-veined walls began to fade as Bao felt himself wake up. He had the sensation of rising slowly to the surface, as though he had been submerged in a deep pool. And then he was back in his chair in the shabby cottage, sitting beside a sleeping woman, and the sky was still dark over the little village. The single candle he had lit was still burning, casting flickering shadows over the walls. He heard a soft noise and turned, surprised, to see that the shy little boy from earlier that day—the one who had asked Bao, in a whisper, to clean the cut on his skinny arm—curled up behind Bao’s chair, fast asleep.

Quietly, Bao lifted the thin blanket on his lap and draped it over the child, watching his unconscious face. He had been that small himself, once. Motherless, wandering, starved for love as much as for food. He thought of all the families that had been broken apart because of Mistress Vy and her ruthless, unforgiving vision of a diseaseless world.

“Bao?” The door opened and the candle danced wildly in the breeze as Lan came in, her braid disheveled, her eyes shadowed but alert. On the floor, the little boy’s eyes flew open and he made a sound of alarm, but she put a reassuring hand on his head and he lay quiet again.

“You should be resting,” Bao whispered. He worried about the darkness under her eyes and the lines of exhaustion on her face. After a lifetime of sleeping full nights in a soft bed, he could see that traveling was taking a toll on her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, still stroking the child’s hair. The boy’s eyes were slowly closing again. “I just wanted to see how you were. I can sit up with the woman if you want some sleep.”

“I dozed off a bit just now. I didn’t even hear this child come in,” he admitted, rubbing his eyes. He had been so engrossed in the vision—in his turmoil of guilt and pity and longing—that he had slept as deeply as the sick woman.

Lan straightened, and he saw in her eyes that she was as worried about him as he was about her. “I’ll stay with you for a bit.”

He drew his hand away from his face. “Because of the spell?”

“Because I want to. Do you want me to go?”

“No,” he said a little too quickly, and she smiled. The candlelight blurred her—he could only just see the halo of her hair, the shine of her eyes, and the curve of her lips. “I’m glad you’re here. I had a bit of a disturbing dream just now. A vision, actually.”

“Was it your mother again?” Lan whispered.

His head ached, and it felt too heavy for his neck. He let it droop to his chest in answer. “She’s been trying to summon me with black spice for years. She’s only just now succeeded because the river witch—her sister, Huong—is with her and helped her with magic.”

“What did she want?”

“To show me her city. And to tell me why I’ve been alone all my life.” Briefly, he told her what he had learned. “I want Commander Wei to know, but I need to figure out how to tell him. You know how he gets about black spice. He doesn’t think I’m a spy, but the fact that I spoke privately with Mistress Vy... I need to work up my courage.”

Lan shook her head. “I won’t say a thing. And I’m glad, at least, that they know you’re coming. They’ll be ready to break the spell, and then we can go home and put this behind us.”

He remained silent and felt her watch him keenly.

“You can’t mean to stay with her in the Gray City. Not after all this—not now, when the rulers of three kingdoms are against her and we know she’s doing everything purposefully.”

“I know,” he said helplessly. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Listen to me,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I know she seemed truly remorseful, and perhaps she believes she is. But if she regretted all her family has done, she wouldn’t keep doing it in order to possiblynotdo it in the future. Am I making any sense?”

He let out a low, humorless laugh. “Yes.”

“I know she’s your mother,” Lan said softly, “but I don’t think she’s genuinely selfless and caring like you. I care about you, Bao. I... I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

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