4 MONTHS AGO.

Somehow, Lin’ai knew.

Something in his bones told him this evening at the market would be a test—that more than anything he should keep his head down, eyes straight ahead. Something in his stomach dug a pit that he filled with molten confidence, liquid and brassy in his acid vat guts, always hungry. There was a twitch at the corner of his mouth that fell but he sparked it back to life with a match and a self-made bidi, a modest pinch of dried tobacco wrapped tight in leaves Lin dried in a basket always perched precariously atop his brother’s wagon.

When the youngest ruffian of the Gui line left the Feng family’s House of Infinite Dawn with Turnip’s lead in hand, he couldn’t help but laugh to himself. A puffed up name for a flashy house is what that place was, carved out of rubies and gold partially paid for by all the interest he and his brother paid out monthly. Night fell on that house just like any other; the sun set without a thought about that red family’s pride but, even as a child, Lin’ai got his mouth slapped clean off whenever he saw fit to remind a Feng of facts.

Regardless, since Lin and Ao arrived back in town, the horses had to be taken care of and Turnip was the first to get reshoed. He turned the corner and kept to the perimeter of Zhongxin market on his way to the farrier. He doubted his skittish Turnip would do well walking through such crowded streets.

The back alleys and side avenues of the market were quieter than its center and main thoroughfares but they were far from immune to their share of commotion. Halfway up the street a copper kettle rattled to the pavement, ringing loud and hollow into the open air. Behind its fading reverb, a man was scolding someone in a voice raised by agitation.

“I told you to take yourself away from here!” The merchant shouted as he came into view from the long overhang of his temporary stall. His arms made frantic motions, hurriedly pushing out a boy with the bushy end of an overused broom, twigwork frayed and wild. “I don’t need your curse to cause me any more trouble!”

“I am!” the youth defensively replied, rancor thin but still wrapped around the meat of his words in a silk thread line. He jogged a few steps then stumbled and caught himself, then stumbled again on a basket woven from sheet metal cut into sharp-edged strips. Its contents were scattered into the open road, junk-drawer baubles tumbling every which way—ahead and behind and even up into the air. The dismissed boy danced like he could avoid any outcome catastrophe already planned for him.

Concealing a smirk behind his cigarette, Lin’ai slowed Turnip down to watch the misfortune unfold all around this poor boy just trying his damnedest to stand upright. He was pretty though, wasn’t he? Even through the struggle with his hair mussed, all black eyes and accidents, he was pretty. Even with his grey linen clothes, not the fine silks of gold pocket families, he was pretty.

Lin’ai couldn’t help himself: he watched.

Tacks and nails glittered like ascending stars in the fog of the stranger’s chaotic war, buttons and beads shot across the street as if suddenly set off by his slingshot calamity. The boy caught himself on a short-pole street lamp, moving his head just in time to dodge a scuffed vase sent flying, jade and copperline circuit-sigils smashing into the face of a man walking by. The passerby doubled over then quickly reared back up, launching into a dizzy argument with the shopkeeper still brandishing his broom working overtime as a weapon.

Frozen for a moment to see if the argument’s repercussions would circle back to him, that boy double crossed by misfortune looked back at those eyes focused upon him, Lin’ai’s cigarette smoldering like a beacon beyond his madness.

“Stop staring at me,” the youth commanded like he possessed any authority to make such a statement, abandoning his post and the shouting match getting louder and louder behind him.

Lin’ai took a drag before pulling the cigarette away from his lips. He tilted his head to the tune of his indecent smirk, charming rake to pretty pauper. “No.”

Turnip stamped her hooves like she knew what sort of trouble was about to walk into Lin’s life.

“Yes,” went disaster’s counter, hastily given under the guise of an annoyance whose true nature was playful. He traced the angles of that face watching him so. His eyes narrowed when he turned his body on a piper heel full of siren song, moving to head up the street like I gotta go and it should definitely be with you.

“No,” went Lin’ai as he pulled Turnip toward pursuit. This was a game now. He knew. Lin could always tell the difference between a snub and a flirt. This one had the answer written all over his face, all over his neck, down his spine and past his collar, wrapped his answer up in the sway of his impatient hips. “Hey stranger: I think you’re heading to the farrier.”

The unrecognized boy smiled to himself, pleased that his drab clothing and lack of an entourage made it more difficult to tell who he truly was: the middle child of the ruling clan, Prince Tian Yuhui, second-in-line to Fanxing’s throne. He’d snuck out of the palace that evening, carefully crawling into the trees outside of his bedroom and over the wall holding him in, eager to see the city as he loved it best: free from constraint, like a normal person who was due no special respect or mention or any acknowledgement whatsoever.

“Boring,” that black haired boy spoke back with his head to the side, eyes a brief glance of pure night. “Am I going to stay there long?”

“Oh, d’you got something better to do? Is your schedule full up?” Lin was a slurred taunt on a five foot leash, following in every footstep that prince-made-pauper left behind. He walked with his head tilted back, chin angled up so he could observe that chaotic lure surreptitiously through slitted eyes, always looking more apathetic than he was worth. “I’m Lin’ai. What’m I gonna call you tonight?”

“Xun.” His steps paused, allowing the gap between them to narrow before he was on the move again. The grin that fit his lips was dipped in moony memory, a crescent delight at the height of night. “And it’s not that my schedule is full, it’s that there are better things to do than watching your horse be shod. My schedule is clear.”

“Her name is Turnip,” Lin replied as he slowly caught up, hand coming around to smooth over the mare’s jaw as he glanced toward her, then to the boy now at his side. “Would you be watching my girl get new shoes or would you be watching me?” Lin’ai’s confidence was genetic, unyielding. He was a devil-may-care feral thing raised wild in the Feng clan’s back garden. He never quite learned what rejection was.

“I dunno. Are you going to do something interesting for me to watch?” Even in the flirt, the prince in hiding’s grin blossomed into a full smile, clearly charmed by the mare’s name. He angled his chin toward Lin’ai.

“I dunno.” Lin’ai smirked as he took a drag of his cigarette, looking back toward Turnip as they turned the corner, a few doors down from the farrier. “You’re kinda already watching.”

“My interest is fickle.” The Tian boy’s steps were steady, measured. Always they bore the underpinnings of great care, like he’d been taught to walk carefully, like innumerable years of caution had been pressed into his bones.

“If you can wait five minutes, I’ll keep you entertained for at least five hours,” the taller boy promised as he stopped in front of the farrier’s door. “I’ll make it worth your while. Do it for Turnip, Xun. Do it for Turnip.”

“Mm, I don’t think Turnip needs me to do anything for her.” The boy made a place for himself against the wall, leaning a shoulder into the wall to indicate that he’d stay. “But go on. I can wait five minutes for five hours.”

“Turnip wants me to be happy—don’t you, Turnip?” The horse nuzzled at Lin’ai’s head as he began to lead her into the door. “See? She needs you to do this. It’s definitely for her, too.”

Cigarette between his teeth, the mercenary left that pretty stranger with a grin as he disappeared into the farrier’s stable to drop Turnip off for the night. He was gone for less than his estimate, briskly returning to the door like the eager thing he was but stepping through like the too-cool I-don’t-care super-aloof trickster he looked to be. Regardless of his demeanor, he couldn’t hide that he was pleased his new friend had waited. Lin tilted his head, didn’t say a word: just extended his hand like he wanted Xun to take it.

The boy of false pretenses looked away from the thin crowd he’d taken to watching while he waited. For a moment, he stood loathe to leave all those features, that conspiracy of slyness so apparent in the fine lines of Lin’ai’s face, but he did nevertheless. Moments were passing and he was much more interested in the promise made to him. Xun’s gaze fell to the hand as he obliged and took it with his own.

Lin’ai was quick to pull his companion along, heading toward the sound of the river through backyards and alleyways. When they emerged in the wide pathways along the river lining the outskirts of the Zhao district, the place was alive with people—a temporary night market set up along the water full of tiny floating lights on lotus shaped boats. Without hesitation, that boy with his sun-bleached ombre red hair drug his new friend into the crowd, then straight through: the night market was cool and all, but Lin was here to see the lights.

Xun was wide-eyed and thrilled, a hanger on as Lin’ai charted their path. His gaze moved through the blur of colors, smeared strokes of too many people and sights to really behold in a passing instance, a palette of life all running together in the warm shades of firelight and the smells of smoke from freshly caught perch fillets grilling atop less than safe surfaces and the sounds of the barking merchants of eventide. As a prince, Yuhui didn’t get to come to these parts of Fanxing very often—even in his clandestine explorations, he rarely traversed through the city’s northern borough. His boots worked fast, steps more and more pronounced as the excitement of a crowd took a backseat to the lazy cascade of vagrant votives.

Letting Xun’s hand go, Lin’ai tossed his cigarette away before he stepped down off the path and onto the smooth-polished stones of the waterlicked river bank. When he turned, he grinned up at that pretty thing he’d turned into his companion for the night, placing forward hands about that slim waist to help the other boy step down.

No other reason than that, surely.

“I like to come and think about what people are praying for when they send the lights out,” Lin said softly when Xun had both feet on the same uneven ground as he. The sellsword’s grasp, however, didn’t budge as he watched his new friend’s expression, lit from all angles by riverlight and nightshine. “Are you from around here? Do you send prayers down the river?”

Xun shook his head to and fro, a simple and evasive acknowledgement given for questions he was unprepared to answer. Fingers gently wrapped over Lin’ai’s shoulders, the boy decided if the touch around his waist was to remain, then so would his own.

“I don’t get out much,” the Prince said in a half-attempt at explaining himself. He turned his cheek to the side, profile traced in gold and glimmer. “What do people wish for?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Lin’ai offered, studying the old money glint of that poor town on the other boy’s face. “You can’t tell someone else what you wish for or it won’t come true. That’s not how wishes work. But people leave little things in the lotus flowers with the flames. If you pay attention, you can make some guesses. Put together what people are suffering through out here.”

Finally drawing away, Lin’ai sat down on a large, flat stone a foot from where the water begged to lap at his boots. He looked up, some cross between admiration and expectation in his tricky brown eyes.

“Is it ’cause of your bad luck? Is that why you don’t get out much?”

“Yeah.” Xun followed behind after a moment, eyebrows dipped like they’d caught onto some part of the other boy’s words that gave him cause for concern, that pinched all the smoothness of his high-bred subtleties into worry. He sat next to Lin’ai, folding his hands into his lap, scooting hips close in the low light of the shore until the air was only a thin black sliver between their bodies. “What do you mean suffering?”

“Eh, you know. It sucks not having money. Can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t afford medicine, can’t pay for a funeral.” The older boy laughed as he looked out over the water and pointed. “You see all the ones with paper money from temple in them? When people aren’t from around here, they think those lights are taking offerings to the ancestors, to the Buddha, but you learn better if you’re around enough: they’re praying for cash.” Looking back at Xun, Lin’ai tilted his head, dastardly thing always looking for trouble. “If you wanted, I could make it go away. At least for a little.”

“Oh yeah? How are you going to do that?” Focusing on Lin’ai, Xun inclined his chin, innocence of his ask edged in the metallic taste of a challenge. He had a hard time believing in anyone’s ability to make his interminable haunting cease, not when the High Priestess of Yunji Mountain had yet to bring him peace that would last for very long.

“I can make things disperse. Turn it into a mist that hangs up overhead like a cloud—or drops down and affects everyone in range if I’m feeling like a dick. I do it with my brother’s shit all the time when we’re on the road dealing with bandits.” Lin’ai leaned into Xun, shoulder bumping shoulder as he dipped his chin, like he was confiding this information as a coveted secret between them, words meant for Xun and Xun alone. “It only works when I’m around though. It’s not a permanent thing. But I can do it and then we can do whatever and you don’t have to worry about it. Is that something you want?”

Xun’s eyes rolled to the side, exaggerating his display of contemplating the offer. Truthfully, he just had to get his sight away from that boy for a moment, susceptible heart already so smitten in so few words. The back of his mind cried at the possibility of a trap in the proposed gesture, but that racket was hard to hear over the forefront’s infatuation.

“Hmmm. Are you always this nice to people you don’t know?” Weak thing couldn’t keep away for too long. He was a slave to immediate gratification.

“Just the pretty ones.” Lin’ai was charming when afforded the opportunity; he was captivating when he was given the time. He looked down at Xun’s mouth before his gaze flitted back up. “I feel like I’m always just passing through. I don’t get a lot of chances with boys who look like you.”

“Alright.” Xun straightened himself with a nod and a grin, pleased with the answer he’d been given. “Then yeah, I’d like it if you could banish this curse of mine for a little while.”

“You gotta touch me then,” that boy with his hair like rust near whispered, barely lit by all those wishes lazily drifting downstream. “Whatever you’re okay with. Take my hand. Touch my shoulder.”

His quirked brow tempted an unsaid other but that untoward boy wasn’t one to push—not like that. No matter how hungry he was for attention, he wasn’t about to play thirsty.

“Okay.” Beneath the sly twisting of his lips, the prince moved his hips, supplanted some space between them so he could shift and realign the angles of his body. He used the opportunity to face Lin’ai more directly now, single knee propped akimbo in his adjusted splay, and raised a palm to slide along that found boy’s jawline, toward the shadows of his sun kissed hair. Xun’s caress was careful but caution did not make him any less tender. His hands were soft and warm, unmarred by fieldwork, not yet ruined by manual labor.

Lin’ai followed like a dare, sword-calloused hands a firefight glimmer up and down the gold threads outlining the standout tendons beneath his bold tattoos. He held Xun’s touch to his jaw, turned his face into the meager affection he was offered to brush his lips incidentally against the soft interior of his companion’s pale wrist. Eyes closed, that roadside boy was so serene in his concentration, electric spark softly aglow across the sacred tracers stacked on his cheek, just below his right eye. He hummed an old song caught in the back of his throat, a long moment’s feline stretch at the edge of that prayer-filled river where no one cared about two boys sitting alone in the dark. Xun was quiet for the ritual, watching the way wishlight hugged the other side of his new friend’s cheek, watching the way he concentrated on this task he’d taken on out of the kindness of his heart for a boy who merely looked at him. He stared boldly, openly, enthralled by the way that wild boy worked.

A hundred yards or so downstream from their position, a man shouted. A loud splash soon followed along with the first man’s curses, a crowd full of jeers. Lin looked up sharply at the noise but only vaguely focused on the commotion, instead choosing to watch the strange image unfolding in the river itself. In a perfect twenty-five foot circle everything was fine—but the concentrated ring of chaotic improbability surrounding them saw every wish candle extinguished by its touch, then rekindled upon entering Lin’s sanctuary or exiting the ring entirely.

“…Does that mean it worked?” Lin’ai asked, looking over at Xun. He still held the other boy’s hand to his pulse but his grasp was relaxed, contact inadvertent as he surveyed his handiwork.

The prince tilted his head. “Sounds about right, yeah.”

He lingered longer than was necessary, stayed with that boy until his welcome should have turned expired and stale, a culmination of moments extended like time was the truest rich of life and he had plenty to spare. Xun folded his hands back in his lap but he kept himself turned toward his companion.

“Is this something that you have to actively concentrate on?” The boy in hiding paid no mind to the sounds of shifting water in the distance. “I’ve been living with this my entire life so I’m kind of used to it. If your help is going to take any of your attention away from me, then you can drop it. I—heh. Sorry, I maybe should have asked for clarification before you did all that.”

“Naw, I can set it and forget it. I’ve got a mod for that.” Lin’ai’s response was a hair too quick, almost too eager for that apathy he wore like skin. Looking at Xun, it was like Lin didn’t even register the oddities around them, the catastrophe unfolding in the market down the way. “What do you want to do now that you’re free? You’ve got my attention. Am I worth those five minutes you spent yet?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to do that to make yourself worthwhile to me. I was interested before your help.” Pursing his lower lip, Xun weighed his options in a passive pout. He continued quickly, looking behind Lin, up the long, sandy shore that was swallowed by the gaping maw of night. “Most of the time when I get out the house, I just walk around the market and look at things. I like to watch people and how they interact with others. I like to see strange things brought in from the outer cities, things scavenged from the remnants of old society. Do you have a favorite thing you like to do when you come into town? Maybe you can tell me about you and your brother, what you do on the road, about the bandits you meet.”

“When we come to town, I mostly just try to stay away from my uncle’s house,” Lin said as he rolled his eyes, smirking to break out of any serious talk that might come from a statement like that. The boy more comfortable in woodland than city shifted and patted down his belt, pulling out another cigarette and a match. He struck it off the rock they sat on and breathed in deep. The smoke was almost sweet, almond flowers on the acrid scent of ashes. “Honestly, when I come to town, I think I’m just ready to head back out again. I get drunk a little since I don’t have to wake up early, sleep on people’s roofs because I guess ceilings make me feel trapped. There’s a couple spots just outside Fanxing I like to go, quiet spots no one remembers anymore.”

Lin tilted his head to observe Xun before he laughed, grin wide and genuine, fledgeling fondness worn bright on his rust draped shoulder. “Are you hungry? I can steal you an orange. They’re expensive right now cause they’re sweet.”

“I see. Well, I’m not really hungry but I won’t say no to an orange because they’re my favorite. Will you split it with me? Then maybe you can show me your favorite roof or one of those spots on the outskirts. I need to be home before the stars fade away and the sky starts to shiver with morning’s new blue. That gives us some time to hang out though—gives me an opportunity to get that full five hours out of you like you promised.” Xun’s smirk was docile, practically a smile were it not for its lopsided tilt.

“Yea, I’ll split it with you.” Lin looked up at the sky like he could tell time by it, like he could set a timer by the moon and the stars. He stood, a sudden movement in the midst of their stillness, once more offering Xun his hand. “When the night’s over, do I get to walk you home?”

“Maybe.” Xun shrugged as though it was impossible to tell, an answer not yet even known to him. He took Lin’ai’s hand and stood of his own volition. He tangled up their fingers together to head back toward the noise of the Zhao district that they’d left momentarily behind. The Prince’s inexperience was typically revealed in how he took in objects, his lack of knowledge about items that were not common in the palace and things less seen through second-hand instances. “What kind of cigarettes are those? They don’t smell like traditional tobacco.”

That wildling boy squinted at his bidi then laughed. “Ah, yeah, that’s right. I dry the tobacco myself—I guess some flowers fell into the basket and I just left them in. Makes it smell nicer. Tastes a little different too.” Not one to be rude, he offered the cigarette to the curious boy at his side. “You can try it if you want.”

The shorter boy shook his head, cheeks dusted with a flush quickly passing from the intrusion of an indecent thought. He only wanted to taste that cigarette by proximity, lap the essence of suncrisp flowers from the flesh of that boy’s lips. “That’s okay. I’m looking forward to that orange.”

Even in the colored reflection of the night market, Lin’ai knew that look, knew that shade. He, with his cheeky grin ear to ear, simply put his cigarette back between his lips and released Xun’s hand, choosing instead to drape an arm over that blushing boy’s shoulder, pulling him close as he surveyed their surroundings.

A fruit vendor was nearby and looked to be busy, so Lin started walking in that direction as he spoke. “Five hours is too much and too little time at once, isn’t it? It seems like a lot when you say it out loud but five hours lived? It’s like nothing.”

Xun nestled into Lin’s side while he had the chance. He leaned into that boy with his simple linen shoulder, watching the busy night from under the arm of his accomplice.

“It’s no time at all, I think,” the shorter boy said. “Not when you’re in another’s company. If I were back at home, alone, then time would drag and make me beg for morning. Now that I’m here with you, it will be gone before I know it.”

With his unshakable swagger easing them to the edges of the fruit stall, Lin’ai’s forward movement was strident. There was no sign of subterfuge in his air, in the way he picked up an orange to heft it, to feel that too-heavy ripeness in his hand like he was selecting the perfect one to buy for that boy under his wing. The merchant looked over and, confident that the boys didn’t look like scoundrels, turned back toward the haggling he was engaging on the other side of his booth.

“But there’s more than just a five hour night. There could be a tomorrow, or a day after, or—ha, here.” Lin apparently found the orange he was looking for and handed it to Xun, turning them to disappear into the crowd and toward the next thoroughfare, confident like he’d paid for the fruit in question. “I guess we should make it through one night before we talk about a next, huh?”

“I suppose. You should be careful who you promise your time to,” Xun said as he tossed the fruit between his palms, rhythm matching their stride, stride lengthened just a bit so that he wouldn’t have to let his companion go. He glanced up at Lin’ai, grin like a scheme that’d been in formation since his birth. “I could be really greedy. Demanding. An addict for affection hiding in plain sight, a curse at your heels crying out for you to bring me oranges and let me touch your face.”

“In that order?” Lin’ai asked as he casually strode toward a bridge leading over the firelight river and away from the street hawker din that surrounded it. Soon they were in a quiet stretch of Zhao on the very edges of Fanxing, old residences that had, some twenty, twenty-five years ago, been rich inhabited manor houses, now fallen into disrepair. The pillagers were long gone; all that remained were electric ghosts and the occasional squatter desperate for shelter as they passed through the capital. “It might look scary here but people rarely come out this way. This was the old noble row, back when Zao Beiguan was still in power, before Tian Yunyong and all the heroes who wandered the realm overthrew him and saved the city.”

“Interesting.” Yuhui’d only ever heard of this outlier section of the city, always in discussion of public works projects overheard from his father’s meeting rooms, in talks of repurposing the land into something the city would find more beneficial than crumbling architecture. Repair or demolition were the stalwart ends of the spectrum that let this acreage sit around untouched—maybe someday this area would be more than the dilapidated silence of yesterday. “What draws you to this place? Is it just a good spot to hide away from your uncle, or is there something more to it? And, by the way, yes, in that order. How am I supposed to dote upon you if you have to go get me fruit?”

“Oh, you wanna dote, huh?” Lin’ai laughed before he stopped in front of a crumbling gate flanked by the twisting, gnarled branches of two petrified cherry trees. “I guess it’s just quiet here; easier to lay out on a roof if no one’s around to kick you off. People are afraid of ghosts. They always have been.” Arm slipping from that grey-dressed boy’s shoulder, Lin’s hand fell to the small of Xun’s back, slid round to the dip of his waist as he turned to face him. “Tell me, Xun: how do you plan to dote on me?”

Lin’ai was a sweet smile with coyote teeth. He was a path of pins ambush predator who always asked questions he knew the answers to.

“I will run my fingers through your hair.” The prince in hiding looked up to his friend, black eyes consumptive in the sparkle of his various twilight existences. “Touch your temple and crown until you are soothed, trace your jaw and neck, let you rest in my lap. I will drink your sighs from your lips, whisper all my secrets to your throat. You seem like a good listener—do you want to hear what I have to say?”

“I’m a great listener,” Lin’ai replied, eyes falling to the fold of Xun’s collar, Xun’s pale throat. Dropping his half smoked cigarette on the stone step, Lin’s now free hand came to that linen boy’s chest, thumb stroking the exposed dip of his collarbones before he drummed fingers upon his chest. “How do you write your name, Xun?”

Lin’ai traced a character, slow just below Xun’s trembling throat: 訊.

“Are you an interrogator? Do you question?”

Another character, just below: 汛.

“Are you a flood? Highwater boy ready to sweep the landscape?”

Then again, upon his breath-steady sternum: 曛.

“You might be the twilight—I found you just past sunset.”

And down: 醺.

“Or are you here to render me helplessly intoxicated? Which is it, Xun?”

Lin’ai’s calligraphy fingers lingered at the upper line of the sash about his new friend’s middle, easing him closer with that hand at his waist, vulpine gaze carefully observing every glimmer in his response.

“Which do you think fits me best? Sky or water? Question or answer? Are you drunk yet?” That boy whose tongue was tricky with lies draped his arms atop Lin’ai’s shoulders. He clutched the orange idle in his grasp, hips close, heart beating, back arched around the traveler’s hold to reinforce a measure of contentment and longing also seen upon his face. He looked up, demure, expression softened by subtle inspection. “You’re very handsome, you know. Tell me which one you think it is and I will let you know if you’re correct or not.”

“I think…”

尋

Lin traced,

slow above

Xun’s belt.

“… you’re seeking.”

Lin’ai breathed him in, breathed all the flowers of a rich boy’s bathwater in the shape of a poorer boy’s ill-traveled cover story. When he leaned in, Lin was quick to capture, mineral spring wet, rainwater lip to lip in a gentle question:

stay or go?

He barely departed when he confided:

“Lost or found, seeking or searching, whatever your name thinks you are, you’re too beautiful, Xun.”