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“In all the years I came to your house with Tam, did you ever think of me as a friend?”
“Well, no,” Lan admitted. “But you were always so shy and quiet.”
“I was lesser to you because I wasn’t Huynh’s son.” Bao hated the way his voice cracked with emotion as he spoke.
“You were neverlesserto me, Bao,” Lan insisted. “But you were different, and Madam Huynh encouraged us to play with Tam, not you. I was too little to know any better than to listen to her.”
Bao snorted again, and she looked sharply at him. “That sound was for her,” he clarified.
Lan’s lips curved in agreement. “Awful woman.”
“I don’t see what shame there is in working for Master Huynh. I may never be a court physician, but it makes me happy to serve others, no matter who they are.” His heart ached, thinking of the people in the river market. They didn’t own fine porcelain or wear silks, but they were honest and good and he was proud to call them his friends.
“There is no shame. And I’m sorry to have listened to that evil woman.”
Bao sighed. “You don’t have to keep apologizing to me.”
“How else will I make you stop hating me?”
He glanced at her. “I don’t hate you. Not really,” he said gruffly.
This time, it was Lan’s turn to look away first.
Bao rowed on through the night and all the next day, stopping only once or twice so that they could get out and stretch their legs. He had been making more of an effort to be polite, and Lan had responded in kind, resulting in a stiff formality he felt was worse than all the years in which she had ignored him. But he told himself that they were traveling only as business partners of a sort, and nothing more. Lan would make amends by helping him, and by allowing her to do so, he would break the witch’s spellandlet her go.
Lan, too, seemed to be keeping her mind on the enchantment. “What is the birthmark the river witch saw on your shoulder?” she asked that evening, as the heavy-headed trees cast long fingers of shadow over their boat. The birds had stopped singing, and the thick smell of moss and rotten fish had risen up once more.
“It’s in the shape of the number three,” he told her, maneuvering around a fallen branch.
“That’s a bad-luck number,” she said, curling her lip. “Ba won’t even have any paintings in the house that show three people. Once, he commissioned some artwork from a foreign artist for my brother’s wedding. It was a beautiful scene of the garden at His Majesty’s palace, but it showed three court ladies, and Ba returned it to the painter to have it fixed.”
“What did the painter do?” Bao asked. “Add in another person?”
“He turned one of the ladies into a big, leafy tree. It was lucky she was already wearing green,” Lan said, and a laugh escaped Bao, surprising them both. “It’s going to be all right, you know. Don’t worry so much. We’ll find your witch soon and have the spell lifted in no time.”
“I’m not worried.”
“You keep running your hand over your face,” she said with a small smile. “You always used to do that when you were little and you were anxious about something.”
Bao lifted his eyes, thunderstruck by the revelation that she knew this about him, and nearly crashed into the same rock he had the first time he had come. It was only with a reflexive movement of his oars that he avoided damaging his boat again. “We’re here,” he said, his heart picking up as he recognized the dark shapes of the huts. “She lives in that one.”
“They all look empty,” Lan said, chewing on her lower lip.
“They did the other day, too.” He rowed them to shore and jumped out, grimacing at the soreness in his legs from being cramped for so long. He held the boat steady for Lan, who didn’t move from her seat. Her eyes darted from the shadows in the bushes to the shabby, abandoned homes, and Bao felt a twinge of pity. “Listen, you don’t have to come with me. You’ve done enough by coming this far, and you know how to row now, so take my boat and go home.”
She looked at him, wide-eyed. “But I promised to stay.”
“You don’t need to make amends anymore. I—I forgive you.” He held his breath in the charged silence, waiting for her answer.
“It doesn’t feel right to just leave you here alone,” she argued. “And I can’t take your boat. What if you need to go on to the Gray City after all? What if you start fading again?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“No,” Lan said decisively, “I’m going to stay until you get this cleared up.”
Bao felt like he could dance, right then and there, but instead he gave a casual shrug, as though it didn’t matter to him and Lan might do asshe pleased. And then he took a step back and promptly fell over something large and bulky, landing hard on his elbow. A branch smacked him in the face. He heard Lan laughing, and he almost wished he could sink into the flute once more.
“Are you hurt?” She got out of the boat, grinning. But her mirth quickly turned into an expression of horror. “Bao...look.”
