Page 31 of Night's Reckoning
“He likes burritos,” Tenzin said. “You can bribe him to do anything with spicy chicken.”
Zhang frowned. “What is a burrito?”
“Never mind.” She walked toward the panels that led to the garden.
“Tenzin.”
She turned.
“Should I forget this quest?” he asked. “Find some other way to formalize peace with Arosh?”
Her father’s eyes had lost the hard edge he wore in public settings, but that didn’t make them any easier for Tenzin to read.
He was her sire.
Her murderer.
Her warden.
Her savior.
She could live in the space between truths because he was the one who had led her there. She could be the hero and the villain in the same breath because she had learned it from him.
“We will find it,” Tenzin said. “And then this ancient war will finally be over.”
“But will anything change?”
“Does anything ever change?” She walked into the darkness. “Twenty minutes. I will bring him to you.”
9
Fabia turned to him in the doorway of the lavish bathroom in their guest apartment and held up a hand. “I don’t care what you do right now. I don’t care where we are. I don’t care which bedroom you take. They’re both fine, and either will do. But right now you will leave me alone in this spacious and beautiful bathroom. You will give me silence and peace from your brooding. And you will not open this door for at least an hour.”
Ben smiled. “I feel like you want some alone time.”
“Out.” She pointed toward the door. “I don’t like spending this amount of time with anyone I’m not sleeping with, and I am definitely not sleeping with you. Go find a drink. Go find Tenzin, for pity’s sake. But go away from here.”
“Fine.” He could use the bathroom in the reception area if he needed it. Penglai had what amounted to a small hotel on the second level of the island. It was where human guests, visiting scholars, and other mortals stayed if they didn’t live in the monastery.
The highest level of the island held the halls and personal apartments of the Eight Immortals and their retinue. The second level was for visitors and scholars. The third and largest level—the one closest to the ocean—was the monastery and human village.
Taoist monks were the guardians of the island, and if they did not allow you access to the immortals, you would not pass. Priests and their families lived and worked among the others on the island, farming, building, and generally serving the immortals who had made it their home for over a thousand years.
As Ben strolled through the manicured gardens that covered the second level, he saw many monks and priests dressed in brown, black, and saffron-yellow robes, going about their evenings. Some were serving in the great hall. Some would be serving visitors. All were quiet, pleasant, and nodded to Ben as he passed.
He’d taken off his formal zhiduo and put on the more casual clothing that had been delivered to their guest quarters. His tunics and pants were all in shades of black and grey, and Fabi’s were in various shades of green. Nothing fancy. Everything comfortable and practical.
Ben found himself eased by the simplicity. Loose, comfortable clothing. Flat shoes. No one was competing about fashion here. There were no electric lights. Only torches, gas, and firelight. In the distance, he saw a group of humans and what might have been a few vampires practicing tai chi on a softly undulating lawn.
Yield and overcome; bend and be straight.
In the peace and silence of the night, he felt her approaching. She was in the air above him, hovering over the garden. Ben didn’t have amnis. He didn’t know how he could sense her, but he could. He’d been able to detect her for years. Some instinct at the core of his being recognized her presence drawing close.
“I know you’re there,” he said quietly.
A flutter of silk in the night.
Ben stopped at the base of a massive taihu stone, the twisting, pockmarked limestone pleasantly familiar from the Chinese garden at the Huntington Botanical Garden. Giovanni and Beatrice’s house in California was only a few blocks from the Huntington, and Ben had grown up wandering among the stones and marveling at their height and age. He placed a hand on it and looked through the naturally formed crevices and holes.
