Week 16

  The Jade Baobab was never quiet, not even at the edge of closing.

  Calanthe and her party had claimed one of the tables by the window. Briar sat across from her, eyes gliding over the menu. Tanith, on the end, hunched over her note book, making notes between sips of chrysanthemum tea.

  Ember lay under the table, chin on his massive paws, eyes half-lidded but ears twitching at every sound from the kitchen. Every child who passed by the window pressed their nose to the glass to gawk at the “big wolf,” and every fourth or fifth adult tried to sneak it a treat.

  “Let me guess,” Briar said. “You’re getting the duck again. With that… orange sauce thing.”

  Callie didn’t look up from her own menu. “It’s called Dakar Duck à l’Orange, and it’s only the third time this week.”

  Briar raised her eyebrows. “You’re so boring, Doc. There’s a whole menu here. A third of it from places no one has even heard of. That’s adventure, right there.”

  Callie shrugged. “The duck is good. Why not have what you like?”

  “Because if you always have what you like, you’ll never know if there’s something you like more. Or something you hate so much it’s funny.”

  Callie put the menu down. “You say that, but you always get the venison.”

  “That’s because I’ve already tried everything else. Except the jellyfish,” Briar said, shivering. “I know where jellyfish come from.”

  Tanith looked up from her notes. “There’s a new item. Goat biryani with caramelized onions and candied mango.”

  Briar made a face. “Who thought of that?”

  “Chef Omari,” Tanith said, “along with three other ‘fusion specials’ for the week. He’s expanding into monster cuisine next month.”

  At the mention of his name, Omari appeared at their table, wiping his hands on a stained rag that might once have been white. He was tall, broad, and wore his apron like a general’s cuirass. His smile was the most honest thing in the restaurant.

  “Ladies,” he said, “what’ll it be tonight? And for the wolf, I can grill up some bones. Nice marrow, straight from the stockpot.”

  Ember thumped his tail against Briar’s boots.

  “Duck for me, Jollof and the orange sauce, the usual,” Callie said, with the defeated air of someone who knew resistance was pointless.

  “Venison, please, with extra spring onions,” Briar said. She put down her menu and grinned at Omari. “And a side of those little potato things with the crispy skin.”

  “I’ll have the biryani,” Tanith said, barely above a whisper.

  Omari looked surprised but delighted. “A connoisseur. I’ll make it special. Back in a tick.”

  He disappeared, his progress marked by the chorus of kitchen yells that followed him like an entourage.

  When the food arrived, it came all at once. Omari carried the main plates himself, setting each down with a small bow: the duck for Callie, sliced and fanned over a burnished pool of orange glaze; the venison for Briar, cooked in oyster sauce, soy sauce and glutinous rice wine ; the goat biryani for Tanith, with a crown of charred mango strips and a side of onion relish.

  He set a separate dish under the table for Ember, who blinked twice and then dove into the bone blissfully.

  Callie inhaled, letting the citrus and smoke settle in her nose. She took the first bite with the reverence of someone who had not, in fact, eaten it three times that week.

  “Happy?” Briar teased.

  “Ecstatic,” Callie said around a mouthful. “This is better than last time.”

  Briar attacked her own plate, talking between bites. “There’s something to be said for consistency. Still think you’re boring, though.”

  Tanith sampled the biryani, paused, and then closed her eyes. “It’s perfect,” she said. “Spicy, but the heat isn’t showy. There’s a bitterness—fenugreek?—but balanced with the sweetness.”

  Omari lingered at their table, watching the reactions with a pride that bordered on paternal.

  ***

  After a few moments, he set down a complimentary plate of cold, marinated chicken feet in the middle of the table. “On the house,” he said.

  Briar stabbed a chicken claw and twirled it, then bit into the pad. “Are you sure you’re not bored, Doc? Want to try one?”

  Callie shook her head. “I prefer mine attached to the rest of the chicken.”

  “I thought you said you were Chinese in another life?” Briar mused.

  Tanith, ever polite, sampled one delicately. “It’s better than jellyfish,” she said, to no one in particular.

  Omari laughed, then leaned in. “Yesterday, you said you’d rather die than work a public job again. Instead you chose the reticent life of healing, which is anything but. Really, if you want the quiet life, you should have chosen something like chef, or baker, or inn keeper.”

  Callie dabbed her lips with a napkin. “You haven’t worked at the Library. If you had, you’d know that being an inn keeper is absolutely out. You land up entertaining political rivals and revered as a goddess or queen.”

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  Briar chimed in, “I heard that chefs are sometimes required to travel into dungeons for rare monster meat. Or special salt. That’s not quiet.”

  Omari wagged a finger. “Not if you know how to delegate. You let the adventurers do the dirty work, then you buy what you need on the cheap. The real trick is not to draw attention. Nobody cares about the chef unless he poisons someone.”

  He grinned, then pointed to Callie with his rag. “You could do it, you know. Open a place. Teach people how to eat well. Maybe find a new specialty.”

  Callie rolled her eyes. “I’m not trained for it. My last kitchen burned down. Twice.”

  Omari chortled. “Everyone burns a few at first.”

  He excused himself to greet a party of four who had just walked in, bowing with the same warmth he’d shown Callie’s table.

  Briar watched him go. “You ever notice how he moves like he’s never in a hurry?”

  “He was a Black man on Earth,” Callie said, “before he got pulled here. Used to cook in fancy places. Paris, Tokyo, everywhere.”

  Briar looked at her. “I have no idea where those places are. How do you know his story?”

  “He told me the other day,” Callie replied. “His mother was a doctor. He tried to follow, but hated blood. Loved food instead. Did Le Cordon Bleu, then a few Michelin starred restaurants, then ended up in Chengdu. He said he never felt at home anywhere, until he got here.”

  Briar processed that. “Yeah, half of that is over the top of my head. You’re going to have to recite that to me again tonight so that I can add it to the ledger.”

  Callie nodded.

  Tanith glanced over. “He’s got a new project. He’s compiling a restaurant guide. Claims he’ll rank every place in Chang’An by year’s end.”

  Callie raised her eyebrows.

  “Exactly,” said Tanith. “He calls it the Blue Guide. The cover is a copy of Briar's ledger.”

  Callie nearly choked on her duck. “It’s a conflict of interest!”

  Briar snorted. “He’s not in it. He said he can’t review his own place. Something about ‘keeping the game honest.’”

  Tanith smiled, just barely. “He’s very proud of it.”

  Callie looked at Briar, who was already planning her next question, and felt something she couldn’t name. Not quite happiness, but the suspicion of it; a sense that if you let your guard down, the world might surprise you with joy.

  She finished her duck, then reached for a chicken foot, just to prove Briar wrong.

  It wasn’t so bad. Almost like home.

  ***

  After the plates had been cleared and the main rush at the Jade Baobab had thinned, the four of them lingered at their table, each doing as they pleased. Briar commandeered the space nearest the window, tongue pinched between her teeth in concentration as she sketched out her new Leveling System diagram. Ember lay in a puddle of soft fur at her feet.

  Callie picked over the last shreds of duck on her plate, more interested in watching Briar work than in eating. The Blue Ledger, as ever, defied reality: no matter how much pressure Briar applied with the nib, or how many layers of watercolor she pooled in the margins, the page never buckled, never showed bleed-through or even the faintest ghost of pigment.

  Briar caught Callie looking and grinned, green-and-brown eyes bright with mischief. “You want to see?”

  Callie shrugged, but scooted her chair around the edge of the table to sit beside Briar, pretending to inspect the drawing with critical detachment.

  Briar had filled two full spreads with a branching diagram that mapped out her “Ranger-Gatherer” class; each node a little icon, painted in colors as vivid as autumn leaves. It was simple cascading chart showing the known Actives and Passives: Whisper Step; Beast Calm, Thornvine Snare, Rootward Shield. At the very top, a tiny self-portrait of Briar, cloak streaming behind her, loosed an arrow at a flock of stylized birds.

  “You’re getting better at the shading,” Callie said.

  “It’s the new brushes,” Briar replied, pleased. “Tanith found them at a street stall.”

  Tanith, at her own end of the table, barely glanced up from her reading. “They were marketed as ‘Calligraphy Brushes for Gentlemen’s Artistic Pursuits,’” she said. “But the merchant didn’t seem to mind selling them to a woman.”

  “They’re perfect for making feather lines,” Briar said, flicking a brush against the page to demonstrate. “See?”

  Callie grunted, trying and failing to keep a smile from her lips.

  Briar put down the brush and pointed at the top of the diagram. “I’m officially Level 28,” she said, a note of awe in her voice. “Zhao Tong promised to take me to a real Bowyer-Fletcher next week for a new bow. He says at Level 30 I can start customizing my arrows with passive effects.”

  Tanith cleared her throat. “It’s a significant jump in experience points. The encounter with the Bai Ze was worth nearly 14.5 million XP. That’s not typical for a non-combat event.”

  Briar looked at her, eyebrows raised. “So why did we get so much?”

  “It’s standard for healing a high level ‘monster’; less if you heal a non-dangerous one,” Callie explained, “and the System divided it equally among the party members. Each of us received approximately 2.9 million XP.”

  Callie felt a familiar twinge of irritation. “Except for me,” she muttered, poking at the last orange-drenched morsel of duck.

  Briar patted her hand. “You got the knowledge instead. The ‘152 things.’ That’s way cooler than a few numbers.”

  Tanith nodded in agreement.

  Callie pouted. “Doesn’t help with level-ups.”

  Briar scooted her chair closer, so their thighs touched under the table. “Who cares about level-ups? You could be Level Negative Five and I’d still pick you first for any party.”

  Callie rolled her eyes. “You’re so embarrassing.” Callie tried to change the subject, but Briar just leaned in and kissed her, right at the corner of her mouth.

  ***

  The moment before Zhao Tong entered was almost perfect. Callie and Briar had shifted to a shared seat, their heads close together as Briar penciled a miniature sketch of Ember’s muzzle in the margin of the Blue Ledger.

  Then the front door banged open and the hush that followed drew every eye in the room. Zhao Tong moved through the crowd and delivered his news without greeting them. “They’ve sent my sister to the Third Court of Hell.”

  No one responded right away.

  Callie closed the ledger and set it on the table, palms flat. “She’s alive?”

  “I don’t know,” Zhao replied.

  Tanith blinked. “To Hell? The actual… place?”

  Zhao Tong nodded. “The Third Court, but they call it the Quarrelsome Village. It’s ruled by King Songdi (宋帝王). It’s supposed to be for those who cause discord in families. The punishment varies from being crushed in stone mills to tongue extraction.”

  Briar made a choking sound. “That’s not a punishment, that’s a sick dream.”

  Zhao Tong offered the smallest smile. “It’s supposed to be a kind of spiritual refinement before a soul is processed for reincarnation. The houses are built back-to-back, doors welded shut. The only way in is through the roofs. Inside, it’s just endless arguments, day and night.”

  Briar slumped in her seat. “That’s… miserable. Why are they sending your sister there?”

  Zhao Tong’s face stiffened. “The official reason is that she failed as a daughter, wife, and mother.”

  He looked at Callie. “The real reason is that she’s changing into something. A monster.”

  Callie’s mouth tasted of acid and old duck.

  “Something or someone really wants me to do this.” Callie hesitated before revealing the next thing. “The Corpse Eater gave me a referral. Told me there was a lich who needed treatment at the Sixth Court. That one’s for blasphemy and disrespect to the gods. It’s called The Defiled Shrine in Chang’An. Statues weep sulfur and you get dragged across iron thorns.”

  “Who comes up with this shit… ” Briar said.

  Callie shrugged. “It was always going to end there, one way or another. At least this time, I get to bring my friends.” She pet Ember on the head. “Sorry, you’re not coming. Demons and wargs don’t really mix; and you don’t have a talisman.” Ember whined but accepted his fate.

  The restaurant was almost empty now. The last of the staff wiped down tables, and the candle on theirs burned low. Callie sucked on the last cold chicken claw. Everything tasted better before Hell.