Page 75 of The Cinders

Lotus seeds; like pearls fresh shucked from their oysters.They were stunning in their whiteness, devoid of the usual speckling of dark spots on their flesh.The bucket was all but empty, with only a thin layer of lotus seeds on its bottom.Xian picked one, sniffing at it.His head grew light at the scent, his stomach twisting with a sudden undeniable hunger.He drew it away from his nose, intent on placing it in his mouth.With narrowed eyes, he stared more closely at the seed.

What he’d thought was a play of the light was not.The seed held a subtle glow; a faint gleam in its flesh.He drew it close, then held it at length, but the sheen remained.

The emotions behind the screen ran high; the cries were less stifled, the carnal pleasures far more difficult to ignore.

And there were only so many times he could listen to Sir William demand his lovers beg him for more.

Xian tossed the seed back into the bucket, and picked it up, cradling it against his chest.He dashed away, running in any direction that would take him from those primitive sounds and wanton desires he had no taste for.

His veil pressed against his face, a dangling thread caught between the bucket and his chest.Xian reached for the fabric, intending to tug it away, only to be struck by a complexity of scents.

His hand was rich with hints of leather, of tannins and their echoes of decay.He breathed in.The scent was like a caress.The muskiness of a warm body with the richness of aloeswood beneath.

Calm filtered through him, reaching his marrow, soothing and sweet.His eyes stung with the sudden, surprising press of tears.

He knew this scent.Xian closed his eyes, taking another breath.

Only one man filled his thoughts.

Song Lim had held this bucket.

Impossible.Undeniable.

Xian dragged himself out of his stupor, shaking with his newfound awareness.He needed somewhere more private to consider this.Standing like a statue in the middle of the gardens would not keep him left alone for long.

He searched for a nearby place to conceal himself, and not daring to go near another yingbì, he headed to where shadows darkened a stone wall between two buildings on the west side of the courtyard; their elaborate curled eaves almost touching with the buildings’ closeness.

Xian stepped into the shadows, hoping they concealed him enough so that no one would see him lift the bucket to his nose and breathe in its secrets.

‘You are here.’The world shifted beneath his feet as the wood told Xian its story.‘Iknowyou are here.’

Laughter, high and wild, threatened to burst from him.Xian clamped his lips tight, trying to fathom the shoemaker’s presence.

Why hadn’t Song Lim presented himself, if he was here?Surely he would request an audience with Xian?Or was he not here for a prince, but for profit?

He’d seen the wealth of the envoy; perhaps Song Lim decided Lady Tian too troublesome, and sought to try his luck here.

Xian shook his head; countering his own thoughts.That made no sense, especially at this time of year.He’d lose a week’s worth of trade just travelling here, a move that seemed foolish when demands for his shoes were already high in the Governor’s manor?

And he was hardly here to return a lost slipper.Xian scratched his nails against the stone.That beautiful shoe was deep in Mercy’s pond.

He glared towards the section of the garden where the daemon fornicated shamelessly.How had Sir William’s group come to have the bucket?For surely the parasol belonged to one of them; presumably the lotus seeds, too.

Had the daemon been the one to take it from the shoemaker?But why would Song Lim have them to begin with?

Xian set down the bucket on the stone wall that blocked off a narrow corridor between the two buildings; dark with shadow and confined, the space did not lend itself to thoroughfare.

He leaned his hands on the stone, his mind awhirl.

Maybe he would wait here until Sir William was done, and demand answers from him the moment he reappeared from behind the spirit screen.

Xian peered into the gloom between the buildings, contemplating how long he could bear waiting.The darkness peeled away from the passageway; the blackness shifting to lighter greys.Blinking, Xian leaned over the wall, straining to make out the markings on the ground.

Footprints.One set nearer to where he stood, but further down, far more; enough to churn up the ground.Xian’s gaze followed the length of the corridor once more, back towards where he stood.

With every blink, more and more of the ground drew into focus, a dank puddle there, moss at the edge of the wall there.

And within the swell of mud caused by a footstep, there was a hint of white.A lotus seed.Fallen from the bucket as it was carried, or thrown there by someone disapproving of its taste?