At the festival, I see Cricket included in a game with other first-year boys that involves hopping from boat to boat while imitating the movements of animals in wu liu moves. He leaps and lands on the edge of a boat on only one skate blade. I almost cry out his name. He fights to keep his balance. Any of those boys could push him into the water. But they don’t. As he loses the fight to maintain balance, his skate jerks up and my heart lurches as he does a triple-toe dragonfly spin from the edge of the boat and lands on the opposite edge. The other boys laugh and start chanting, “Flyboy! Flyboy! Flyboy!” I didn’t read this term in The Imperial Anthology of the Humorous, the Satirical, and the Serenely Amusing, so they must not be laughing at him.
Then they’re applauding him. Cricket bows and steps down into the center of the boat to cut the applause short. He’s always so modest. The boys continue to clap, though, and give him friendly rubs on the back.
Every day, he skates further and further from me and my protection. But I’m the only one who can keep him safe. As soon as I am done with the fifth Motivation tomorrow, I’ll find my own way into the city and get that wine for Chingu. No more wasting time relying on other people. Other people always disappoint me. Always. So what if I’m on my own? I’m used to it by now.
I should go back to the dormitory chambers to rest. However, I can’t let this evening end quite yet. I know that it was neither the best nor the worst evening of my life. That’s ridiculous. No boy should be able to make it that. Still, I return to the Temple of Heroes of Superlative Character just to be in this evening a little longer.
When I arrive in the temple, I find that the candles and braziers have been put out. I thought they’d just light them and leave them, since the pearl doesn’t burn.
Something moves within the temple. Something’s in here with me. Above me. Up in the archway at the top, there’s something black and billowing, like great wings. It turns with a snap and is gone out of the arch.
It has to be Suki. She’s going to commit a third attack! While I’m absent from the festival with no alibis.
At last, my chance to catch her in the act.
I skate up the spiraling ramp as quickly as I can. Sounds like bursting vents of steam emerge from above. There are great snaps as something breaks within the temple. I skate up faster. Before I reach the top, I see that the pearl in the ramp above me has been grotesquely eaten. It looks like flesh that has been turned to liquid and has healed over in smooth pink scars. The rifts spread, sizzling, squealing, putting up tendrils of vapor, and sending rents racing down toward me.
I scrape to a stop and reverse direction. I skate down as hard as I can, but the steaming drips of matter have burned through the ramp and dropped onto the level below, blocking my descent.
I remember Cricket holding his little sculpture and telling a circle of boys that if the spiral is damaged, the whole structure will come toppling down.
I leap into the center of the temple onto the statue of the eunuch Mu Haichen, atop the shoulder nearest to the boy Lim Tian-Tai.
A great bulb of viscous matter slides down the spiral path. Dollops of it eat through the ramp, dripping down in thick wads. When it reaches the bottom, it spreads.
Within moments, the floor is covered in yawning holes, curling up vapor. Through the rifts below me, I see black churning sea.
The statue of Mu Haichen gives a groan as it begins to lean against the statue of Lim Tian-Tai, like an old man on his son.
I throw the dragon-phoenix boat down into one of the gaps in the floor. As it hits the water below, it expands out to full size. I get ready to leap onto it but the heads at either end begin to twist and arc, and the boat starts to cave in on itself. It’s pulled under with the chunks of floor that are slipping down into the water.
I ride the statue of Mu Haichen into the sea as the entire temple comes down around me and I’m in the lightless water and my eyes and mouth are filled with the terrible sting of salt.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-LUCKY
I find a path underneath the foundation of the temple and swim back to shore using powerful kicks in the Minghai striped dolphin position. I don’t tell people this very often because I’m a humble person, but I was swimming champion for all of Shui Shan Province five times before the age of nine. I only gave up swimming so that I could work toward becoming a legend of wu liu, so I’m never in any real danger in water, even while wearing skates. I’m able to make myself lighter through my excellent breath control, which is why I’m such an outstanding jumper.
As I’m swimming through the water, my heart fills with hope because this time, I saw Suki committing the attack. I didn’t see her face, but I saw the back of her academy robe.
I pop my head out of the water. Alarms ring out from across the campus. Students and senseis have rowed over from the Festival of Lanterns. The breeze cuts swaths into the billows lingering over the cavity where the temple once stood. There’s nothing left. Just a smoldering pit churning
