The five-point bone-shatterer hollow fist is a prison. But perhaps my steps can lead through its walls.
Do not be so quick to judge deficiencies, Sensei Madame Liao had said. Sometimes, they are just advantages that are interpreted incorrectly, like trying to read a logogram turned upside down.
Where everyone else sees a deficiency in a building, the architect who built it sees a secret door and can glide right through.
Your ability to glide on one step. You could cross five li in five steps. No one else here can do that.
I learned to glide because I couldn’t afford to replace my skate blades and because I relied on moves that travel farther to conserve my steps.
The clues are crying out at me like a silent word that I can’t read because I’m looking at it upside down.
The Dian Mai imprisons me within the walls of my own body. But the steps of an honorable person can lead through walls. I thought that my reliance on gliding on one foot was a deficiency. But perhaps it is an advantage that will allow me to step out of this—
My ability to glide will allow me to skate all the way to the Arch of Chi Retuning as long as I stretch my five steps into five glides!
Sensei Madame Liao must have sent Cricket. She couldn’t be seen coming here herself. She had Cricket speak to me in code in case anyone overheard so that he wouldn’t be implicated. She convinced Supreme Sensei Master Jio to let her use a Dian Mai on me instead of the shrinking pavilion. She knew that I was the only person here who could make it to the Arch of Chi Retuning in less than six steps.
She built a prison with a secret door for me, knowing that I would be the only person who could glide through it. I just needed Cricket to teach me how to see.
I’m not alone in this after all. Sensei Madame Liao was always there. And Cricket. I was just so busy facing forward toward my future that I couldn’t see who was standing behind me.
There’s only one reason why Sensei Madame Liao would risk this to get me out. She wants me to find the proof that Suki has been behind the attacks and disprove the Chairman’s interpretation of the oracle.
How many steps would it normally take to travel five li? A hundred? Five hundred? Just the sharp corners and turns between here and the Arch of Chi Retuning would eat up so many steps. And I can’t just cross the Principal Island in a straight line because of the older students patrolling the campus. I’d have to take the longer route along the northern perimeter. It’s not possible.
I put on my skates. The woven reed fibers of the boots are stiff. I’ve never gone so long without wearing them.
Five li in five steps.
I stand. I can feel that Cricket’s done a beautiful job of filing away the damage on the blades.
Five steps. That’s all I get.
I stretch toward the shoji and slide it open. Outside, the pearl rises in silent drifts from the sleeping academy.
Five steps, and I need to have passed under the Arch of Chi Retuning.
I reach my left skate back and brace it against the wall. I am grateful that our dormitory chambers are so small.
If I make it in five steps, I take the sixth step a free person.
I crouch back on my skate pushed up against the back wall.
If I don’t, the sixth step will be my last.
But I crossed three thousand li to come here. I can cross five more.
I explode out of the chamber.
I land on my right skate and careen down the dormitory corridor.
I have to fight the instinct to put my other skate down. I can do this. For Cricket.
This first step is for him. Thank you, Cricket, for coming to me and restoring my skates and bringing the message. I approach the first bend of the hallway and take the corner without slowing. I speed out of the ornamental gate of the girls’ dormitory and across the complex of bridges dividing the dormitory areas. The rise and fall of bridges cuts down on my momentum and I leap forward onto my other skate.
This second step is for Sensei Madame Liao. Thank you, Sensei. For teaching me what I needed to learn, both the skills that I didn’t have and the value of the skills I had. Thank you for teaching me about deficiencies and heroes and myself. I swoop on my left leg and whip myself around the first corner of the Courtyard of Supreme Placidness. I take the second corner to clear the palace. I come around it and leap onto my right skate.
This third step is for Hisashi. I thought I knew you. You hurt me, but I can see now that you were trying to save me. I skate past the islet of the Temple of Heroes of Superlative Character. I can see the arch where I leaped off with Hisashi, hand in hand, trusting this beautiful boy whom I didn’t really know but cared about, still care about. The drifts rising up from the pearl catch on my wet cheeks before they dissolve. My momentum slows, and I savor the moment as I pass by the temple, pass through my memories, until my right knee begins to throb with the sustained pressure. I pull out of it with a triple flying crane leap onto my left skate.
This luckieth step is for Doi. I needed you. You needed me. Thank you for being my partner, thank you for defending me, thank you for pleading with your father for me, thank you for trying to stop me from pursuing this, thank you for caring, and thank you for understanding that I have to do this. I leap over the false moats of pearlsilk ribbon and land on my right skate as I enter the Garden of Whispering Arches.
This
