Those stories would become their story, Li Lei explained as she rinsed the dye from Gan’s hair. They were going to draw attention. There was no getting around that. She could blend in, but Gan and Rule could not.
Rule had interrupted her then. “I don’t suppose you can cast illusions on us?”
“I am not an elf,” she had snapped, adding with some reluctance—for she disliked committing herself to a process which might well end in failure—“I may be able to concoct an ointment that will make you less distinctive. I do not know, and it will take time. I think you do not wish to remain here for several days while I attempt it?”
He did not, and she had continued her explanation. People who looked as odd as they did would be regarded with suspicion. Any story they told to explain themselves would be suspect; therefore, they must make sure people had a good story to make up about them.
They would not claim to be adventurers who had somehow survived terrible hazards to dig up diamonds. They would, in fact, deny this. It was unfortunate that none of them knew anything about mining diamonds. They would have to display real ignorance rather than the calculated sort, but she did not consider that a major handicap.
She would say that they came from a very small village near the coast—too small for anyone upriver to have heard of it, and in quite the opposite direction of the fabled diamond deposits. Their diamonds—which she would allow one or two people to glimpse—were an inheritance. Rule had simply shown up one day, as the lái do. She had taken him in out of charity, and also because he might be helpful on her trip to the capital, but the foolish man had gotten himself injured and was no help at all. And the odd-looking Gan was the daughter of her nephew-by-marriage and had no special Gifts. Li Lei would insist on this.
No one would believe her, she finished with satisfaction as she plaited Gan’s damp, ink-black hair. They would believe their own stories.
Gan did not understand. “. . . and you don’t want them to believe this one thing, but you tell them that because you think they’ll believe this other thing that you tell them isn’t true, only you want them to think it is true, and I don’t see how that makes sense! How can you keep track of it all? It doesn’t make sense!”
“It is a lie inside a lie,” she said. “You are too new at lying to understand.”
“How do you put one lie inside another?”
Rule was eyeing her with a slight smile. “You are a frightening woman.”
She snorted, pleased, and tied off Gan’s braid with a scrap of cloth.
Rule spoke to Gan. “People believe the stories they tell themselves more readily than any other sort of tale, truth or lie. Madame Yu knows how to get them to tell themselves the story she wants them to believe. You don’t need to understand how she does that.”
Gan twisted to look at her, eyes wide. “You can make people lie to themselves?”
She snorted again, more loudly. “That is no great accomplishment. People enjoy lying to themselves. They do this all the time.”
“Withholding information is not a lie,” Rule said evenly. “But it’s not precisely honest, either.”
“Why not?” Gan asked curiously.
“Rule is annoyed because he thinks I have not told him everything,” she explained. “This is true, of course. I know many things he does not. I am nearly three hundred years older than he is.”
“I can see that,” Gan said seriously, “but why does it annoy him?”
This time her lips did twitch.
“Annoyance aside,” Rule said dryly, “I do have questions. First, about our cover story. It’s unlikely the spawn know I exist, much less that I’m here. The time difference means that, at this point back home and in Dis, I haven’t yet left for Dis, much less traveled from there to Dragonhome. But we are dealing with an Old One. If the Great Bitch somehow foresaw that I might end up here and warned the spawn ahead of time to watch for me—if they distributed an alert or arrest order for someone of my description—”
“Then we are, as Lily’s generation would say, screwed.”
That made him laugh, as she’d intended. On the whole, she avoided vulgarity. It bored her. But like the jeans she’d worn to travel to Dis, vulgarity had its uses. She chose to explain a bit more. “The Enemy can read patterns, but it is extremely difficult to read patterns across realms. If she had a large body of devout worshippers here . . . but from all I can learn, she does not. Nor is she truly prescient in the manner of your Ruben Brooks. It is therefore highly unlikely that she foresaw your presence in this realm.”
“All right. Next question. At first I thought the dragons here must be like those in ancient China—rare, and mostly willing to coexist with humans. That isn’t the case, though, is it?”
“No.” She cocked her head, thinking it through. “Perhaps it is time for me to speak of certain secrets about dragons. Gan, do you wish to stay and hear them?”
“Yes!” She bounced in excitement. Then stilled. “Wait. Dragon secrets?”
“Yes.”
“Will the dragons be mad that I know their secrets?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to go get some sweets.”
SIXTEEN
MADAME went to the door with Gan, giving her money and instructions. Rule sat on the cot and hurt.
The pain in his gut wasn’t bad. He could ignore it. His leg was harder to overlook. That wound hadn’t healed at all, from what he could tell. Or maybe it was healing at a purely human rate . . . which gave him a new appreciation for the sheer guts it took for humans to risk themselves.
Humans like Lily. Why hadn’t she contacted him through mindspeech?
Too far away. That was the answer he’d been giving himself, and it made sense. Lily could only reach so far with her mindsense, and he was beyond that limit. But there were other possibilities. Had she been injured? Was she currently healing some terrible wound at this horribly slow rate? Had she connected with Cynna, or was she alone? Gan had tried to take Lily near the same spot she’d taken Cynna, but she didn’t know how close she’d gotten. She was sure she hadn’t taken both women to the same time. She couldn’t. So Lily might have arrived quite a bit earlier or later than Cynna, so the two of them might not have found each other. Lily might be alone. She might be injured, even unconscious. He had no way of knowing unless—
“Tch. Whatever you are thinking, you need to stop.”
He scowled at Lily’s grandmother, who had retrieved the last net bag she’d brought back from her shopping. One she hadn’t yet emptied. “Do you worry about her at all?”
“Very seldom. Do not berate yourself. You will get better at not worrying when you are older.”
That startled a choked sound out of him. His wolf was amused, even if the rest of him was not. He scrubbed his face with both hands and dragged his mind away from the what-ifs. “You have dragon secrets to tell me.”
“Yes. First we will take tea.”