Title: on your side (right where I've always been)
Fandom: Guardian
Rating: Teen (for themes)
Length: 5,150 words
Notes: Shen Xi/Zhao Xinci, Shen Xi & Zhao Yunlan. Canon divergent AU. nnozomi wrote me a wonderful (canon compliant) Zhang Shi & Zhao Xinci fic for guardian_wishlist, which made me also want an AU where Shen Xi finds out about Zhang Shi. This is the first in a slow series about that, with an OT3 endgame. (No idea when the next one will happen!) Special mention, too, to miss_ingno’s Dreamwidth discussion post on the Zhao family: I still haven’t read all of it /o\, but the existence of it spurred me to commit this to Word doc, instead of just noodling it in my head. ♥
Acknowledgements: Much much thanks to trobadora and mergatrude for beta. Title from an Opshop song (er this might be verging on songfic *g*).
Summary: Zhao Xinci’s presence left a predictable, identifiable impression on the house, like a fingerprint—on her life, too—and she’d never noticed until now, when it was subtly but comprehensively changed.


The manuscript Shen Xi was editing, the one the managing editor expected to be on his desk at the end of the week, wasn’t on top of the living-room bookcase where she’d left it. She was positive she’d left it right here, with her pen marking her place. Where else could it be? Zhao Xinci wouldn’t have moved it and had barely been home all week, besides; Yunlan never paid the least attention to her work, and he certainly knew better than to take her documents. She checked the rest of the bookcase. Nothing. Was she going senile? Had she left it in the kitchen?

It wasn’t there–not on the shelf with the tea cannister, not on the rumbling fridge, and not behind the clean dishes drying on the bench. It wasn’t in the dining nook off the kitchen, either—it couldn’t be. She and Yunlan had eaten breakfast there that morning—she would have noticed when she was cleaning up afterwards. Frowning, she went to check Yunlan’s room.

Nothing by his bed but comics and sports magazines. Shoes, jeans and jackets all over the floor. A colourful reef of t-shirts, underwear and socks near the laundry basket (but none inside). And on his white-painted desk, next to his cluster of little robot action figures, only a poetry book, some maths homework, doodled comic-book characters, and a carefully numbered list of arguments in favour of getting a dog: 1. Company for mum, 2. Good exercise, 3. Practice being responsible, 4. Protection…

What did he think they needed protecting from? Or had he only written that to appeal to his father...

His father who had been largely MIA the last week, and when he had been here... Shen Xi had said his name three times last night before he’d looked up. “I’m going to bed,” she’d said, and he hadn’t moved, hadn’t joined her until hours later. He was gnawing on something, probably another case (what else could it be?) but he usually told her, if not the details, enough to sense the scale of it, the degree of danger he was facing. That was the unspoken deal between them: he could specialise in cases no other police officer would touch just as long as he hinted enough for her to worry the appropriate amount. Her fear was a ritual for staving off disaster. Foolish, maybe, but that was how they got by.

Whatever was going on this time, he hadn’t said anything. It must be classified, something to do with the government. But he could have said, I’m working a case. I can’t tell you… Not this abstracted silence.

He wasn’t allowed to break their deal!

Pushing her uneasy thoughts aside, she scanned Yunlan’s room one more time for her missing manuscript, then gathered the dirty clothes and took them to the bathroom to stuff into the washing machine. (The manuscript wasn’t on or beside the washing machine, or on the shelf with the laundry powder.) She didn’t set the wash running, though. It was Wednesday, which meant Yue Yang next door would go out to the market in half an hour. Better to wait till then, when the old machine’s clunking wouldn’t disturb her.

As Shen Xi went back into the hallway, a wave of oddness broke over her. She halted, distracted from her purpose, and scanned the area by the door. Something was different. What was it? Their boots were lined up like always, hooks for the coats in a line above. Hers was there, the deep red one she’d splashed out on after receiving her first paycheck from the publishing house. Next to it, Zhao Xinci’s full-length tan raincoat, less used now he’d graduated to detective, and Yunlan’s blue parka that was getting too small for him. And then two empty hooks for Zhao Xinci’s and Yunlan’s other jackets – the ones they’d worn today. Nothing out of the ordinary, but her senses prickled.

The pictures on the walls hadn’t changed. Was it a smell? No. But it was something.

She didn’t have time for this. She had to find Hu Haiyuan’s manuscript. It had to be somewhere in the flat! She checked the pockets of her coat, unsurprised not to find it there. The only place left to look was her and Zhao Xinci’s bedroom. And there wasn’t any oddness; she was being silly, not in the mood to work so her mind was making up mysteries as an excuse to dally.

But the strangeness followed her into the bedroom. The covers on Zhao Xinci’s side of the bed looked wrong, pulled taut in a way he didn’t usually leave them. And there on the wooden filing cabinet he used as a nightstand was the manuscript, bristling with her post-it notes.

He must have left it there last night, and she hadn’t noticed when she stumbled out of bed this morning. But why had he picked it up in the first place? Had he been reading it? Staying out till all hours at work, leaving in the mornings with barely a word to her or Yunlan, and then coming home and moving her belongings, reading her work manuscript, not telling her what was going on?

He was a methodical person, as much a creature of habit as anyone else. His presence left a predictable, identifiable impression on the house, like a fingerprint—on her life, too—and she’d never noticed until now, when it was subtly but comprehensively changed.

Was he sick? Had something happened to him on one of his cases? What wasn’t he telling her? Didn’t he know they had a deal?

She took the manuscript and went back to the dining nook. There weren’t any new medicines on the windowsill, just the prescription for her digestive complaint. Of course. Zhao Xinci was a detective—if he decided to hide an illness, he wouldn’t leave his medicine in plain view.

No, she was imagining it, letting a few small coincidences turn into a conspiracy. She laughed at herself and checked the time. Close enough. Yue Yang would be leaving soon. Shen Xi went to the bathroom to start the washing machine, turned on the taps at the wall and twisted the dial, the rush and groan of the water pipes making her wince, as always. When she turned to leave, her attention caught on the bathroom sink, the sight jarring against accustomed memory.

Zhao Xinci’s toothbrush was facing the wrong way. His razor, too, lying with its head towards the door instead of the window as if he’d used it left-handed.

The conspiracy theorising rushed back in. He’d hurt his arm. His shoulder. Why keep that a secret?

She threw the manuscript onto the bookcase in the living-room and headed for the front door. She had to see him. Her work could wait till this evening, or she could hand it in late. In the greater scheme of things, it didn’t matter. But as she grabbed her coat, the door opened and Yunlan bulldozed in, a burst of chatter and energy with mud splattered up the legs of his jeans and on his jacket, too. “Hi, Mum. What are you doing? I got the new issue of Weapons of the Gods on the way home, and you should see the cover. It’s epic! Is there anything to eat?”

She paused mid-flight, taking a moment to smooth his hair back with shaking fingers. “Hi, baby. I was just heading out to see your dad. You stay here and do your home—”

“Oh cool.” Yunlan’s eyes brightened. “I’m coming with you. I want to talk to him about something.” He must mean the dog list.

“No!” It came out instinctive and sharp, her urgency slamming into her need to shelter him. Loud enough to make him jerk back. But she couldn’t take him to the police station: Zhao Xinci would either be away working a case, or he’d be annoyed at his domestic life intruding on his professional sphere… so she shouldn’t go either. If Zhao Xinci really was hiding something and she cornered him at work, he’d emphasise the urgency of whatever he was doing and never tell her the truth. They needed privacy, a safe place where he wouldn’t have any excuse to dodge her questions. She returned her coat to its hook, pulled herself together and smiled at Yunlan, gentling her voice. “We’ll talk to him later, here. You can call him and remind him when it’s time to come home for dinner, okay?”

“Mum? Are you all right?” His gaze was fixed on her, his young brow wrinkled in concern.

“Of course. Of course I am.” She made herself bury her fear down where she couldn’t feel it. Whatever was going on with Zhao Xinci, it had been happening for days. A few more hours wouldn’t make any difference. And maybe it was nothing. Maybe she was imagining all of it. “I’m fine. It’s just, you know your dad doesn’t like visitors when he’s working. Anyway, didn’t you say you were hungry? Let’s go and see what’s in the fridge. Want to make pancakes? And then I have to finish some work while you do your homework. Comics after.”

“Aw, Mum!” But it was a good-natured groan, and he didn’t question the turn-around. He proceeded her to the kitchen and filled the kettle with water, got down two cups and the tea canister. Without asking.

She laughed at this uncharacteristic show of domesticity and squeezed his shoulders. “Sweetheart, didn’t I tell you I’m fine? Go on, tell me about your day.”

It didn’t take much to dissuade his concern, for him to slide back into comfortable confidence in life turning out well. As far as he was concerned, parents were all-knowing and impervious to harm… while being conveniently malleable to his pro-dog arguments, of course. He leaned on the fridge and told her about the game he and his friends had made up at lunchtime, while she rustled up some afternoon tea.

An hour later, having hung up the washing, she was struggling to concentrate on Hu Haiyuan’s manuscript. The prose was dry and convoluted, and a restless part of her brain insisted on turning over the evidence that things were not as they should be, to see if she was under- or overreacting. She sighed and turned back a page to make sure she hadn’t missed any obvious mistakes in her abstraction, then looked up to find Yunlan chewing on his pencil. He wasn’t working on the sums spread out in front of him. He was watching her, and he didn’t return her smile.

She’d overestimated his complacency, and that just proved there was no question of leaving the mystery (if there was one) unsolved. If she couldn’t settle it in her own mind, Yunlan would certainly be able to tell, and if something was up with Zhao Xinci, Yunlan would notice that, too, if he hadn’t already.

She put down her pencil. “I’ll finish this up later. Are you nearly done? Then call your dad.” She tried to sound cheerful and ordinary. “I’ll make dinner.”

From the kitchen, she heard him dial, the bright greeting and the disappointed fall in his tone. Knew before he came to relay the news what Zhao Xinci had said—or what it meant, anyway. He wasn’t coming home for dinner.


*


“You need a hug,” said Yunlan, when they’d eaten.

Shen Xi bit back a laugh, and then, when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, had to blink to clear her stinging eyes. She squeezed him back fiercely, pulling him onto her lap and rocking him from side to side. “Everything’s okay, silly. You don’t have to worry. Oof, how have you grown so big?”

He burrowed his face into her neck, and they stayed like that for a long moment, the worry gradually seeping out of her. She needed to stop catastrophising. Whatever was going on, there must be a logical explanation. Zhao Xinci had probably just wrenched his shoulder and was using his left hand because he didn’t want to see a doctor. Whatever it was—they’d figure it out. It would be all right. It had to be, for Yunlan’s sake.

“Time for Weapons of the Gods?” she asked, at last.

“Yeah!” He pulled away and dived for his bag. “Yi Nangong just found the Tablet of Annihilation. I’m gonna read on my bed.”

He disappeared into his room, and she went to the phone in the corner. Zhao Xinci had moved her manuscript. He’d been reading it. That wasn’t like him at all, and it wasn’t because of an injury.

“Detective Zhao isn’t in right now,” said the receptionist at the police station. “Would you like to leave a message?”

She declined, hung up, and hesitated with her finger over the buttons, the worry creeping back in. She could call his cellphone, but she didn’t want to catch him when he had an excuse to brush aside her questions. She was about to dial his parents instead, to talk to his mother—but what could she say? Ask if anyone in the family was ambidextrous and secretly into art history, and hope that Liao Yuchen would say, “You mean apart from Xinci?” More likely she’d want to know why Shen Xi was asking. Any suggestion that there was something wrong in her son’s marriage, that Zhao Xinci wasn’t happy, would lead to exactly the kind of fuss Zhao Xinci disliked.

But she needed to talk to someone, and Zhao Xinci would hate her gossiping about him outside the family, behind his back. He’d consider it a betrayal. It would feel like one. Yue Yang next door was home; Shen Xi could hear her practising the violin, and she could go just for the company, just to ground herself. She could complain about work, boring manuscripts and unreasonable deadlines. But she didn’t need distracting; she needed reassurance.

She needed an informant. It was nearly seven-thirty. She flipped through her address book.

Zhao Xinci’s partner, Gao Jingfeng, answered his cellphone on the third ring. “Lao Zhao?”

There was no background noise. He was inside somewhere, and Zhao Xinci wasn’t with him. Which meant Zhao Xinci wasn’t working late after all. “It’s Shen Xi.”

“Shen-jie, is everything all right?”

“That’s what I want to know. You know how he is—he doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Ah, Lao Zhao has been grumpy lately, hasn’t he?” Gao Jingfeng sounded knowing. “Did you two have a fight?”

“Not that I know of.” Shen Xi scowled down at the half-moon stain on the shelf where the phone lived. Could Zhao Xinci be holding a grudge? Was that why he was staying away? But it wouldn’t explain the toothbrush and razor, or the moved manuscript. She didn’t want to imply anything was wrong, but Gao Jingfeng knew Zhao Xinci almost as well as she did. Better, in some ways. She had to ask. “Has he been hurt? Is there something wrong with his arm?”

“The opposite! You don’t have to worry, Shen-jie. He’s very fit, and his reflexes have been amazing lately, very impressive. I think he’s taking a new multivitamin, but he won’t tell me what kind. Will you tell me?”

“I don’t know either.” Shen Xi did her best to keep the indignation out of her voice. If nothing was wrong, why wasn’t Zhao Xinci here? But then, Gao Jingfeng’s report didn’t match up with what she’d observed. “Do you know where he is?”

A slight cough. “Didn’t he tell you? I’ve been seconded to the ministry. They needed someone who knows about—uh, about the recent cases. To advise. But I’m absolutely sure Lao Zhao is fine.”

“Okay. Thanks. Congratulation on the secondment.” Even if it did mean Zhao Xinci was facing down dangerous criminals alone.

Shen Xi assured Gao Jingfeng that she and Yunlan were keeping well, and then she hung up and tried to call Zhao Xinci. It went straight to voicemail.

Well, he had to come home sometime. She’d stay up and talk to him when he arrived. She needed to work anyway, if she could make herself concentrate. If she could get this damned manuscript finished, that would be one problem off her plate.

She made a pot of tea, turned on the lamp and the overhead light, and sat back down at the table. She’d nearly finished chapter 8. Seven more chapters to go. She wasn’t going to finish it by Friday. The managing editor was going to reprimand her for missing her deadline, which had been tight to start off with, and she couldn’t bring herself to care even if it meant she didn’t get a bonus.

What had Zhao Xinci thought of it, when he’d read it? He didn’t care about art history. He couldn’t possibly have found this lengthy treatise on Ming Dynasty painting styles interesting. And surely he, too, would have thought the writing style annoying. What had made him pick it up in the first place?

No. She didn’t have time to wonder about that. She poured a cup of tea, leafed back two pages and, summoning all her willpower, picked up where she’d left off.


*


Something soft and warm settled over her. Through an endless run-on sentence of sleepiness, she felt the shape of the room shift, someone who had been standing over her moving away. It couldn’t be Zhao Xinci—he never let her sleep on the couch all night, always woke her and told her she’d rest better in bed with him. (Which was true.) She struggled towards consciousness, but—

“What are you doing?” That was Zhao Xinci, his voice low, sharp, exasperated.

Instinctively, Shen Xi held her breath.

“I’m helping.” Zhao Xinci again, but a different tone. Calm, placating. “I’m only trying to help.”

Shen Xi exhaled and was about to say something, to push herself upright and ask what he was talking about, when he hissed, “I told you stay hidden. I don’t want my family exposed to you.”

A hoar frost of fear spread across her back. Who was he talking to?

“You’re worrying too much. I’m not radioactive.”

“You might as well be!”

He couldn’t be arguing with himself, not when he was angry enough he’d forgotten to keep quiet, but the voices were both Zhao Xinci’s, both coming from the same place in the room. She opened her eyes.

For a moment, with the lamplight behind her and the slanting glow from the hallway to her side, everything was blurred. Then she saw Zhao Xinci, standing alone, hands clenched at his sides. She’d seen that same tension over the last week, in the odd waking moments he’d been home, and assumed it was about a frustrating case.

“Xinci?” She sat up. “Who are you talking to?”

He froze, so fleeting it could have been a trick of the light, and then he was looking at her, his ordinary self, as if nothing was wrong. “You fell asleep on the couch again. Come to bed.”

“What time is it?” Not that it mattered.

“Past midnight.”

“And you just got home?” She stood, gathering the blanket before it fell to the floor and tripped her.

He took it, folded it in quarters and laid it on the back of the couch as if he hadn’t been the one to drape it over her just now. “Come to bed.”

It would be so easy to pretend her worries were the product of paranoia. She moved towards him, holding out her arms for a hug.

He stepped back.

He might as well have sworn at her. She lowered her arms again, feeling sick. “Who were you talking to just now?”

“I was just thinking aloud.” But he hesitated before he said it.

She rubbed her face. It was the middle of the night—perhaps it would be all right to say what she feared. If she was wrong, they could laugh it off as a sleep-addled fancy. “Zhao Xinci, are you possessed by a ghost?”

He snorted. “Ghosts? There’s no such thing.”

“What is it, then?” She wanted to list the evidence she’d found—the subtle differences in the flat, the left-handed orientation of his razor, the manuscript—but wouldn’t that just help him get better at hiding whatever was going on? “Are you sick?”

Normally he’d deny any weakness outright, but tonight he opened his mouth and closed it again. “It’s not anything you have to worry about.”

Using illness as a cover. Wrongness upon wrongness. She advanced till he was backed against the bookcase. Did he know he was moving away from her? Did he know how much that hurt? “Who were you talking to? Tell me!”

“I can’t.” His gaze slid away, and she could see him wanting to withdraw further, probably wanting to leave the flat altogether. He started to move her aside, so she grabbed his arm. When he tried to pull away, she held on.

He wouldn’t hurt her, she knew that. And she couldn’t let go. She had to get through his defences. She reached out intending to jab him in the chest with her finger, to pin him in place till he confessed the truth, but her hand had its own agenda. It flattened over the stampede of his heartbeat.

“You can’t shut me out like this. That’s not the deal.”

For an unmoored moment, it seemed he would say, What deal? and slip out of her grasp.

He closed his eyes. “I know.”

That was something. She clung to it the same way she was clinging to his arm. “Xinci, I’m worried about you. I’m worried about us.”

An emotion tightened his features. Was it anger or despair? “Can’t you trust me when I say there’s nothing to worry about?”

Shen Xi laughed, despite herself. “Idiot! You’d say you were fine if your arm had been hacked off at the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about it, it’ll grow back.’” She shook her head, humour consumed by exasperation. “Zhao Xinci!”

He glared back at her, the temperature between them rising.

“Okay, I’ll tell you what I think, and you can tell me which parts I’ve got wrong.” This was going to sound ridiculous, but she said it anyway. “I think you have been possessed. No, I know you said there’s no such thing as ghosts. It’s something else. Something that’s invaded your body.”

She waited for him to scoff, to roll his eyes at the absurdity, but he turned his head to the door without leaving, without trying to free himself. His jaw was clenched tight. He looked trapped.

Her heart was galloping to match his own now. “Oh, Xinci. Sweetheart.“

“Don’t.” At last he tried to shake off her hold, to move her hand from his chest. “You need to stay away—”

She refused to relinquish her hold. “Did you tell anyone?” He hadn’t. Of course he hadn’t. Gao Jingfeng didn’t know, and if he were going to tell anyone else, it would have been her. “So your plan was, what, to pretend nothing was happening and hope the trained detectives you work with wouldn’t notice. Hope I wouldn’t notice? Or Yunlan? Do you have any idea how perceptive he is?”

Zhao Xinci glared. “It doesn’t have to affect you or Yunlan. I can control it. I’m not bringing it home.”

He believed that!

“I can still do all the things I need to,” he went on, the words grinding out of him. Trying to convince himself as much as her. “I can provide for you, I can—”

“It’s not about what you can do for me! It’s about who you are.” She resisted the urge to shake him. Caring about him more than he cared for himself—it was hard!

And in the end, what could she do? If Zhao Xinci was helpless in the face of this being, this not-a-ghost, what chance did she have of extricating him? Except—except the voice that had answered Zhao Xinci hadn’t been cruel or blustering. Perhaps she could reason with it, convince it to leave them in peace. There was no question she was better at sympathetic persuasion than her bull-headed husband.

First, though, she needed to know exactly what they were dealing with. “I’m going to make tea,” she said, “and then you’re going to tell me everything, right from the start. Okay?”

A sigh welled out of him. “I was protecting you,” he said, gruffly.

“Zhao Xinci.” She dropped her forehead onto his shoulder and hugged him, heedless of the rigidity in his body. Her husband’s body, hers to love and defend. “You really should know better.”


*


“I want to talk to him.”

Half an hour later, and Shen Xi was reeling from a string of revelations: the strange cases Zhao Xinci had been working involved people of a different species, with superpowers like the characters in Yunlan’s comics; these people weren’t supposed to be in Haixing, in Dragon City, but some of them found their way here, and often they were desperate to avoid being sent back; one had invaded her husband and claimed that trying to evict him would be dangerous.

She teetered on a precipice of existential dread, a jumble of feelings threatening to avalanche; she needed to act before the enormity of it all overwhelmed her.

What else did she know of the intruder? He was left-handed, he’d moved the manuscript she was working on, and he’d covered her with a blanket while she slept.

“I want to talk to him alone. You in there, can you hear me?”

The stubborn jut of Zhao Xinci’s chin was very much his own. “What do you think that will achieve?” he asked, tiredly. “It’s a done deal.”

“Maybe, maybe not. If it is, that’s all the more reason I should get to know the third person sleeping in our bed!” Shen Xi regretted that as soon as she’d said it. Too much an accusation, when Zhao Xinci was already hurt and defensive. Too defensive on her part, too. Besides, she didn’t want to think about the intruder lying next to her while she slept, every night for the last week. About what he could have done to her without her realising, while Zhao Xinci slept.

Her stomach heaved; bile burned the back of her throat. No. Don’t think about it. Concentrate on the small kindness of the blanket, the mystery of the manuscript.

Zhao Xinci was scowling. “That’s exactly it. I don’t want him involved with my family. I already told him—he agreed—”

“Zhao Xinci,” Shen Xi interrupted sharply, “listen to me. You are part of this family. I can’t believe I have to spell this out. This being—this person—if they’re inside you, they’re already involved. Do you think I want a stranger lurking behind your eyes, watching me, watching Yunlan? Do you think I can stand wondering, every moment, if you’re you or someone else? Or were you just going to stop coming home altogether, stop touching me, stop spending time with your son?”

“You don’t understand. Dragon City is under invasion. Our safety is eroding, and with it the safety of all of Haixing. And Zhang Shi can help me stop it. Together, we can protect humanity.” He sounded determined. He didn’t want this being, this Zhang Shi, to leave! He thought it was an opportunity. And if he was right—if it was necessary, what then? What did it mean for them personally?

“So he’s your new partner, now Gao Jingfeng has gone to the ministry?”

Zhao Xinci hesitated. “That’s one way of looking at it. More of an associate than a partner, really.”

And how do you know he’s not using you, rather than the other way around? Zhao Xinci, you’re harbouring a fugitive, giving him access to your badge and your gun, and you haven’t told anyone. She didn’t want to say that, to raise those doubts, especially when Zhang Shi might be listening. And she didn’t need to point out she’d met his previous partner, that that was how partnership worked. She swallowed. “Why you? Why did he choose you?”

“I happened to be there. His previous host was dead. There was nowhere else for him to go.”

“Did you—in the line of duty, I mean. Did you have to kill his previous host?” Shen Xi bit her lip to keep from asking if Zhang Shi could be seeking revenge. To keep her hysteria from bubbling out. It was a ludicrous situation, absurd and terrifying. How were they going to get through this?

Zhao Xinci curled his hands around his teacup. “He killed himself. Was dead when we got there.”

That was some small mercy. And ‘we’ meant Zhao Xinci and Gao Jingfeng, and the intruder had chosen Zhao Xinci though he was plainly the harder nut to crack. That was something else. Shen Xi would have made the same choice. “Let me talk to him. I’m not letting you into our bedroom till we’ve spoken.”

Zhao Xinci glared at her, exasperation personified, and put down his cup to cross his arms. He really thought that his body being contested ground was a work matter, and she was meddling.

Shen Xi wanted to grab him and shake some sense into him, but she took his hand in hers and held it, firm and gentle, trying to remind him what they were to each other. She had the right to do this, and she had to do it now, before she lost her nerve. While Yunlan was still safely asleep.

Zhao Xinci’s glare wavered and dropped. “Shen Xi—”

Helpless, despairing. What, did he think the reality would make her withdraw? Or that she’d prefer the counterfeit husband to the original? That would never, ever happen. Zhao Xinci’s sharp edges and obstinance were as integral to him as his humour and strong principles. She loved the whole as he’d always been. She needed him. Her throat tightened, aching.

She squeezed his hand. “Zhao Xinci, I’m on your side, always.”

A tense pause, and then he turned his hand so they were both holding on, like people being torn apart—or saving each other. Their eyes met in silent promise. “And you,” muttered Zhao Xinci, low and harsh, “don’t you try anything.”

He wasn’t speaking to her.

And then his expression changed. Zhao Xinci melted away; the stiffness in his shoulders eased. His eyes flashed bright golden—mysterious, alien, right here in her home.

Carefully, firmly, she withdrew from the stranger’s grip and, for diplomacy’s sake, resisted the urge to wipe her hands on her skirt. “Tell me—” Her tone was as steady as she could make it. “—who are you? What do you want from us? And why did you move my manuscript?”



END