Ordinarily, they would walk around the festively decorated courtyard, greeting clan members and accepting their respect-paying, but tonight Hilo led Wen to the main table and helped her into her chair. He took his seat next to her and remained there as guests came by in small groups to speak to him. He seemed to everyone to be in a good mood, attentive, smiling in his usual relaxed way.
Wen returned well wishes, nodding and smiling more than speaking. Every time she opened her mouth she feared she would make a mistake. She used to possess a nearly perfect memory for faces and names, a skill that had served her well in every social situation, but she had lost that as well. Just get through this, she told herself.
The cold spell had lifted, but it was still uncommonly chilly for what was supposed to be the start of spring. Women pulled shawls over bare shoulders, and evenly spaced gas lanterns cast warmth and flickering firelight shadows against the erected red canopies sheltering the tables. The children were brought out by their grandmother right before dinner was served—Niko and Ru in little suits and ties, Jaya in a yellow dress and white tights that she’d somehow already managed to stain at the knees. She ran ahead of her brothers and tried to climb into Wen’s lap and onto the table. “Jaya-se, sit down properly,” Wen scolded, struggling to wrangle her youngest and breathing a sigh of relief when Lina took the toddler to play on the swing set on the garden lawn with her little cousin Cam.
“You’re looking well, Mrs. Kaul,” said Woon’s wife, coming over to sit next to Wen while her husband was engaged in conversation with a handful of senior Luckbringers. “I pray the gods favor you with good health this year.”
“Thank you . . . Kiya,” Wen said, relieved she remembered the woman’s name. Her words came out slow but otherwise normal. “I hope . . . the same for you.”
The woman’s smile faltered for a moment but she pulled it back into place and nodded over at Hilo, who was walking around with Niko and Ru, proudly letting people exclaim over them and indulging Ru’s talkativeness. He gave each boy a bag of candy coins and sent them off with the mission to hand them out to all the other youngsters. “You have beautiful children,” Kiya said to Wen with a wistful smile. “You must be very proud about the future of the clan.”
Wen wondered how much Woon Papi told his wife when it came to clan affairs, whether she knew how much financial strain No Peak was under. “The future of . . . the clan,” she reminded Kiya, nodding to the huge party, “is bigger than that.”
Anyone observing the large and well-dressed crowd tonight, the overflowing food and hoji, the gleam of jade on hundreds of wrists and necks, would think the No Peak clan was invincible. That was by design. There was an art to shaping people’s impressions—a small room could be made to seem big, flaws in a house could be transformed into assets. On this night, she’d made No Peak seem too wealthy and powerful to fall. Reality was more complicated. Wen had seen newspaper photographs of the graffitied proclamation on the glass doors of the Double Double. Although she knew no one would dare attack such a large gathering of Green Bones, especially on the eve of a holiday, her eyes searched out the figures of the guards standing watch by the estate’s brick walls and iron gates. No one was guaranteed anything—not them, not their enemies.
Shae came over to take her spot at the head table as the waiters began to bring out the main courses. Kiya stood briskly. “I’d better collect my husband and get back to our own seats,” she announced, and pulled insistently on Woon Papi’s arm, leading him away. Juen Nu and his wife claimed their places next to Hilo. Tar, who’d recently returned from a trip to Espenia, arrived with his lover, Iyn Ro. Both of them seemed to be several glasses of hoji into the party and were hanging on to each other, laughing loudly. Anden quietly took the seat next to Wen, letting out a relieved breath and giving her a small smile. “I’m glad I’m sitting next to you, sister Wen.”
Wen was glad to be sitting next to Anden as well. He alone understood what she’d been through on that horrible night in Port Massy. He’d confided that he too sometimes woke thrashing from nightmares in which he couldn’t breathe. She owed Anden her life, but he was still the unassuming young man she’d always known. When her words stuck or slurred, he never looked at her with pity or impatience. All the strain she felt while trying to talk to the other guests vanished, and ironically, when she was relaxed, she had barely any trouble. “How’s medical school?”