83. The Rising Sun

{Naya}

Mom had white hibiscuses in her hair.

Her champagne chiffon dress spilled over the high swell of her belly. Six months have passed since we found out and I still couldn't believe that I was going to be a big sister.

Zayn Naim waited for my mom at the end of the aisle. Instead of wearing a standard black tux, he wore one of deep lavender. Standing behind Zayn at a podium was another magus named Gordon McDuff – Duffy for short. In addition to agreeing to becoming an ordained minister, Duffy also decided to leave his former boss, Janus Bergman, to come to work as an apprentice for Zayn.

For their wedding, Mom and Zayn didn't want any bridesmaids or groomsmen. They decided to keep everything fairly simple and low key despite the fact that money wasn't an object for Zayn. Mom said that she had always wanted a small, intimate wedding. But of course the reverend had insisted on drawing out the ceremony in one of his enormous megachurches.

Today, Mom was getting everything she wanted. The small congregation gathered in the elegant courtyard of Zayn's estate and watched my mom escort herself down the aisle. With her simple white dress and bouquet of flowers, she looked as radiant as ever. Zayn watched raptly, trying to hold back tears. I was trying to do the same and failing.

When the nuptials were over, everyone gathered to the rented outdoor stage that we set up right in front of the elephant fountain. I got on stage and joined the small band. Together we played a few popular wedding covers, some more upbeat covers, and I went solo on a couple of songs that I had written myself. Mom and Zayn danced to all of them. By the end, Mom was barefoot and perspiring, but laughing and having an amazing time.

I didn't realize it until I stepped down from the stage, but I was covered in a layer of sweat too. I went over to Zayn and Mom, hugged and kissed them both, and said, "I'm going to go clean up. I'll be right back."

Mom rubbed my arms and gave me a knowing smile. "Of course, baby. Take your time."

On the way inside, I spotted Sinbad and Portia. They were too immersed in their dancing to notice me. In fact everyone in the courtyard was caught up in their own revelry.

I wanted to call out to them, but thought better of it, so I simply smiled as I eased my way back to the inside of the estate. Even before I made it up the stairs to my room, I smelled the wedding feast from the kitchens. I wanted desperately to swing by and see what was on the menu, but there was no way I was going to go anywhere around food smelling like this.

I didn't want to spend any more time away from the party than I had to, but now that I was no longer a djinni, I couldn't just magically wish myself clean. Once I showered and fixed my hair, I hurried down to the main level and let myself into the kitchens. Most of the staff was gone. It looked as though the waiters had just finished bringing out the food into the courtyard for the guests.

I pouted at the empty counters; the smell of the feast was still present in the air.

"Don't look so down. I saved you some."

The voice sounded far away at first, but when I turned around, its owner was right behind me.

I lunged forward. "Uri!"

He was still wearing his chef's uniform and the smell of food clung to him, but I didn't care. Holding Uri no longer burned like it used to. And though his eye was still damaged from grappling with his inner fire six months ago, it had completely lost that grenadine light.

Uri was partially blind in one eye, but he was finally human, and that was all that mattered.

Alone in the kitchen, we took advantage of our solitude. Only a few hours had passed since the party began, yet we kissed as if days had gone by. These days I didn't take any moments for granted with Uri. I had gone too long without him in the desert. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night and reach for him just to make sure he was there. It was the same for Uri. He was still getting over the nightmares that took him back to that awful dungeon where the collector had him chained to the ceiling and tormented him with false illusions.

When he finally let me go, I pressed my fingertips lightly against his cheek with one hand and moved a curtain of his dark hair away from his damaged eye. He shied away from my touch as usual.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Uri," I said. "I love you just the same."

Uri took a step back and worked his hair back into place over his eye. "I know. I know. It's just, every time something draws attention to it, it makes me remember . . . everything."

That familiar concentration of pain began to well up in Uri's healthy eye. Ever since Duffy and Zayn broke the news that no alchemy would be able to fully repair his sight or completely eliminate the scar left behind, Uri had grown even more sensitive about the injury.

I reached for his lower back.

"I've got an idea. Let's take our food upstairs onto one of the terraces. We don't have to go back to the party. No one will notice we're gone anyway."

Minutes later, Uri and I were cuddled up on an outdoor sofa with our glasses of wine, plates of Uri's divine cuisine, and of course, a freshly lit bowl of hookah. Below us the wedding festivities kept going. Among the music and chorus of voices, I could sometimes hear my mother's rich laughter.

We smoked and dined and occasionally kissed. It was still all so new to me, Uri being human. His skin no longer radiated that supernatural warmth. In the past, whenever we touched, our inner fires were always creating their own commentary in the background.

Now it was just us.

The quiet was nice. Really nice. Uri and I spent our evenings with no more supernatural interruptions. We didn't have to hold back. We'd go out in public on dates. We'd eat in the privacy of our own room. We'd make out until our lips and tongues were spoiled and heavy. We'd touch and shiver and take off each other's clothes. We'd taste each other's new skin. There was no more fire and ash and spark. Only the luke warmth of salt and sweat and natural human sweetness.

Though I was grateful for the quiet, I still couldn't forget the sacrifices that had been made in order to make it so.

Swallowing the last of a piece of sushi, I said, "This is about the time when Ritsu would have found his way up here and forced himself between us."

Uri put his hand on my knee and squeezed. "You miss him."

I felt heat rush up into my face. "Not that way. I mean–"

Uri put his arm around me. "You don't have to explain. I know what you mean. What you and he had, it used to make me jealous. But now . . . I don't try to compare my relationship with you to his. He was your guardian. He looked out for you and ended up caring for you. He took care of you when I couldn't. And you cared for him too."

I met Uri's eye. "It's not the same as what I feel for you. Or at least . . . it wasn't."

I had to keep reminding myself that Ritsu was gone.

Before I realized what was happening, my hand had reached into my pocket and started rolling something hard and slender between my thumb and forefinger. After Ritsu had saved Usher and I from that jann in the elevator, he turned into a block of ice right before he shattered. All that was left of him was a tooth shard.

I lifted it from my pocket and twirled it slowly before my eyes. From my periphery, I could see Uri sending me a questioning look. Up until now he had never seen these remains.

I sighed. "Do you think there's any chance that Ritsu might . . . be alive somewhere?"

Uri held out his hand. "Naya, what is it you've got there? Is that something Ritsu gave to you?"

I explained how I came across the tooth as I placed it in his palm. He observed it in silence. Finally, he put it down on one of the half empty plates scattered across the bistro table.

"It looks like a regular primate tooth to me. I don't sense anything supernatural about it." Uri looked at me meaningfully. "You shouldn't get your hopes up. Have you shown this to Zayn yet?"

I shook my head. "No. I didn't think it would be fair with everything he's got going on. There was the wedding. Planning for the baby. Besides, I don't want to distract him while he's still working with Duffy on a way to heal your eye."

Slurrrrp.

Uri and I turned our heads at the random noise. It sounded like someone was trying to suck up the last of a thick smoothie through a narrow straw. Several times we tried to ignore the sound and go back to our conversation, but it continued to grow in volume.

Finally, we realized that the tooth was making the sound. The sharp end was digging into the leftovers of a deconstructed peach cobbler. At first we laughed at the sight of the inanimate object scooting along the plate and taking "sips" from the glazed peaches.

"It's as I suspected."

Silent as a ghost, Usher had wandered onto the armrest of the lawn sofa. She was back in her cat form, healthy and unharmed by granting my wish six months ago. When I found out that she was going to be okay, I was so relieved. I wasn't ready to lose another friend to that crazy ordeal.

Uri and I sat up straighter.

"What do you mean, Usher?" I asked. "What do you think is going on with it?"

The giant maine coon sauntered over my lap and onto the bistro table. With her paw, she tinkered with the plate so the tooth slid around the center. It jittered and shook whenever it was too far away a from the peach crumbles.

Usher studied the plate a moment longer with her intense yellow gaze before looking back up at us and asking, "Are either of you familiar with Chinese folklore?"

Uri and I glanced at each other before simultaneously shaking our heads. Usher turned, swiped up the tooth in her jaws and deposited it onto my lap.

"Keep this safe with you. Tonight when the celebration is over, meet me in the laboratory. I must discuss this with Zayn and Duffy."

I did as Usher told me and put the tooth out of sight and out of my mind until that night.

When Uri and I arrived in the basement where Zayn practiced his alchemy, we found him, Duffy and Usher waiting for us. The three of them were standing around a freshly drawn transmutation circle that had some objects occupying the center.

The lights were dim in the chamber and I could smell sage clouding the air.

"What's all this?" I said as Uri and I approached the circle of complex chalk drawings.

Zayn approached us. "Usher told Duffy and I everything that happened on the night we liberated Uriel. She also told us about the tooth that you saved after Ritsu disappeared. Duffy and I talked it over and discussed some possibilities. We have a theory that we can test right now. If you will, place the tooth in the center of the bowl of water."

I took a tentative step into the circle and gently deposited the tooth shard in the bowl. Lying next to the bowl was a pile of peaches. As soon as I stepped back, I gasped because the tooth started spinning around like a rudimentary compass. Then it began to levitate.

The water rose up and evaporated into a thick mist that enveloped the tooth. The tooth expanded and morphed into a long, ornate quarterstaff. It balanced itself upright on the ground. The growing mist congealed into a golden cloud. From it dropped what could only be described as a tall bipedal ape-man.

I blinked a few times.

It's Ritsu!

He looked a lot like he did as a shinigami, except his skin was no longer pale and covered in tattoos and the blue that clung to his lips and underneath his fingernails was now flesh-toned. His black hair was a golden brown, the same color as his eyes.

I called out his name, but he didn't respond. He seemed a little disoriented and just stared in all directions, squinting his eyes as if he couldn't see very well through the yellow mist.

Usher called, "Sun Wukong."

That, for some reason, caught Ritsu's attention. He turned his head and said, "Who said that?"

All of a sudden he noticed everyone standing around the circle. "Who are you people?"

Usher said quietly. "It's like I expected. He's a clone of the monkey god king, Sun Wukong. He must have been completely unaware of it until now."

"So does that mean he's still a shinigami?" Uriel asked.

Usher shook her feline head. "No. He's a monkey spirit that has somehow wound up trapped inside of a shinigami. I have no idea how or why that would have happened."

I chimed in, "Does he remember being Ritsu at all?"

"Mistress?" Ritsu wandered closer to the edge of the circle. The thick golden mist followed him and hovered around his body like a hula hoop. He stopped at the edge of the line of chalk as if something was holding him from crossing over.

I approached him. "Ritsu! How much do you remember?"

Once again he glanced around with puzzled eyes. His words came out slowly.

"What happened to me? I remember being really cold. I –" his eyes fell on Uri. "Oh. I see they succeeded in saving your burdensome ass. Welcome back."

Uri rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. I got closer and tried to walk up to Ritsu, but as I stepped forward and reached for him, I just ended up going right through him and landing on the ground on the other side of the circle.

"Ouch."

"He's no longer of this world, child," said Usher from the opposite end of the circle. "He's not human, demon, nor a djinni. He's made of light."

I rolled over. From inside the circle I saw Ritsu bending down for the pile of peaches. He selected one and ate it in just a few bites, pit and all. Then as if the mist finally released its grip on him, he took a step outside the circle. His golden skin was shining now. The hair on his head looked like it was made of gold dust.

Ritsu helped me to my feet. I hugged him as hard as I could.

"Thank you, Ritsu. For everything."

Ritsu hugged me back, but I could tell from the slightness of his touch that he didn't quite remember everything that we had been through together.

"Mistress, I don't think I can stay here for very long. Even if you had an endless supply of these peaches, I think I'm supposed to go back to wherever it is I came from. I need to figure who I really am and how I wound up here."

Against his chest, I nodded my head. "I understand. We'll be here if you ever need us."

From across the room, we both heard Uri clearing his throat. Ritsu gently pulled away and held me at arm's length.

Despite Uri's attitude, Ritsu stole a kiss on my cheek. It was nowhere near as cold as all his kisses before. I placed my hand over the warm, tingling spot and watched as he backed away from me.

This new golden Ritsu winked right before he claimed his quarterstaff and assumed a cross-legged position on top of the thick, hazy cloud.

The five of us watched on in awe as the cloud zoomed around the room a few times. Ritsu whooped in joy as he steered it upright into the ceiling. Like a ghost, he phased through the solid barrier and out of our world.

Wherever he went, I hope he finds what he's looking for. Some dreams never end. And it seemed like even with everything that's happened between us, mine and Uri's was just starting to begin. Ritsu deserved to share his dream with someone special.

But there's the possibility that dreams were something Ritsu could no longer experience now that he was finally awake. Perhaps he needed to move on.

He deserved to find someone who would one day walk beside him. Someone who would wait with him for the sun to rise. 

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