It seemed like our talk was coming to a close. I didn’t want to let her get away completely unscathed.
“You know, you wouldn’t have to put up with crap from the other gods if you took over from the Jade Emperor,” I said. “If you were sitting on the Dragon Throne of Heaven.”
She looked at me incredulously. I could tell I was speaking treason.
“But that’s me saying crazy things,” I went on. “After all, you know your place, don’t you?”
Guanyin blinked, and then burst out into laughter. Surprisingly deep, side-clutching laughter. It was as rusty on her as her cruel voice was.
“Oh man,” she said when she was finally done. “If you ever try to provoke me like that again, I’ll slap the taste out of your mouth.”
She wiped a tear from her eye and smiled, her face put back to its normal serenity.
“And then I’ll turn you into a goddamn cricket.”
33
I may have acted tough, standing up to Guanyin, but in reality I felt as if I’d barely escaped that conversation with my life. I could finally see why Quentin was so hesitant to get on her bad side.
In what I considered a massive reprieve, she didn’t show up again for a while. I assumed the goddess was plotting her next move now that her best piece was proving wayward.
Despite what I’d told her, though, I hadn’t left the game entirely. After what happened to Yunie and Androu, I’d simply switched my priorities to defense. Guanyin might have put wards of some kind around Santa Firenza, but like she said, she wasn’t infallible. There were still more than ninety demons out there, and I’d be damned if I let one get too close again.
I used true sight preemptively at school until the brink of exhaustion, trying to act like an early warning radar for the entire building in case a yaoguai came back for more. Eventually I had to settle for only looking during class breaks, or I wouldn’t have had the stamina to extend the search at night.
I stayed awake in my room until my eyes nearly fell out of my head, scanning as far and wide as I could. Without the height advantage that Quentin’s leaping provided, it took a lot longer to get a decent area covered. I began to feel like a human lighthouse, casting high beams into the endless sea.
With nothing better to do in between sweeps, I worked on my college application essays. If guilt and fear weren’t going to let me sleep, I could at least be productive.
I wrote in a pensive, dreamlike state in the wee hours of the night. Hopefully that introduced a touch of whatever magic was missing, because I sure as hell didn’t know how to add it on purpose.
I made so many revisions I might have created a wormhole in space-time. On the advice of some admissions blog, I interviewed myself in my head, using posh Oxbridge voices reserved for world leaders. I even tried staring at the page with true sight, and I felt pretty dumb when all it did was show me the raccoons eating our garbage in the yard.
The sheer amount of effort I was putting into these essays had to add up to something. It would be a violation of thermodynamics if it didn’t.
The end of the month arrived. I bounded down the stairs to make my pilgrimage to Anna’s.
“Wait.” Mom pounced as I passed her. “You’re going to let her see you wearing those?”
I patted myself down, confused. My clothes should have been fine. She’d never objected to how I looked on any of my city trips before.
Then it hit me. I hadn’t seen Quentin in a while, which meant the spell that kept my (ugh) golden eyes hidden was long expired. I’d been going out every day “wearing contacts,” often right in front of my mother.
“I’ll, uh, take them out,” I said. “Why didn’t you say anything about them earlier?”
“You’re at that age.” She made a face of intense bitterness where another woman might have been pleasantly wistful. “I can’t stop you from doing everything. Even if you want to look like a cheap Internet girl.”
I stared at my mother for a second, and then I wrapped her in a big hug.
“But if you dye your hair I swear I’ll throw you out of this house,” she muttered into my shoulder.
My knee was bouncing up and down so much, I was afraid Anna could feel it all the way through her thick, solid floors. I couldn’t stop it. I was too nervous.
She had already blown past the amount of time she’d ever spent reading my essays before. A new PR. K-Song would have been proud.
Anna opened her mouth. I hitched in anticipation, fearing the worst.
Then she chuckled.