Zen steeled his heart. He had seen that before, too many times. Lan turned. With one burst of qì she was kneeling by Dilaya’s side, wrapping her arms around the unconscious girl’s waist; with the next, she was airborne, a smudge of pale páo against the cloud-covered sky as bright and as brief as a shooting star. Then she was gone, swallowed whole by the night. Once again, Zen was alone.
