The next morning, Da Bao had a hundred questions about the card.
He had been present when it appeared. He had watched Xu Hao turn it over, had read the word *Sia* with his own eyes, and had sat beside the fire long after the little brother he usually teased had finally fallen asleep.
Unfortunately, he had also spent those hours thinking.
"Can she hear us?" he asked over breakfast.
Xu Hao kept both hands around his cup. The porridge was thin, but warm, and he had discovered that standing was easier if he finished eating before attempting it.
"Not that I know of."
"Can she smell food from inside the card?"
"I don't know."
"Would she eat boar?"
"She once ate most of a chair cushion. I doubt she'd object to boar."
Da Bao brightened. "Then we should save her some."
Er Bao put another spoonful of porridge into Xu Hao's bowl.
"First, let him finish breakfast."
That was the fourth time he'd said something similar. It was beginning to make Xu Hao nervous.
"I'm not dying, Brother Er Bao."
"Good. Then eating won't interfere with your recovery."
Xu Hao looked at the card resting on a folded cloth beside his knee. He'd woken twice in the night to check that it was still there. Each time he'd run a thumb along its edge before putting it down again.
He had spent six years listening for the sound of Sia's paws whenever he came home.
Now he was listening to a piece of painted card.
* * *
After breakfast, Er Bao carried the card into a patch of sunlight, where the writing on its back was easiest to read.
Xu Hao sat on a low stone. Da Bao crouched opposite, his head so close to the card that Er Bao had to tell him to move before he blocked the light.
The first lines were familiar. Name: Sia. Beast: Wind Husky. Dust Realm, First Layer. Unique.
Below them, the writing continued.
Loyalty: 100.
Bravery: 100.
Strength: 12. Agility: 15. Stamina: 14. Defence: 10. Intelligence: 18. Perception: 16.
Wind affinity: 20%.
Xu Hao read the figures aloud. He could understand the words without knowing how he'd learned them, but he had no scale against which to judge the numbers.
"Is eighteen intelligence good?" Da Bao asked.
"Compared with what?"
"A normal dog."
"I never gave Sia a written examination."
"Perhaps you should have."
"Her strongest subject would have been opening cupboards."
Er Bao turned the card slightly. "These are more useful."
Two abilities occupied the next lines. Wind Step: a burst of wind-driven speed lasting three strides, followed by a one-minute recovery. Guardian's Instinct: the ability to detect hostile intent towards her owner, even while asleep.
Da Bao looked impressed. "That could save your life."
"It could," Xu Hao said.
He wasn't entirely pleased by the idea. He had brought Sia home from the shelter so she wouldn't spend her nights waiting for somebody who might never return. He hadn't done it so that, six years later and a world away, she could stand between him and things with teeth.
Beneath the abilities was a short description.
Born out of love. A man's best friend. Willing to die for her owner.
Xu Hao read the final words again.
Er Bao noticed. "What troubles you?"
"Her willingness doesn't trouble me. I know she'd try to protect me. I don't like that the card has decided dying for me is an attractive quality."
Da Bao scratched his jaw. "Dogs protect their families."
"Families should protect their dogs too."
Neither brother argued.
At the bottom were three more entries: Upgradable. Superimpose: Locked. Copies available: 2.
"Two," Da Bao repeated. "You could make two more?"
"Possibly. It doesn't say whether making them will nearly kill me again."
"We won't find out today," Er Bao said.
Xu Hao looked at his trembling hands and decided, reluctantly, that they agreed.
* * *
For the next hour they attempted to make the card do something less dangerous than create another card.
Xu Hao held it upright.
"Sia. Come."
Nothing happened.
He tried the word he'd used at home when she refused to leave the sofa. Then the one that meant she was about to be fed. He tried picturing her standing before him, complete with the peculiar way she leaned onto her front paws before stretching.
The card remained a card.
Da Bao suggested calling loudly enough for the whole hillside to hear.
"She has good hearing," Xu Hao said. "I shouldn't need to."
"She also has wind powers now. Perhaps she needs a wind command."
"What would that sound like?"
Da Bao took a deep breath and shouted something that made birds erupt from the branches above them.
Xu Hao covered one ear. "If that summons anything, I hope it comes for you first."
Er Bao stepped between them. "Enough."
"I only tried once," Da Bao protested.
"Once was plenty."
Xu Hao lowered the card. He had spent days trying to coax movement from a brush and a deck of blank cards. Last night they'd answered because he remembered Sia. It would be tempting to believe that every problem could be solved by wanting something strongly enough.
But he'd wanted her to return ever since he arrived in this forest. That hadn't made it happen.
"Could you try holding it?" he asked Er Bao.
The larger man accepted the card and examined it carefully. For a moment he closed his eyes. Then he handed it back.
"I feel nothing that tells me how to use it."
"Nor do I."
"You felt something when you made it."
"Pain. Quite a lot of that."
"Before the pain."
Xu Hao considered the question. He remembered the brush moving while he pictured Sia's ears, then the pale thread touching the card. He'd been afraid to look away.
"I wasn't ordering the brush," he said slowly. "I was remembering her."
"Then perhaps this is also something you have to understand rather than force."
It was a reasonable suggestion. Xu Hao disliked it on those grounds alone.
* * *
By midday, Er Bao insisted on a break.
Da Bao went down to the stream to check a fishing line. Xu Hao sat beside the cooking fire, copying the writing from the card onto the smooth side of a strip of bark. The tip of his charred twig made uneven marks; the lines describing Wind Step took three attempts before he was satisfied.
He was halfway through copying the final entry when a breeze lifted the corner of the folded cloth beneath the card.
The card slid towards the fire.
Xu Hao lunged. His hand reached it before the edge touched the embers, but the sudden movement sent a wave of dizziness through him. He caught himself against a stone with his free hand.
Er Bao was beside him at once.
"Are you hurt?"
"No." Xu Hao sat back, breathing through his nose until his stomach settled. "Only reminded that I shouldn't move like Da Bao."
Er Bao looked at the card clenched against Xu Hao's chest.
"Keep it in your bag."
"I did last night. I took it out to read."
"Then put it away when you're finished."
Xu Hao looked down. The illustration was unmarked. He didn't know if fire could damage it, or water, or the teeth of some passing beast. He didn't intend to learn by accident.
"Can somebody steal a card?" he asked.
"We don't know."
"Could they use it if they did?"
"We don't know that either."
He glanced at the forest around them. For the past few days, the thought of owning a magical power had seemed wonderfully private. Yet he was holding its only visible result in his palm. A thief wouldn't need to know what a Card Drawer was to take something that looked valuable.
Er Bao drew his sword a little farther from the fire and sat beside him.
"Write the questions down," he said. "And remember that you don't have to answer every one today."
Xu Hao frowned at the bark. "That's going to be a very long list."
"Then we'll need more bark."
* * *
The afternoon light was soft when Er Bao took him to the broad rock above the camp.
He brought no pebbles, no basket and no training staff. Xu Hao was grateful until Er Bao asked him to sit still and hold the card.
"I thought we'd agreed not to force it."
"We have. Don't try to summon her. Tell me what you feel."
Xu Hao rested the card on his open palm.
It was warm. Slightly heavier than its size suggested. When he turned the illustration towards him, he could almost hear Sia's claws scrabbling across the kitchen floor.
He shut his eyes and waited.
Nothing in the forest changed. The stream continued below the rock. A bird called from the higher pines. He could feel the card against his skin.
Then he noticed a faint tug.
It wasn't coming from the trees. The sensation deepened when he lifted the card, weakened when he held it out to one side, and returned when he brought it closer to his chest.
"Er Bao?"
"Yes?"
"I think it's trying to go somewhere."
"Where?"
Xu Hao moved the card towards the middle of his chest. The tug strengthened.
Er Bao leaned forward. "Don't do anything you can't stop."
"I haven't done anything yet."
The card vanished between Xu Hao's fingers.
For a heartbeat, he simply stared at the empty space.
Then he searched his sleeve, his lap and the rock beneath him. The card hadn't fallen. It hadn't slipped into his coat. It was gone.
Er Bao stood. "What happened?"
"If I knew, I would be significantly calmer."
"Can you sense it?"
Xu Hao closed his eyes.
The dark hall appeared with its familiar brush and the remaining blank cards. But the hall no longer felt entirely empty. Somewhere beyond the brush was another space, hidden from sight yet unmistakably present.
He turned his attention towards it.
A feeling answered him.
It was not a voice. It carried no words and showed him no picture. It was the certainty of someone waiting, impatient and pleased with herself, on the other side of a door.
He remembered arriving home with an armful of books and hearing claws skitter across the tiles before he could fit the key into the lock.
"Sia?"
The feeling grew warmer.
Xu Hao opened his eyes.
Er Bao was watching him.
"She's there," Xu Hao said.
"Where?"
"Inside. I can't explain it better than that."
"Can you bring the card back?"
Xu Hao started to try. Then he stopped.
His hands still shook a little from the morning, and the memory of the night before was far too recent. He had found the card without knowing how; it could wait a few hours before he risked another experiment.
"Tomorrow," he said.
Er Bao took a slow breath and nodded. "Tomorrow."
On the way back to camp, Da Bao demanded to see their progress. Xu Hao told him that he had managed to lose a priceless magical card without standing up from a rock.
For several seconds, his oldest brother looked stricken.
Then Er Bao explained.
Da Bao grinned. "So she's hiding?"
"Something like that."
"Well, tell her supper's ready. Nobody in this family should miss supper."
Xu Hao laughed, and was surprised by how much easier his chest felt.
That night, when he lay down beneath the shelter, he reached automatically for the pocket where he'd kept the card. His fingers found only cloth.
He closed his eyes instead.
Somewhere inside him, Sia was waiting at a door.
For the first time since he'd lost her, he was reasonably certain it was a door he could open.