The afternoon sun was still on the courtyard when Lin Xuan came back from the Arena, and instead of walking to his quarters he sat down at the writing desk in the inner room and laid both hands flat on the wood.

’Mira.’

[ Yes, Xuan. ]

’Tonight we need to put eyes on Madam Mei.’

[ I was waiting for you to say it. (◠‿◠) ]

’If her plan failed and she paid for it in advance, she is going to want answers from whoever sold it to her. People do not throw away an investment without at least a complaint.’

[ They do not. The question is whether she goes tonight or waits. The longer she waits, the colder the grievance gets. My read is tonight. The rage is fresh. ]

’Then tonight we need to follow her.’

The hours drifted toward dusk. He ate the small meal Lian brought him without saying much, took a long meditation cycle Mira recommended, and brought the cup at his ribs back up to forty percent. The formal robe of Skyedge stayed in the chest. He pulled a dark traveling robe with a hood, fastened Plain Steel under the lower fold so it sat suppressed against his thigh, and took up position at the inner courtyard pillar with the cleanest sightline to the side door of Madam Mei’s wing.

The lanterns of Yuncheng came on along the avenues. The sky overhead bruised from orange to deep purple.

He waited.

She came out a little after the third lantern lit on the residence wall.

Dark blue cloak. Hood low over the upper line of her face. One guard at her right shoulder. She crossed the inner courtyard at the unhurried pace of a woman who used the side door more often than the main gate. The guard kept a polite half pace back.

’She is moving exactly like you said.’

[ See? Exactly like I said. Tail her, Xuan. Thirty paces back. And please do not look like you are auditioning for the role of alleyway creep. ]

He went after them.

The streets of Yuncheng emptied as they walked. Three blocks east, then a turn south, then a narrower street where the lanterns thinned to one every twenty paces. Madam Mei never looked behind her. Lin Xuan kept the hood forward and his footwork at the rhythm of any local resident heading home from a long shift.

She turned a final corner into a smaller lane and stopped at a wooden door under a paper lantern. The door was the kind a tea house used when it preferred customers who did not want their names in a book. She went in. The guard followed.

Lin Xuan reached the lane mouth and stopped under the eave of a closed shop.

’A tea house.’

[ One of the better ones for private business. The interior is divided into stalls. Wooden partitions between seating areas, head-high, designed for people who pay to drink without being seen by other people who pay to drink. If you take the stall next to hers, the partition will not stop sound. ]

’I am going in.’

[ Carefully. Hood up. Pay the boy at the door without looking at him. ]

The inside of the tea house smelled of green tea and the small smoke of an oil lamp at the back. Wooden partitions ran the length of the main room, six stalls on each side, each with a low table, two cushions, and a single hanging lantern.

A boy at the door took Lin Xuan’s coin without lifting his head from the small tray he was counting. Lin Xuan kept the hood low and walked the line of stalls at the unremarkable pace of a man who knew where he was going. He counted the partitions until he heard the click of a teapot lid two stalls down, and the cool clipped voice of his stepmother behind it.

He sat in the stall next to hers.

The boy brought a pot of the cheapest green on the menu. Lin Xuan paid for it before it was poured and waited until the boy was gone.

Then he pressed his shoulder lightly against the wooden partition.

The voices came through clean.

"Master Hu."

The clipped tone of Madam Mei. Lower than usual. Already containing a temperature she was working to keep in.

"Madam. Please. Sit. The tea is fresh."

The second voice was older. Patient. The cadence of a man who had been across a table from people in this exact mood many times across many years.

A wooden cup set down on the table. The small ceramic sound of the pour.

"Master Hu. I want an explanation."

"I would like to give you one, Madam. Tell me what you saw."

The volume of Madam Mei’s next sentence climbed.

"What I saw was my investment purged from the body of the target inside the first minute of his combat. Eliminated before he had finished his fourth exchange. The target then went on to win his fight, break the principal sword of Thunder Lotus in front of fifteen thousand people, and walk off the platform with a smile."

A small clink of porcelain. The old man drinking.

"That is a result, Madam."

"It is a failure."

"It is a striking outcome. I do not yet know whether to call it a failure or something else."

"Master Hu, I do not pay you to find words interesting. I pay you for a result."

"Madam, I understand. I am telling you honestly. My product has not been purged from a target’s body in two decades. What you describe should not be possible. I do not yet know why it occurred."

"That is not a response I will accept."

"It is the truth, Madam."

A pause. The teapot was lifted again. Another small pour.

"Master Hu. We have an arrangement. I have paid in advance. My word stands and I expect yours to stand. If your product failed, your obligation to me did not end with the failure. I expect you to fulfill what we agreed."

"Madam. My word is what it is. The agreement will be fulfilled. If poison did not work on the target, then poison was the wrong method. I will change methods if I must. I have other ways. The result will be delivered."

A pause inside the stall.

When Madam Mei spoke again, the cool clipped tone she had been holding had warmed by the smallest fraction. There was something that was not quite a smile in it, but was close to the cousin of one.

"...Good. That is what I wanted to hear, Master Hu."

"I thought it might be."

"Use whatever method you require. I do not care about the manner. I care about the outcome."

"Understood, Madam."

The teapot lid clicked back into place. Cushion fabric brushed against wood. Someone standing.

"I expect this resolved, Master Hu. If it is not."

"Madam. You do not need to finish that sentence."

"...Good. Then I expect to hear from you."

The footsteps of Madam Mei came around the partition fast.

Lin Xuan dropped his head and let the hood fall forward over his face, both hands closing around the still-warm wooden cup as if he were finishing the last of his pour. He kept his shoulders low, his breathing slow, and his eyes on the surface of the tea.

Madam Mei walked past the opening of his stall without slowing.

She did not turn her head.

The dark blue cloak passed the corner of his vision and was gone. The guard followed two paces behind her with the same lack of curiosity. The wooden door of the tea house creaked open and shut.

Lin Xuan held still for three breaths.

Then he leaned his head out of the stall.

The stall next to his was empty.

The teapot was on the table, the lid still warm. Two wooden cups sat on opposite sides of the table. The cushion on the far side was empty.

The man was gone.

The back of the tea house had a second corridor he had not registered when he walked in. A hallway leading to what was probably a side door for staff and certain types of guest. Master Hu had gone out that way the moment Madam Mei stood up, and Lin Xuan had not had a single second of warning to look around the partition before he had to drop his head for Madam Mei walking past.

’Shit.’

[ It happens, Xuan. ]

’I missed him by a count.’

[ You missed him by a count. He left through the back. He has been doing this longer than you have been alive. The architecture of this place was already in his hand. There was no version of tonight where you got eyes on him without him knowing he was being watched. ]

’...I wanted his face.’

[ At least we got the voice. If we cross him again, anywhere in the empire, in any disguise, in any robe, I can recognize him from three sentences. The voice is filed. Do not worry about the face. ]

’You are sure?’

[ Very sure, Xuan. If he opens his mouth near us again, I will know before he finishes pretending to be someone else. ]

Lin Xuan pulled the hood back forward and lifted the wooden cup. The tea was cold by now. He drank it anyway, paid for the pot a second time as a courtesy to the boy at the door, and walked out into the lane.

The night air over Yuncheng was cooler now. The mulberry of the sky had gone to a dark slate. The lanterns along the side avenues burned low and steady. Somewhere a door closed and a dog barked once.

Lin Xuan kept the hood low and walked back the way he had come.

’We have a name. Master Hu. We have a venue and we have her own voice telling him to use whatever method he needs.’

[ Yes. ]

’And we have nothing my father can hold in his hand.’

[ No. ]

’...She gave him a free hand, Mira. She told him to change methods. That was not a small request. That was a woman opening the door to anything that works. Poison failed, so the next attempt is going to be something else. Something I have not been preparing for.’

[ That is the part of the conversation that should worry you most. The first attempt was a known method. We know what an inhibitor looks like and we know how to react to one now. The next attempt is unknown. It could be a hired blade. It could be a forged accusation. It could be something inside the tournament that looks like an accident. Anything. ]

’Then I need to prepare for everything.’

[ You prepare for what you can prepare for. You also start sleeping in a room that is not the one she knows you sleep in. ]

’...Noted.’

He turned the corner of his own street. The lanterns of the residence were lit at a steady amber. He slipped through the side door he had used at sundown, walked up the corridor at the unremarkable pace of a young master who had simply gone out for a walk, and closed the door of his quarters behind him.

The dark robe came off and went into the chest.

He sat at the writing desk and stared at the empty wood for a long count.

Tomorrow he had to find a way to get something solid into his father’s hands. Tonight he had to start treating the next move from his stepmother as something his current habits would not necessarily catch.