Rain had been falling for six days, and the river had opinions about it. In the capital, a favour is a currency with a floating exchange rate.
He had been told the family was in decline. Decline, apparently, still ran to four courtyards. The blade was old, badly balanced, and the only honest thing in the room.
“Half the sect thinks you are dead,” she said. “The useful half.”
Nothing about the wound was fatal, which suggested the intent had been a message. It was not a complicated arrangement, which was precisely what made it dangerous.
The technique took eleven breaths. He had, by his own estimate, about seven. Money moves quietly in a city like this; grudges do not.
He counted the guards twice, got two different numbers, and decided the second one was a lie. The junior disciples had begun taking bets, which was its own kind of forecast.
He understood, then, that he had been the message and not the messenger. There were two ways out of the valley, and someone had spent real money closing one of them.
“You are early,” she said, without looking up. “That is either respect or nerves.”
They had rehearsed the lie so many times that the truth felt like the improvisation. The corridor smelled of iron filings and old incense — a workshop's smell, not a temple's.
“It is not a rescue,” he corrected. “A rescue implies someone is going back.”
“Do you know what the worst part is?” she asked. “I would have said yes. You never bothered to ask.”
The snow kept falling, patient as a creditor.