By the time the argument reached the courtyard, half of it had already been decided. The estate was smaller than the rumours, and better defended than the maps.
The corridor smelled of iron filings and old incense — a workshop's smell, not a temple's. Three of the seven seals had been broken, and none of them from the outside.
Nothing about the wound was fatal, which suggested the intent had been a message. He understood, then, that he had been the message and not the messenger.
Whatever had walked through the outer array had not bothered to close it behind itself. They had rehearsed the lie so many times that the truth felt like the improvisation.
Money moves quietly in a city like this; grudges do not. The junior disciples had begun taking bets, which was its own kind of forecast.
In the capital, a favour is a currency with a floating exchange rate. What he wanted was simple. What he was willing to trade for it was the interesting part.
A merchant with nothing to sell is a merchant with something to hide. Every question she asked had a cheaper answer waiting behind it, and she refused all of them.
The old instructor used to say that a technique you cannot explain is a technique you do not own. Three days of travel had rubbed the edges off the plan without improving it.
He had been told the family was in decline. Decline, apparently, still ran to four courtyards. He counted the guards twice, got two different numbers, and decided the second one was a lie.
“I am not asking you to trust me,” he said. “I am asking you to be practical.”
“Do you know what the worst part is?” she asked. “I would have said yes. You never bothered to ask.”
There were two ways out of the valley, and someone had spent real money closing one of them. She had spent four years learning to be unremarkable, and it was about to stop working.
The technique took eleven breaths. He had, by his own estimate, about seven. The contract's ninth clause was written in a hand that did not match the other eight.
There is a difference between a debt and a leash, and the difference is usually paperwork. She read the report twice, then burned it, then wrote down the three sentences worth keeping.
Three days of travel had rubbed the edges off the plan without improving it. The blade was old, badly balanced, and the only honest thing in the room.
The snow kept falling, patient as a creditor.