By the time the argument reached the courtyard, half of it had already been decided. The junior disciples had begun taking bets, which was its own kind of forecast.
Money moves quietly in a city like this; grudges do not. The technique took eleven breaths. He had, by his own estimate, about seven.
The estate was smaller than the rumours, and better defended than the maps. She had spent four years learning to be unremarkable, and it was about to stop working.
“Whatever you are about to do,” the guard said, “please do it somewhere that is not my shift.”
Nothing about the wound was fatal, which suggested the intent had been a message. The blade was old, badly balanced, and the only honest thing in the room.
The corridor smelled of iron filings and old incense — a workshop's smell, not a temple's. They had rehearsed the lie so many times that the truth felt like the improvisation.
“I am not asking you to trust me,” he said. “I am asking you to be practical.”
He counted the guards twice, got two different numbers, and decided the second one was a lie. He had been told the family was in decline. Decline, apparently, still ran to four courtyards.
Whatever had walked through the outer array had not bothered to close it behind itself. The old instructor used to say that a technique you cannot explain is a technique you do not own.
There is a difference between a debt and a leash, and the difference is usually paperwork. A merchant with nothing to sell is a merchant with something to hide.
In the capital, a favour is a currency with a floating exchange rate. The contract's ninth clause was written in a hand that did not match the other eight.
Three days of travel had rubbed the edges off the plan without improving it. Someone had gone to considerable trouble to make the scene look like carelessness.
The door closed. Somewhere below, a ledger was quietly amended.