Nobody in the compound slept the night the second bell rang out of turn. The junior disciples had begun taking bets, which was its own kind of forecast.
“You are early,” she said, without looking up. “That is either respect or nerves.”
Whatever had walked through the outer array had not bothered to close it behind itself. Outside, the market went on shouting about fish, entirely unbothered by the end of an era.
Money moves quietly in a city like this; grudges do not. A merchant with nothing to sell is a merchant with something to hide.
The estate was smaller than the rumours, and better defended than the maps. Three of the seven seals had been broken, and none of them from the outside.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” she asked. “I would have said yes. You never bothered to ask.”
She read the report twice, then burned it, then wrote down the three sentences worth keeping. It was not a complicated arrangement, which was precisely what made it dangerous.
“I am not asking you to trust me,” he said. “I am asking you to be practical.”
The blade was old, badly balanced, and the only honest thing in the room. He had been told the family was in decline. Decline, apparently, still ran to four courtyards.
“Whatever you are about to do,” the guard said, “please do it somewhere that is not my shift.”
“Say the number out loud,” the old man said. “Things you refuse to say out loud tend to get expensive.”
The snow kept falling, patient as a creditor.