by JC Kang
“No; our informant leaves messages in the space between the bricks and doorframe. A clan courier comes by weekly to pick them up. No new messages since his last visit.”
Tian looked up to the Iridescent Moon, now waxing to its first gibbous. They’d made it, with an hour to spare. Still… “The office is closed.”
“Our contact works until the second gibbous.”
“So we just knock?”
Jie shook her head as she ran a hand over the window shutters. “He won’t answer.”
Tian stared at her. “Then how do we contact him?”
“I’ll go in and find him.” Jie flashed a grin. “Come on.”
Why didn’t she just pick the lock? Tian followed as she went around to the side, which was shaded from the moon.
Jie sniffed. “Yuna hasn’t arrived yet.”
Yuna smelled like lavender, though he had to be close to detect it. She’d shoved him away when he tried to sniff her hair. On the other hand, the half-elf’s sense of smell was nothing short of mindboggling. Now, she was looking up at the second-floor window.
He peered at the first-floor window right below. “Why the second floor and not this one?”
“Locked.”
“And the second floor isn’t?” Tian tapped his chin.
“There’s always one unlocked window on the top floor of every government office.”
Tian tapped his chin. “Why?”
“By imperial order, so that clan members can get in and out if they need to. Of course, only one person in each office knows to leave it unlocked every night.”
“How can you tell which window?”
“It’s marked in the shutter decorations.” She pointed. “See the lotus flower?”
He peered through the night. Nothing except plain scrollwork. He shook his head.
“Once you know what to look for, you’ll see it on every government office. Now go around to the front.” She hopped up to the first-floor window’s shutters and, using the wood as a foothold, proceeded upwards. Though the surface looked flat, her little fingers and toes found spaces between the bricks. Reaching the second-floor windowsill, she wiggled her dagger into the gap between the shutters. With a flick, they popped open, and she somehow managed not to get knocked back. She disappeared into the building.
He blew out a breath and pinched the flesh on the side of his waist. If the clan ever thought he would one day be able to do that, they’d be sorely disappointed.
His palms dripped as he headed around front. After their scary evening, there was no telling if more Triads or murderers would pass by while he stood there, alone. His heart thumped as he rounded the corner and came to the entrance.
In a few minutes, the doors swung open a crack. A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him in.
While every other magistrate’s office boasted two-story entryways that flaunted the power of the imperial court, this one screamed of inattention. Illuminated by a light bauble hanging from the vaulted ceiling, the room had simple wooden benches on the side walls and a desk at the back. No hanging scrolls, no portrait of the Emperor, no carpet on the stone floor. An archway behind the desk was the only exit, save for the two windows in the front on both the first and second floors. The sound of a broom brushing across the floor emanated from beyond.
“That’s our contact,” Jie said, pitching her voice to carry. “I didn’t see him on my way down.”
The sweeping stopped. A man’s crackling voice rang out, “Who’s there?”
The tone was so gruff, Tian would’ve cowered behind Jie if she were any larger.
A wizened face appeared in the archway, eyebrows clashing together, followed by the rest of a body clothed in the robes of a government worker. The stooped man held a broom over his shoulder as if it were a cudgel. “Get out! The office is closed.”
“Old Zeng, we’re looking for Uncle Chi.” Jie bowed her head and presented a small jade plaque in two hands. Wherever she’d been hiding that, all the Triads patting her down throughout the afternoon hadn’t uncovered it.
“Heavens.” The old man’s brows relaxed, and his cracked lips rounded. He bowed low. “I never thought I’d see an actual agent. I didn’t think they’d send children. How may I serve the Emperor?”
Tian craned his neck to get a better view of the jade plaque. Whatever it was had changed this Old Zeng’s attitude in the span of a heartbeat.
“We need you to arrange a meeting with Faceless Chang,” Jie said.
His eyes went wide as teacups. “Whatever for?”
“Imperial business.” Jie held the plaque up.
The old man bowed to the plaque again. “It’s not that easy. When he’s inside the Tang, you’d have to pass an introduction with their entire senior hierarchy to meet with him.”
“We saw him outside the Tang,” Tian said.
“Then you probably saw him surrounded by his toughest guards. Did they let you get near?” Old Zeng sounded smug.
Tian shook his head. They’d kept everyone well beyond arm’s length.
“So you see, you have no chance of meeting with Faceless Chang.”
“Surely you have contacts inside the Tang?” Jie asked.
The man shuffled on his feet.
She harrumphed. “Then what does the Emperor pay you for?”
“I do, but…” His lip quivered.
“Have you been inside the Tang?” Tian asked. “Can you tell us what it looks like?”
Old Zeng studied him, then turned the broom upside down and traced lines on the floor. “It’s eight buildings, with passages connecting them all on all three levels.”
Jie held up a staying hand. “They’re only two stories high.”
Tian shook his head. From the height of the building… “There’s an underground level.”
“Smart boy.” The old man grinned. “That was originally the storage level.”
“Storage? For what?” Jie asked.
Tian jumped up and down as the histories came back to him. “They are part of the city’s outer walls!”
“You know your history.” The man beamed. “Go on.”
Excitement built in his chest. “The Founder’s Consort, as Queen Regent. She had them built to store arms and supplies. When she died at the great old age of one hundred twenty-four, the land was at peace. They’d only just started construction of the outer walls. Her heir thought it was a waste of funds, so they stopped.”
“Right,” Old Zeng said. “Anyway, Faceless Chang’s office and residence is on the eastern side of the second floor. The only way to get there is by going to the steps on the western side of the first floor. All the first-floor windows are boarded up, and the only way in is from the first-floor doors on the eastern side.”
The image burned in Tian’s head. To get to Faceless Chang, they’d have to wind up and around, and go through who knew how many Triad guards. “What is on each floor?”
“First floor is gambling tables and a bar. Second floor is space for the Triads: barracks, offices, and the like.”
Tian swallowed hard, not wanting to know the answer to his next question. “And the lower level?”
“Yue, opium, and prostitutes.”
Tian shuddered. Down below, the stuffy air would smell of yue smoke and kissing women. How—
The front door creaked open.
Heart leaping into his throat, Tian spun around.
Yuna slid in between the two doors, and her eyes fell on them.
Relief washed over him; he smiled in spite of himself.
For the first time, she returned his smile.
“Get out!” the old man said. “We’re closed.”
“She is with us,” Jie said, moving past Yuna and shutting the doors.
“The Emperor sent three children?”
Eyes shifting to Old Zeng, Yuna walked in, moving more slowly than before. Was she injured? Tian moved to help her, but then she unslung a weight from her back and eased it to the floor. It looked like…
Chapter 9
Yuna’s shoulders ached from running with little Mikayla on her back. She’d let Lin Gu live, leaving him unconscious in the alley. With the Blue Reaper incapacitated, she’d been able to hurry over here without worrying about being followed. And for whatever reason, despite Tian’s overall incompetence, there was something endearing about his genuine smile.
“She sure likes her doll.” Tian leaned over the sleeping girl and inspected the ragdoll.
“It brings her comfort,” Yuna said.
“It’s really old.” Brow furrowing, Tian drew a finger over the stitches.
The half-elf’s stern expression showed she didn’t care much for the doll. “A toddler? Why?”
Yuna licked her lips. “The Blue Reaper was going to kill her.”
“The Blue Reaper can’t hurt anyone anymore,” Tian said. “Jie crippled him.”
Yuna nodded. “He was tailing me for a while. He was very skilled. I couldn’t shake him until he broke off pursuit.”
“And attacked us.” Jie nodded. “He had me worried for a moment, too. But what are we supposed to do with a toddler?”
Yuna licked her lips. To tell the truth meant revealing that she’d put blood ahead of the clan, and even now, that decision didn’t make sense to her. Still, Jie was good at sniffing out lies. “She’s my cousin.”
Tian’s lips rounded. “How?”
“Her mother is my mama’s older sister.”
“You went to visit family?” Jie raised an incredulous eyebrow.
Yuna swallowed hard. “Not on purpose. The foreign man we saw when we came into the Trench, Andris Dukurs, was her father.”
“Was?” Jie asked.
“The Blue Reaper murdered him. With his dying breath, he made me promise to warn his wife that his daughter was in danger. I didn’t know they would be my family.”
Tian leaned over the sleeping girl again. “She doesn’t look like she has foreign blood. At least, not as much as Jie.”
“Jie is part elf,” Yuna said. “So maybe that makes a difference. And Mikayla is still a very young child, so maybe her features will change as she matures.”
“You shouldn’t have brought her.” Jie’s gaze was so heavy with reprimand, it might’ve been a dwarf anvil.
It took all of Yuna’s discipline not to squirm. After all, the clan came first. They were more family than her real family. “The Blue Reaper killed her mother, too.”
“I understand why you’d want to help a girl. I would too, especially a cousin.” Jie looked sidelong at the man, Old Zeng. “But we have pressing matters to attend to.”
“Wait,” Tian said. “I thought the Blue Reaper killed girls. Why would he kill the daddy?”
His comment allowed for a better excuse. “What we heard was wrong: in addition to girls, the Blue Reaper targeted Nothori Empaths. Andris was an Empath. So is his daughter.” Yuna gestured to Mikayla, betting Jie would see the benefit to the clan.
“An orphan.” Understanding bloomed on Jie’s face.
“Even if we can’t take her in, she’s an excuse to visit the Red Dragons. They take care of orphans, and her late sister was once one of their prostitutes.”
The old man tsked. “It’s a shame. Too many girls, claimed too early.”
“The Red Dragon said they registered people with the magistrate,” Yuna said. “Maybe you would’ve heard of her?”
“What was your cousin’s name?”
“Feng Rumei.”
“Feng Rumei?” The man’s gawked.
“You know her?” Tian asked.
“Everyone from back then knows about her. I might be the only one who knows her by that name, because I registered her household. Half-Nothori, Half-Hua. A real beauty. The Triads nicknamed her Ivory. And she was no prostitute. She caused the upheaval in the Red Dragons that led to Faceless Chang’s rise.”
“How is that?” Jie asked.
Old Zeng scratched his thinning hair. “If memory serves, Faceless Chang joined the Red Dragons twenty years ago. He was just a mid-level Triad around the time of his coup. He’d eyed Rumei for a while. Demanded that Andris Dukurs hand her over.”
Yuna cocked her head. It didn’t mesh with what Andris’ friend had said about him selling his daughter to the Red Dragons, a story repeated by Aunty Luo years ago. Then again, stories had a way of changing over time…though usually to make the teller look better, not worse.
“Andris finally relented, and Faceless Chang claimed her. However, both the Red Dragon boss and his right-hand man coveted her.”
Men. Stories throughout history told how they did stupid things because of a woman. “And Faceless Chang won?”
The man nodded. “Faceless Chang used Rumei to drive a wedge between the boss and his right-hand man. While they were busy scheming against each other, Faceless Chang built up his own supporters in secret, and was able to take over.”
It was similar to a story from the Warring States Period, when the Hua people were emerging as a free people from the War of Ancient Gods. A warlord had sent his concubine, Lady Lanyu, to a rival king, ostensibly to seal an alliance. Really, it had been to break his enemy’s focus as he became besotted with the girl. Yuna swallowed hard. In the end, Lanyu died. “What happened to Rumei? Her mother said she died.”
The man’s sigh was pregnant with emotion. “Because the Tang had fractured, and many of its senior hierarchy all wanted Rumei for themselves, Faceless Chang killed her.”
“How horrible.” Tian covered his mouth.
“Yes, a girl’s life isn’t worth a dragonfly’s to the Triads.” The old man shook his head.
Yuna’s stomach churned. She’d never met her cousin, but the idea that anyone would be killed so callously, just for being a beautiful distraction, made her chest squeeze. Now, she had taken responsibility for another cousin. One she’d have to get out of the Trench, lest she share a similar fate.
Looking at her, Tian tapped his chin in the cutest way. “Why are they even called Triads?”
“It’s from classic texts,” Old Zeng said. “The Union of Heaven and Earth, through the Man in between.”
Jie snorted. “It sounds like a righteous name for such horrible people.”
For now, Tian’s deflection to the Triads had made Jie forget about Mikayla. Yuna stifled her sigh of relief. “What can you tell us about them?”
“They were founded with the noblest intentions.” The man let out a nostalgic sigh. “The current magistrate’s predecessor was at wits’ end. This area has always been poor, because nobody with money wanted to live near the exposed sewer. Desperate people do desperate things.”
Yuna nodded. That’s what had prompted Mama to sell her for four lousy coppers.
“The government demanded taxes, but provided no support. It was twenty-two years ago that the last troops were withdrawn from the barracks. So the magistrate organized young men under the banner Union of Heaven Earth, implying they worked with the Emperor’s blessing. The ministries provided weapons and gave them the mandate to keep the peace and collect taxes—in exchange for them keeping a cut.”
In theory, it didn’t sound so bad. Still, without regulations and oversight…
“But then they started investing in prostitution and opium. Those brought in men and gold from the city. If it were just that, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so bad. But then the light-skinned refugees flooded in. Lietuvi and Iksuvi on the north side, and the Rotuvi on the south. They were desperate and worked thankless jobs for much less than we would. The locals went to the magistrate to demand the foreigners be expelled. He went to the Imperial Court, but the Ministry of Public Works had been bribed by the companies who hired the foreigners. So the locals turned to the Triads. Whatever influence the magistrate had, he lost.”
Yuna’s gaze raked over the foyer, whose size matched the grandeur of other government offices, but whose furnishings and overall cleanliness left much to be desired. “Why would anyone take this post?”
“
Oh, with his salary, he still lives like a prince in the city. The Triads still pay him bribes and ensure the tax revenues meet the quota—that keeps the imperials out, leaving the Triads in charge.”
Yuna held in a sigh. It couldn’t go on like this, with the Triads bullying the Nothori and squeezing the locals for what little they had. Maybe they’d be better off eliminating more than just Faceless Chang. “Elder Sister, here’s a new idea that can help us bypass the Red Dragon hierarchy. Mikayla is Feng Rumei’s sister. I can bring her to the Tang as an excuse to meet with Faceless Chang.”
Old Zeng shook his head. “Even if he were interested, you would still end up meeting with a low-level Red Dragon first.”
“And from our interactions with the Triads up to now,” Jie said, “we’d probably have to sleep with every underling before we even had a chance to talk with someone high up enough to get us close to Faceless Chang.” She turned to Old Zeng. “Who is your highest-level connection in the Red Dragons?”
Old Zeng shuffled on his feet, lips tight.
“If you don’t tell me,” Jie said, “I’m going to recommend the Emperor find a new contact.”
Old Zeng paled. “Black Hand Jing. He’s mid-tier, and he is sympathetic to the magistrate’s office. He could help you bypass the lower levels, maybe even get you into the main building…with the right bribe.”
So Black Hand Jing’s sympathy only went as far as money could buy. Yuna turned to Jie, and signed, Easier to stake out the Tang and kill when he comes out.
He might not come out until tomorrow. We need to finish tonight. Jie gave a slight shake of her head and turned to Old Zang. “How do we make contact with Black Hand Jing?”
“He has a black hand and arm to cover old tattoos. He’s usually around the brothel entrance at night.” Old Zeng fished in the sleeves of his robe and withdrew a metal disk with characters inscribed on it. “Give this to him, tell him what you want, and he’ll tell you how much it will cost.”
Yuna looked to Jie, who was sucking her lower lip. She was no doubt scheming multiple ways of getting close to Faceless Chang.
Something didn’t sit right in Yuna’s gut. As it was, Old Zeng didn’t know their mission, but there was no way to understand the potentialities without asking. “What would happen if Faceless Chang were removed from the picture?”