Chi Yincang had waited long enough. He’d listened to Li-xiao and Yingying fruitlessly attempt to interrogate the captive for a solid forty-nine minutes, and the kobolds had been gone for almost half an hour. It had been all Chi could do to maintain his composure when Kaz transformed back into his own shape. Kobolds really were adorable, perhaps especially because they, like his precious little sister, could be deadly if underestimated.

But Kaz had then performed the slowest and most awkward wink Chi Yincang had ever seen, making his heart clench in his chest at just how cute he was. Really, how could Li-xiao stand being allowed to touch them, and yet not do so? Chi himself had only stolen a few small snuggles when he carried one of them someplace, and the feeling of their thick yet soft fur was…

He brought himself up short. As much as he’d like to spend all of his time rhapsodizing over the lethal appeal of the kobolds, much less their even smaller companions, Chi had a job to do. Silently, he glided forward, setting a hand on Lianhua’s shoulder.

“Lady,” he murmured, for her ears only, “the kobolds.”

Lianhua frowned, glancing toward the burrow Kyla-keai had created. Chi Yincang had been quite entertained by the little kobold’s attempts to hide her pet’s project. He especially enjoyed it when the fuergar made her cautious circuit around the room, begging or cajoling food from each of the occupants, including him. It was quite intelligent, and had responded well to his efforts to train it to be more stealthy. He worried that it would be hurt if it continued as it was, so the improvement was a relief.

“What happened?” Lianhua asked, just as quietly, stepping out of the circle of women surrounding the prisoner.

“They’re gone,” he said. That was really more than he should have told her. Li-xiao was well able to make these deductions for herself.

Lianhua paled, and Yingying finally noticed, her own brows rising like delicate wings.

Brow arches like wings,

lifting gaze to skies above—

a flight of soft grace.

Chi gave himself a small internal nod. That one was good. Later, he would have to write it down in his book of poems, To My Little Flower: A Brother’s Gift. He would use his pen name, of course, but he was certain that this work would be even more popular than his previous efforts.

The two women rushed toward the box and the pile of pillows and blankets resting behind it. Kaz had tugged them up after himself, no doubt to avoid his absence being detected too soon, but now Lianhua threw them aside, revealing the hole. It was surprisingly large. The fuergar really had been trying to make an escape route not only for itself, but for its master, and without any instructions from Kyla herself. So smart.

“Where does this go?” Lianhua demanded, as if Chi Yincang would know. He could make an educated guess, of course, but she would figure it out soon enough.

At that moment, there came a loud bang on the door, and without hesitation, Chi invoked the Dao of the Shadow, slipping sideways into darkness. His ring hummed on his finger, Jinmao longing to come out and dispatch their enemies. Chi withheld permission, at least for now.

The door flew open, and the rumormonger, Adara, stumbled inside, kicking the door closed again as soon as she was through. She was clutching a bloody wound on her upper arm, but her expression was more furious than pained.

“Where are your pox-ridden little friends, and how did they get in here?” she demanded, eyes flashing around the room. Her gaze lingered on the prone prisoner, then Princess Reina, who Chi Yincang suspected was almost fully recovered, other than some lingering physical damage. He hadn’t decided why she was still pretending to be weak, so he hadn’t done anything about it yet.

Lianhua let the blankets drop, edging over in front of the hole she’d so recently discovered. Her face settled into the look of the Long family’s Young Miss, and she smiled gently, even as Yingying settled just behind her, hands vanishing into her sleeves as her eyes lowered demurely.

“I’m afraid I’m not certain to whom you’re referring, Adara,” Lianhua said.

Chi Yincang opened his ki to his master, allowing Elder Long to see through him momentarily. He didn’t believe that this woman was a threat to any of his charges, but given what he’d learned about their enemies, it was best to be cautious. He was glad he had when his master marked the wound on the woman’s arm before withdrawing back to himself.

Jinmao pulsed, but Chi Yincang again denied his spear spirit. This room was too small and the threat too minor for such a response. Instead, Chi withdrew a slender blade from his storage and used a minute fraction of his power to slide from one patch of shadow to another, appearing just behind Adara.

He plunged the knife into the rumormonger’s arm, ignoring her yowls of pain as he dug around until the tip of his blade scraped against something hard. Not a bone, not there, so he dug under it, popping it up through the flesh until it emerged, falling into his extended hand.

Quickly, he tossed it to Yingying, who caught the small sphere and examined it, holding it out for Lianhua to look at as well. It lasted exactly twenty-seven seconds from the moment his sister caught it, and then slumped into a slurry of blood and fine sand. Threat removed, Chi Yincang returned to the shadows and his position in the corner.

Adara was pale now, her blue eyes ablaze with fear as well as anger. Fresh blood was streaming down her arm, and she gripped it hard, baring her teeth. “What in all the bloody hells was that?”

Li-xiao was biting her lip in that way she’d had since she was a tiny, pig-tailed child who only smiled when she was reading a book. “I barely got a look at the runes,” she said, “but I would be willing to bet that it was a way to track you. I’m not sure what else it would have done, especially if it dissolved like that while it was in your body, but I doubt if it would have been pleasant.”

Yingying lifted the rusty paste to her nose, sniffing deeply. She didn’t taste it - his little sister was too smart for that, at least after a few unfortunate opportunities for learning - but she did stick out her tongue, allowing it to sense the flavor of the stuff.

“Poison,” she said with admirable brevity. “Gu, I think, though of a kind I haven’t encountered before.”

That was unexpected. Yingying had studied poisons as one among the many ways that the master’s enemies might attempt to harm Lianhua. Elder Long was extremely thorough in his training. If Yingying couldn’t identify this poison precisely, then it wasn’t one the Sheng Empire used, and the courtiers of the Empire were very well-versed in poisons.

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“Unpleasant,” Lianhua said, eyes narrowing. “For now, the important thing is that someone knows where you are. That is, here, in your supposedly unfindable hidden room.” She tilted her head toward Adara, and Yingying glided forward, the bottom of her robe barely moving as she did so. Yingying gently but firmly pushed Adara’s hands down, then examined the wound.

Adara shook her head, gritting her teeth as Yingying began to cleanse her injury. “My people told me your blue-haired mage was down here with a wounded man, so I hurried back. But when I got here, the restaurant was empty, except that it wasn’t. As soon as I walked through the door, three men came from abso-damned-lutely nowhere, just like your guard did. One second nothing, the next there’s a gods-forsaken arrow in my arm and three hooded figures coming for me. I had to use the emergency hatch behind the bar just to escape. And now you’re telling me they can follow me anyway?”

Chi Yincang looked at the black smear on the blanket where Yingying wiped her hand. It should still have been red, but it was oxidizing with unnatural speed, and Chi couldn’t help but feel a momentary concern for his sister. He knew she would have used a universal neutralizer, just in case her poison resistance wasn’t high enough to protect her, however unlikely that might be. Still, one couldn’t help but worry for the child one had raised from infancy, even though she was now a highly competent adult.

Lianhua sighed softly. “Yes, but no. I can tell you that the runes I was able to read translate equally well to ‘locate’ or ‘find’, but I could easily have missed a minor modifier that would have shifted the meaning, instead instructing it to ‘come’ or ‘return’. It’s equally possible that-”

She continued as Yingying put one last tiny silken stitch into the rumormonger’s skin, closing the wound. Chi Yincang knew from experience that those stitches would be all but painless and leave only the faintest of scars. This simple female had no idea how fortunate she was to have entered the care of so perfect a physician as Chi Yincang’s beloved sister.

Blossoms softly drift,

each petal heals the winter—

spring’s tender revival.

Not as good, but Chi Yincang consigned this one to memory as well, maintaining his focus on the blonde woman as Yingying stepped back. Adara looked much better, with her torn sleeve cut away, the blood cleaned up, and a tidy line of stitches marching across her skin. She also looked uncertain, and very unhappy about that fact.

“If we go out, we’ll have to face whatever’s out there,” she said reluctantly. “But they have my people, and I can’t allow that to stand.”

Lianhua glanced at Chi Yincang, but he kept his expression steady. His master had been very clear that Li-xiao was to be given no guidance, only supported in any action that didn’t endanger her too much. His sister’s beloved bit her lip again, turning her eyes toward the hole in the wall, then the door.

“Try the door,” she said finally. “Chi Yincang, be ready.”

He did as he was told, sliding to the shadow nearest the door as Adara laid her hand on the doorknob. Jinmao buzzed angrily at being left confined, but Chi was firm. The spear would wish to be blooded if he took it out, and it might yet be unnecessary. Whoever these assassins were, he had no doubt he could bring out his weapon before they were even aware of his presence.

Adara turned the handle, and everyone in the room tensed. Nothing happened. Adara frowned, clearly concentrating as she stared at the metal knob, and tried again. This time, the handle twisted, then fell off, tumbling from her fingers to chime dully as it impacted the ground.

“Oh gods,” the blonde woman whispered, “they’ve damaged the door. We’re trapped in here.” She pulled back, unheeding as the heel of her shoe knocked the doorknob into a corner. She was truly pale now, beads of sweat beginning to form on her upper lip.

Raff’s sister and the Holiander princess had remained quiet throughout this, other than readying themselves when Adara went to open the door. Chi Yincang had been both surprised and pleased that they hadn’t simply attempted to hide, since up to this point they had barely moved or spoken other than to answer questions and get food and water.

Now, Reina stared at Adara. “You don’t have another way out?” she asked, clearly incredulous. “You created a trap for yourself? And now we’re caught in it with you?”

Adara’s mouth opened once or twice, then flattened. “No,” she admitted reluctantly. Holding up her hand, she showed them a heavy golden ring. “This has a single-use teleport spell in it. It’s just strong enough to get me out of here, and it cost me a kidney and a half. It’ll take me to a safe place. But you’re all-”

She broke off, rubbing her face. “No,” she muttered. “I can get free, then come back and dig you out. Unless those assassins really did manage to track me here, of course. Then they’d probably get to you first.”

“Give the ring to Princess Reina,” Jinn said, holding out her hand. “If anyone is getting out, it should be her.”

“She doesn’t know where this room is hidden, so she can’t come back for us!” Adara said. “Plus, the ring is keyed to me. I didn’t want to waste the spell on some beef-witted giglet if someone did manage to get it off me.”

Jinn took a step forward, looking like she would insist anyway, but Lianhua stepped in between the two women. “There’s another way,” she said. “Or at least I think there is.”

The fuergar’s little hole was soon uncovered, with Adara looking both relieved and slightly sick at the sight. “These walls are supposed to be magically reinforced,” she said. “No mere rodent should have been able to chew its way through. Not to mention the fact that your mage managed to break in. I’ll have Reginald’s hide for this. If he’s even still alive after yesterday’s attack on the mage college.”

That was interesting, but Chi Yincang allowed the small sense of curiosity to be drowned out by his feeling of pride. Little Mei was no ordinary rodent indeed, and with his training, it would soon become something very special. Perhaps then he would even allow himself to stroke its wiry fur and touch the quivering whiskers that framed its delightful pink nose.

“There’s no way Kaz fit through there,” Reina said, eyeing the hole, which was far narrower than Kaz’s human shape, and much too small for any of them except possibly Lianhua.

Lianhua and Yingying exchanged a glance, and then Lianhua looked over at Chi Yincang. “Make it larger,” she told him, and so he did. Jinmao didn’t appreciate the lack of blood involved, but the spear did enjoy destruction. The main downside of such efforts was that Chi Yincang had to feed the weapon with his own ki, rather than the life force of others, which left him more drained than he would prefer.

Fortunately, the narrowest part of the passage wasn’t too long, and soon enough a piece of stone fell away to reveal an arched tunnel, clearly an old, dried-up sewer, just as Chi Yincang had suspected. The scent the fuergar brought back with her each time she returned from exploring was fairly unmistakeable, so long as one had the ability to smell it.

Chi had spent a good part of his training learning to sense things others couldn’t, in order to better gather information for his master. After all, what good was a spy or assassin who couldn’t hear a trap click or sense the heartbeat of his victim? Serving as his sister and Li-xiao’s guardian had been a refreshing change from his usual tasks.

Adara looked around, her nose wrinkling as the faded but pervasive scent of waste surrounded them. “Now which way do we go? And how do we keep anyone from following us?”

Yingying bowed slightly, delicate tendrils of deep chestnut hair falling gracefully along her jawline. “I have taken it upon myself to prevent such pursuit,” she said softly. “May I suggest we hurry, however?”

Lianhua laughed, a fond little sound that warmed her deep violet eyes. As a child, she had spent far too much time worrying, constantly distancing herself from those around her so she wouldn’t be hurt when they betrayed her. It was good to see that she knew who to trust now. Yingying would die before allowing anything to harm the Young Mistress of the Long family, and Chi Yincang would die before allowing harm to come to his precious little sister.

“This way, then,” Lianhua said, pointing to some scratches on the wall. To other eyes, they might have looked no different from any of the other damage the old bricks had sustained since they were laid, but Chi Yincang and Lianhua knew better. This simple rune represented the first sound of Kaz’s name, and was one of the ones Lianhua taught the young kobold after they left the mountain.

The whole group turned, and Chi Yincang stepped into shadow, allowing his Dao to swallow him. Yingying would watch their backs, and Chi Yincang would range ahead, making sure no danger could reach them. He didn’t even bother to turn back when a dull whumpf reached his ears. Little Yingying really did enjoy blowing things up.