The riverlands properly belonged to Anh, but the network of valleys and rivers wove in on themselves like a banker’s knot, confounding all but the locals. As their group started to ascend into the hills at the border, the road thinned to a narrow track, wide enough to allow two people to walk abreast if they held hands, but not much more.

“It used to be better,” Lao Bingyi said, her lips pursed with irritation. “You know, there was a time when the empress cared about things like the roads out here in the west, back when she first came to sit on the throne. I suppose she’s too grand for that kind of thing now.”

“You were young in those days,” Khanh said with the peaceful air of someone who has said the same thing many times. “The road was bigger because you were smaller.”

“Ah, listen to you. I was born as big as the mountain, and I never change.”

“Has the area changed very much since you were young, auntie?” asked Chih politely, because they could no more leave a discussion of local history than they could resist a free meal.

“Oh, you know, the officials actually listened to the people, everyone gave generously to the temples, and children surely respected their elders,” she said airily.

“It’s safer than it used to be,” Khanh offered, and Lao Bingyi nodded.

“It surely is that,” she said. “Why, straight up to the banks of the Huan River, all of this used to be the territory of bandits and necromancers. Just terrible.”

Wei Jintai, walking a little behind, looked up.

“It’s true. This was the territory of the Hollow Hand sect,” she said.

Chih was opening their mouth to ask about the Hollow Hand sect when Almost Brilliant gave an excited hop on their shoulder.

“Oh, the Hollow Hand! My mother told me about them when I was just a little scrap in the nest!”

“My teacher told me about them as well,” said Wei Jintai with a stern look on her face. “She said that they were feared throughout the riverlands for their savagery and their parley with the old ghosts of the Ku Dynasty. He said that they sacrificed travelers on the road for their wicked alchemy, gaining long life and terrible powers.”

“My mother told me that they kidnapped young girls who went walking on their own at night, assaulted them, and sold them to brothels,” said Sang, sounding bored, and Chih turned to her curiously.

“You sound less than impressed,” they said, and Sang shrugged.

“I mean, my mother said that about the sailors from the islands, the musicians from Ue County, and just about everyone who didn’t live on our street at home. It doesn’t make the Hollow Hand special.”

Khanh gave her a disapproving look, but Almost Brilliant fluttered to Chih’s other shoulder and then back again.