Kesh put on his shoes and, with the captain and Calon, descended by the stairs behind Kass. Bai remained in the pavilion, and it appeared she had fallen into a roaring argument with that cursed reeve.

“Whew!” said Kass with an appreciative look toward the pavilion and the pair under its roof. “She really fancies him, doesn’t she? She’ll chew him right up, and I bet me he’ll love every minute of it. I never saw her go after a man like that before.”

“She’s a respectable woman,” said Anji repressively. “It’s ill-mannered to speak of women in such a way.”

Kass laughed merrily. “You outlanders!” He looked around for someone to agree with him, but Kesh couldn’t be bothered and Calon was lost to sight down the path. Kass glanced back a final time. “Heya! She’s slapped him! I knew she had a temper, but—”

A thick curtain of patience cut off their view.

“Slapped him!” yelped Kesh, shifting to go back, but Captain Anji caught his wrist.

“If she didn’t fancy him, she’d have slugged him and been done with it,” said Kass. “That’s foreplay for certain folk.”

“I’ve heard enough,” said the captain.

Branches rattled. Bai appeared on the path, flushed and breathing hard.

“He wouldn’t lie down quickly enough, eh?” said Kass.

Her hand darted out.

“Ow! That hurt!” A mark reddened on the lad’s forearm.

“You pinched him!” said Kesh.

“Nothing the little pest hasn’t earned twelve times over!”

Grinning, the lad rubbed his arm.

Her glare did not cause the flowers to erupt into flames, but it was a close thing. Kesh remembered the woman who killed so skillfully that she couldn’t possibly be his timid little sister. He remembered the way the reeve had stared at her after the ambush. Troubled, Kesh had to admit, rather like Kesh was troubled. He wanted to hate that cursed arrogant reeve, but at the moment he wondered if they shared something in common, wondering what kind of person Bai had become, an assassin sent into the north to kill.

“There comes a time when change overtakes the traveler.” Bai pushed past Kass and Kesh, and skirted the captain more politely. “If you don’t mind, I’ll walk a little way with you. Where do you go now, Captain?”

He was an odd man, seeming such an outlander one instant and then, with an unexpectedly charming smile, such a familiar one. “Where do I always go, to find my heart’s ease? To my wife, of course.”

16

A trio of hirelings unshackled and dragged open the doors before retreating to the courtyard to await further orders. Sunlight poured a path into the dark interior. Mai ventured a few steps into the empty warehouse, smelling dust, the loft of air above her head, and a faint sweet rotting scent.

Chief Tuvi cut in front of her. “Let the lads go in first.”

She stepped back beyond the threshold as four Qin soldiers entered the building while outside the hirelings took down wooden shutters to reveal rice-paper windows. Each stripe of light revealed more of the warehouse, a long building with a bench built along one side and windows set above, a row of cubicles on the opposite side, and a complicated structure of roof beams visible all the way to the shadowed cleft within the peak. When the soldiers had checked out every corner, they gave the all-clear and she walked into the hall.