Feiyan entered Qi's capital as if she had never seen it before.
In truth, it had never looked like this.
The southern gate still reared its stone lions, teeth filed centuries ago to please some nervous astrologer. The old dragon banners still hung, faded, above the arch. But the crowd pressing through was wrong. Too many threadbare officials clutching boxes of records. Too many soldiers with mismatched armor and eyes that had learned to count exits. Too many empty spaces where hawkers should have shouted and didn't.
She joined a knot of peddlers carrying baskets of dried persimmons. Her clothes were plain, her hair tied in a low knot, her face smudged just enough to look forgettable.
"Taxes go up, teeth fall out," the woman beside her muttered, jostling forward. "Now they say the Regent counts dust on our shelves. Dust! As if it eats."
"The dust eats better than we do," another answered.
Feiyan kept her head bowed, listening.
"—Emperor hasn't spoken in days, I heard—"
"—Zhang holds court alone now, in that new hall of his—"
"—reckon he painted the walls with the ashes from Ye Cheng—"
They laughed uneasily. Even rumor knew when it had gone too far.
Inside the gate, the city closed around her like a fist.
She took the long way to the administrative quarter: past the old market, where stalls stood shuttered, rents unpaid; past the river dock, where fewer barges than ever wore the Qi dragon; past the temple where she had once seen Ziyan's father argue with scholars about tariffs and the proper length of petitions.
The temple doors were shut.
Good, Feiyan thought. Let the gods rest before we wake them with worse.
The Ministry compound squatted on its hill as always, tiles green, eaves flared, walls too thick for comfort. Its outer courtyard teemed with clerks, messengers, guards. New banners hung there, too: Zhang's personal sigil—a stylized character for "order," drawn sharp enough to cut.
Feiyan loitered by a noodle stall that had seen better broths, then drifted along the wall until she found the old delivery gate.
It opened inward, as it always had, with the squeak of hinges officials never thought important enough to oil.
A boy came out carrying an empty grain sack. He was all knees and indignation.
"I told them," he muttered, "if they want the stoves warm they should not 'forget' to pay suppliers. But no, it's 'run faster, boy, the Regent wants hot wine'."
Feiyan caught his eye. "If the Regent wants anything," she said mildly, "he can come pour it himself."
The boy snorted. "You tell him," he said, and pushed past her.
The gate swung half-shut.
Feiyan slipped through it with the ease of a woman born to thin spaces.
Inside, the service corridor smelled of steam and impatience. Cooks shouted. Porters dodged. Somewhere, a scribe coughed ink from laughing at the wrong joke.
Feiyan walked as if she belonged. Not too fast, not deferent. She carried nothing, which made her invisible; important people carried scrolls.
At the second corner, a man emerged with an armful of ledgers, nearly colliding with her.
"Watch where you—"
Then he saw her face.
The color fled his.
"Feiyan," Wang Yu whispered.
He had more lines around his eyes now. His hair, once carefully oiled, had given up and gone grey in streaks. But the hands were the same: long fingers ink-stained, calloused in the spots that came from turning pages faster than was kind to them.
"You look terrible," Feiyan said. "That suits you."
He swallowed a sound that might have been a laugh and might have been a sob. "You should not be here," he hissed. "There are more ears than walls."
"There are always more ears than walls," she said. "You're still counting keys for fools?"
"I'm counting keys for wolves," he replied. "And now they ask me which locks to bite first."
His eyes darted down the corridor. "Come," he said. "Walking and talking is less suspicious than skulking and not."
He turned, and she followed.
They moved along the back hall where ledgers were born and petitions came to die. Wang Yu carried his stack with the practised affection of a man who knew paper had teeth. Feiyan tucked her hands in her sleeves and watched who watched them.
"Zhang?" she asked, as if referring to the weather.
"Everywhere," Wang Yu said. "Not always in person. His scribes. His seals. His questions. The Emperor coughs and coughs; Zhang counts which breath will be his last and drafts the proclamation for the next morning."
"Letters to Xia?" she asked.
He winced. "You move straight to the blade," he said. "Yes. Letters. Full of stories he has practised for years. About Li Ziyan. About 'border disturbances' and 'local warlords' who make the people restless."
"He showed me off at court today," Feiyan said. "In Bai'an."
Wang Yu nearly tripped. "You were in Bai'an?"
"Roof," she said. "Not seat. The new Emperor would not appreciate me standing on his carpets."
"Then you've already heard more than I can tell you," he said bitterly. "I see only what passes under my nose. They keep the worst plans in their heads."
"Then tell me what passes," she said. "And what doesn't."
He hesitated.
They turned another corner, into a quieter hall, where the doors were heavier and the dust stood less disturbed. Here, the Ministry's old bones lived: registries, family histories, the names of men Zhang had not yet had the leisure to erase.
Feiyan sensed the hollow behind one door before Wang Yu reached it. "There," she said.
He blinked. "How did you—"
"It feels like a place where people pretend not to be listening," she said.
He slid the door open just enough for them to slip inside.
The archive room smelled of old paper and old fear. Shelves lined the walls floor to ceiling. A table sat in the middle where no one had sat long enough to leave a dent in the dust.
"A good place to whisper," Wang Yu said. "And to decide which deaths matter."
Feiyan leaned against the shelf. "Start," she said.