Morning did not arrive in a rush. It came the way a careful hand tips water into a cup... steady, without spilling, leaving no mark on the rim. The river reflected that care, its surface unbroken except for the occasional drift of reed stalk or sliver of bark.
Lin Xun stood in the doorway of the Emerald Leaf, not yet opening the shutters. His hand rested on the frame, feeling the old wood's quiet pulse. Somewhere beyond the bend, the river barge bells were counting the first loads.
Shy Lin came from the back with a tray of polished cups, each one turned mouth-down to keep the morning air from entering too soon. She set them on the counter and waited without asking what he was thinking.
The previous night's work in the stacks had left no bruise on the street, but Lin Xun could still feel the weight of the men's eyes in the pause before they left. That pause had been a question. He knew questions rarely vanished. They moved, changed shape, found another place to wait.
The bell over the door gave a soft breath as Sparrow Chen stepped inside. He carried the metal petal in its cloth wrap, though they had left it on the counter the night before.
"It was at my door," he said. "Not stolen. Not left. Placed."
Lin Xun unwrapped it. The petal caught the light, unchanged in form, but warmer to the touch. It was not heat from the air.
Shy Lin leaned closer. "It has been held," she said. "By someone who knows how not to mark it."
The door opened again. Wen entered, her ledger closed and bound with the leather cord she only used when coming from the higher docks. Behind her came a man neither of them had seen before... tall, lean, wearing river cloth but with the bearing of someone who spent more time in counting rooms than on decks. His gaze took in the shelves, the counter, the three of them, and then rested on the pot.
"This is the one," Wen said, not as a question.
The man stepped forward. "You poured for the Circle two nights ago."
"I did," Lin Xun said.
He nodded once, as if ticking an unseen box. "They have sent me to arrange the next pour. Noon, two days hence. Guest from the Northern Peaks."
Lin Xun inclined his head, the same depth as he had given Elder Zhao. "I will prepare."
The man's gaze shifted to the metal petal. "That will serve you," he said, and without another word, he left.
When the door closed, the air in the room seemed to hold still, as if it did not want to follow him out.
Wen set the ledger on the counter. "They want more than a pour," she said. "The Peaks do not send guests without reason."
Lin Xun touched the petal again. "Then we will give them reason to stay."
Shy Lin moved toward the shelves, selecting jars with the care of someone setting stones in a wall. Sparrow Chen fetched the quiet scale. Each movement felt as if they were building something unseen but solid.
It was then the door opened a third time... not with the measured step of Wen's companion, but with the uneven rhythm of someone unused to the city's pace.
A boy of perhaps twelve entered, carrying a folded square of paper sealed with red wax. His eyes were quick, but he spoke only once the door was closed.
"For you," he said, holding out the paper to Lin Xun.
Lin Xun broke the seal. Inside was a single line, written in ink so pale it seemed to fade even as he read it.
Steam can carry more than scent.
No name. No mark. Only the faint curve of the final stroke, as if the writer had lifted the brush mid-breath.
He folded the paper and set it under the metal petal. "Who gave you this?"
The boy shrugged. "Man in the lane. Paid me a copper to bring it. Told me not to look at the words."
Shy Lin offered him a cup of willow blossom water. He drank in three swallows, thanked her, and left.
They stood in the stillness that followed. The message was simple enough to be dismissed, and yet…
"Coin in the steam," Sparrow Chen murmured.
Lin Xun looked at him.
"It's an old phrase," Sparrow said. "Means a message that changes shape when you heat it. Could be ink, could be scent."
Wen nodded. "Or both."
They did not light the pot. Not yet. Lin Xun wrapped the paper in plain cloth and set it in the small wooden box beneath the counter. "When the time is right," he said.
The rest of the morning passed with the slow rhythm of regulars... a mason from the lower quay, a guild clerk with careful hands, an old woman who never gave her name but always left a coin with a notch along one edge. The pot breathed quietly, pouring for those who needed it without asking why they had come.
In the afternoon, a light rain began. It did not last, but it left the air soft. The river's surface blurred for a time, as if the world beyond the quay had stepped back to listen.
That was when Shen Lan appeared in the doorway. She did not step inside, only looked at Lin Xun.
"They are watching the bridge," she said.
"Which bridge?" Wen asked.
"All of them," Shen Lan replied.
She left without closing the door.
By evening, the day had gathered its small pile of coins, of spoken thanks, of looks that said more than words. Lin Xun locked the jars, banked the fire under the pot, and set the quiet scale back in its case.
When the shutters were closed and the last lamp turned low, he took the wooden box from beneath the counter. The paper inside waited.
Shy Lin lit a single stick of river reed incense. Its smoke rose in a line so straight it seemed to ignore the air. Lin Xun held the paper over it. The pale ink darkened, then shifted... letters bending into shapes, shapes into something more.
A map. Not of streets, but of air currents. Arrows marked the flow from door to window, from pot to table, from the corner where the steam always lingered a breath longer before it vanished.
At the centre of the map, a mark shaped like a coin.
Beneath it, two words: Watch here.
They studied it in silence.
Sparrow Chen set the metal petal beside the paper. The petal caught the lamp light and reflected it onto the mark, so it gleamed like real silver.
Wen closed her ledger. "Two days," she said again.
Lin Xun nodded. "Two days."
They put out the lamp. The map and the petal stayed on the counter, side by side, as if keeping each other awake.
Outside, the river moved unseen, but not unheeded.
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