The evening after the Ghost Market auction, Pei Jing watched from the edge of the galleries as Meng came up the shop stairs with his hounds. Three veterans were already on the landing. One of them had a crooked leg Gu had set when the sect healers wanted payment before they would touch it. He held the shop’s lease receipt over his head where the harbor warden could read the seal.
“Bring a city warrant,” the warden told Meng. “A guild order doesn’t give you a licensed healer.”
Meng looked past him at the shop. Gu stood inside with his hands braced on the counter. He’d told Pei Jing he could put a reed ribbon on the lower terrace if the veterans couldn’t keep the guild out. Tonight the railing was bare. Meng led the hounds back down. His men spread out by the drains instead of going home.
Through the sulfur drizzle he could see Slipway Seven two hundred paces away. Three men in yellow-trimmed capes crouched behind the tanning vats near Drainage Pipe Nine. His spatial sight picked out the scrying charms hidden in their sleeves.
Meng Kui’s men had already narrowed the first sale down to the lower docks. They were watching the drains.
