By dusk the next day, a bowl of warm barley porridge sat on the low lacquer table beside Kaelen’s hammock.
Outside the bamboo shutters, the autumn dusk settled over Seven-Tower City like blue ink. The Five-Mile Whisper Law remained in full effect. Across the avenues, one hundred and fifty thousand allied soldiers moved without a sound, lighting paper lanterns with muffled flint strikes.
Kaelen stirred his porridge with a porcelain spoon, looking at the three figures gathered around his tea brazier.
Sera Thorne leaned against the doorframe, idly sharpening the leaf-shaped point of Storm-Pike with an oiled whetstone. Deacon Vane sat on a low wicker stool, clutching his satchel of thirty signed promissory notes as if it were an infant. Elder Sterling hovered near the window, his grey eyebrows drawn together in deep thought.
“Old Barnaby found that copper tracking rune in the second lotus husk,” Kaelen said, blowing gently on his spoon. “Chancellor Vaelen is not a subtle man. If he went through the trouble of floating fifty tons of sludge down the river, his dogs are already crawling through the municipal drains.”
Deacon Vane swallowed hard, clutching the leather satchel against his ribs.
“My thirty promissory notes,” Vane whispered, his voice trembling with anxiety. “Master Ash, those notes legally bind thirty sects to pay compound interest on your nap-time! If the Censorate destroys them, our alliance treasury loses ninety thousand stones of projected income!”
