Mortal blood did not belong upon the stone of the safe hall.
Qiao Ming knelt on the third step of Entry hall 188, his lantern set upon an ash wood block so its amber light washed horizontally across the pale Carrara flags. The blood had fallen in dark, ragged droplets that had soaked into the porous crystal-clear surface of the marble. That turned from crimson to a bruised, rusting-purple as the salt-draft dried the moisture from the hemoglobin.
Beside the blood droplets lay four shattered fragments of smoked quartz, still coated in the greasy tears of the blinded student named Hu.
Qiao Ming touched the margin of the stain with his bare thumb. The stone felt warm—not with the clean, stone heat of deep fiery channels, but with the feverish, chaotic heat of a wounded mortal body in panic.
“The blood will pit the stone if it is left through the high wash,” he said softly to the shadows. “Blood contains iron and salt. When the salt water covers it, it will rust within the pores and fracture the crystals.”
From his leather apron, he drew a small clay pot of wet lime plaster and a flask of pure rainwater collected from the upper high window row vents.
