The outer flood-channel was roaring with the fury of a falling clouded eye.
Qiao Ming reached the lower drainage platform of Conduit Gate 03. His bare feet slid across the ribbed pale limestone flags slick with green sea-glass speck scum and the cold, stone sweat of the foundations. The arched maw before him was sixty paces wide, barred by massive bronze trash-racks whose upright tines were as thick as ship masts.
At the bottom of the ebb, the black salt water was swirling in violent, oily eddies around the silt-covered bars. The air smelled of sulfur, cold kelp, and that sharp, stinging tang of fresh crimson blood that steamed faintly in the four-degree chill of the vault.
Fifty paces out, wedged between two bronze support posts by the force of the draining tide, was the body.
Qiao Ming plunged into the freezing water without a second thought. The current hit his shins like an iron vise, tearing at his oilskin coat, but his bare toes found purchase in the seams between the underwater flags, moving forward with low, unmoving leverage.
He reached the central support post. The figure was small, clad in the shredded leftovers of dark indigo court robes of heavy mulberry silk, her long black hair drifting like sea-grass over a face pale as skimmed milk.
