— The Emperor’s Imperial Record, Entry No. 25 —

  “Look, Uncle Qianlei, I apologize for stepping out of bounds. The thing is, the Overseer has a problem with me, and he’s taking it out on you.”

  He put a hand over his face, confused. “When did you and he have problems?” Then he shook his head in disbelief, as if I were imagining it, “Listen here, Khan, the man is a taskmaster, but as long as he gets his part of the bargain, he’s not too much of a problem to deal with.”

  “That’s not the problem.” I sighed. I didn’t want to be the one to bring this trouble on my benefactor. “Do you remember the spirit beasts?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Well, he wanted to get a cut from the proceeds. From the selling of the beasts.”

  Huo Qianlei looked appalled, as if he couldn’t believe my actions, “Then why didn’t you just give it to him? Copper and silver are never worth your well-being.”

  He sat down on the stool next to the table. Shaking. He pulled me next to himself, “They are our betters, Khan, we can’t do anything about that. Crossing them just makes them lash out against us.” He took in a deep breath. “Trust me. I know.”

  ‘What? Just give in?’ I struggled to remove the look of disgust that came on my face. Thankfully, he was staring down at the ground, hunched further than usual.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, feeling older than I was. “I have money; leaving this side of the Mudfoot district will not be hard.”

  He shook my hand off. “Do you know how much influence the Overseer has? We’d have to be at the edges of the Mudfoot district. Damn near the Silverscale district for us to escape his influence. And even then,” Huo Qianlei looked around, “he has friends in high places.”

  “How much would a house there cost? It can’t be that much.”

  “Can't be that—Khan, do you even hear yourself? It only costs…” he tried to recall the price, “at most five to six silver to build a house here. Over there, you’d need at least 70 silver, and that’s if you were lucky.

  You don’t get it, Khan, it’s best to just apologize and move on. We might go into debt, but we’ll survive.”

  I didn’t know what words to say, but I was quickly running out of patience. I wanted to help my benefactor. This whole thing was my fault. But he was getting in my way!

  I took out another pouch of silver and flung it on the table. The pouch hit the table with a clatter so loud it made him look up. I wanted him to be able to hear it.

  It wasn’t a wise choice to do something like that, especially in a place like this, where the walls were deaf till they heard coins.

  His eyes didn’t go to the coins—they went to me first, searching for the trap, or the trick. I held his gaze. This was real.

  Shocked, he looked at the coins, almost afraid of what he saw. He reached out his hand to take the pouch, stopping an inch from the glowing things, “May I?”

  “Of course you can. I just want you to move out of this place.”

  He cupped some of the coins in his hands, a few of them had spilled out of the bag and onto the table, and then quickly put them back, as if scared they were going to bite him. “Where did you get all this money?”

  I shrugged, “Hunting, trading, doing deals, why do you think I’m out of the hut so much?”

  “Khan, this is impossible. How can you make so much?” He looked around, dazed, then pinched himself hard.

  "Eisshh." He exclaimed, "You’re rich."

  Before I could reply, a gust of wind caught the half-latched door at the back of the house and blew it open with a groan.

  I turned sharply, startled—but it was only two small shapes darting in—Huo Xue and Huo Mei, their faces bright with surprise and relief. “Khan!” they cried in unison.

  “You're awake!” Huo Xue ran and clutched my leg like she thought I might vanish.

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  “You’ve been gone for three days,” she said, her voice low and careful, like she was still afraid speaking too loudly might shatter something. “Po said you might not wake up.”

  Her eyes darted to my bandaged arm, and I saw her jaw tighten, in that strange, serious way children could sometimes get when they had seen too much and hadn’t found the words for it yet.

  Huo Mei stood just behind her, clutching the hem of her dress in both hands, her wide eyes shimmering. “We thought you were going to sleep forever,” she whispered.

  Huo Mei finally stepped closer and wrapped her arms around my waist, then quickly stepped back as if unsure she was allowed to.

  “You look better than before,” she mumbled. “But you still smell like burnt tea.”

  I laughed, a rough, shaky sound. The tension in the room didn’t break—but it bent, just a little.

  It was only then that I realized how pale they looked, how tightly they were holding on to me. I placed a hand on each of their heads, trying not to wince as my arm protested. “I’m alright now,” I said softly.

  ‘When had they gotten so close to me?’

  Huo Qianlei cleared his throat and gave them a gentle wave. “Alright, girls. Out. Let us talk for a while.”

  They looked like they might protest, but he gave them the look, and they scurried off, though not without a few backward glances.

  Huo Qianlei cleared his throat in a way that wasn’t quite a cough to get my attention again and leaned toward me.

  "You should have said something about how rich you were," he said.

  “I wouldn’t call myself rich.” I said, “It's the Cultivators who are truly rich.”

  I thought back to the moment I found out about the healing potion's price. And it was for a discarded version.

  While I had been here for months now, I rarely bought anything except if Huo Qianlei left his daughters in my care.

  Apart from that, all I did was trade with Tarig and Azul. I knew I had money, but seeing his reaction made me realize how much I really had.

  Huo Qianlei brought a finger to his lips, “Hush, you don’t know if they might be around.”

  I asked, “Who? Cultivators?”

  “All that matters is that we can move now, we could even get new clothes for Huo Xue and Huo Mei, not only that, but…”

  Huo Qianlei trailed off, slowly stopping before he put the money back down on the table. Reluctantly, he said, “It’s your money, what do you want us to do with this?”

  “Exactly what I’m saying. Move” I walked closer to him, “you can just move. I can get us a place where even that old cow, Bai, won’t have to worry about a place to stay.”

  He shook his head, worried, “But how will we pay you back?”

  ‘Pay me back?’ Was he joking? I looked at his face, and he was serious.

  I shot down the offer quickly. “No, no, no. You don’t have to pay me back. Even if I didn’t owe you for this, I’d owe you for letting me stay here all this time. Especially before the Awoken Moon sect test.”

  He looked outside, to where the girls had gone, behind the house with Old Bai, “Fine, we’ll move. When do you want us to go?”

  “Today.”

  The decision rang like an axe on a chopping block. It was done. We would leave this crumbling district behind. For the first time in months, maybe years, hope flickered in Huo Qianlei’s tired eyes—and in mine too.

  ###

  My arm was killing me.

  I was on my way to visit Yao Po.

  She had said to make sure I visit her to get the arm checked, but I felt more and more like it was going to fall out.

  The walk to Yao Po’s apothecary took me through the winding gut of the Mudfoot district, with the packed dirt squelching beneath my boots. The air reeked of wet mildew and rotting fruit.

  Someone had slaughtered a chicken recently—the faint coppery tang of blood still clung to the breeze.

  It was funny, I had never felt like this in the district before, like I wasn’t alone in Mudfoot, not really. Almost as if I were being watched.

  I could see the fleeting eyes here and there. The eyes weren’t really eyes, they’d twist into a different shape every time I looked at them. Now, they were scurrying feet.

  And eyes again.

  They had a way of growing from the alleyways, from behind drying clothes and rusted grates. I pulled my robes tighter.

  I broke into a slow jog.

  My arm throbbed with each step.

  I reached her apothecary quickly enough, knocking so she would let me in.

  Yao Po pulled open the door before I could knock twice. Her eyes were sharp and clouded all at once, like stormglass.

  She smelled of camphor and crushed leaves, and something faintly sweet—peach blossoms maybe. The apothecary behind her was dim, cluttered with herbs strung from beams like upside-down bouquets.

  Jars filled with strange roots and dried eyes lined the walls. The place felt alive, like it was breathing with a pulse of its own.

  “Khan! What took you so long? Come in quickly.”

  I rushed to sit down on the small stuffed mattress she had laid on the ground.

  I tried to stay upright, biting down on my tongue. “Just let me rest a moment,” I muttered, but my vision swam and turned red at the edges. I couldn’t stop shaking. After a few deep breaths, I said, “Thank you, Yao Po, I just… I just,...”

  The pain flared behind my eyes—

  I blacked out.

  Yao Po looked around, ‘Where’s the medicine? Foolish boy, you should have come sooner.’