Chapter 59: The Smuggler's Coin

Shen Mu found the tavern by following the smell of fish oil and bad conscience. It was called The Drowned Cat, and its sign showed exactly that. Inside, the air was thick with smoke and the low mutter of people who did not want to be overheard.

He sat at the bar and ordered water. The bartender, a man with one ear and no patience, set a cloudy glass in front of him.

"You don't drink," the bartender said.

Shen Mu shook his head. He took out the smuggler's coin Li Xin had given him and placed it on the bar. The metal was warm from his pocket.

The bartender's eye flicked to the coin, then to Shen Mu's face. "Where did you get that?"

Shen Mu wrote, "Li Xin."

The bartender studied the coin again, then studied Shen Mu. Whatever he saw made him decide not to ask further questions. He pointed to the back door and returned to wiping a glass that had been clean for years.

The bartender picked up the coin and bit it, a gesture so automatic it must have been habit. Then he jerked his head toward a door at the back. "Through there. Don't make trouble."

The back room was small and dim, lit by a single oil lamp. A woman sat behind a table, counting coins into stacks. She was older than Li Xin, with gray streaks in her black hair and a face that had learned to keep secrets. She looked at Shen Mu without surprise.

"So you're the mute she's been dragging around," she said. "I told her you would be trouble."

Shen Mu wrote, "You know her."

"I trained her. Taught her to pick locks, lie to customs men, and walk away from things that were about to explode." The woman set down a coin. "My name is Rope. Not my real name, but it's the one that stuck. What do you want?"

"Li Xin is in Lesser Joy. The Chorus holds her. I want to get her out."

Rope studied him for a long moment. Then she laughed, a short, unhappy sound. "You're serious."

Shen Mu nodded.

"The house with the red door? Two guards, iron door, probably warded?" Rope shook her head. "That's not a prison. That's bait. The Hound wants you to try."

"I know."

"And you're going to try anyway."

Shen Mu wrote, "Yes."

Rope leaned back in her chair. "Li Xin said you were stubborn. She didn't say you were stupid. I suppose the two often travel together." She drummed her fingers on the table. "I can give you three people. A lock-man named Pinch, a bruiser called Brick because he hits like one, and a girl called Smoke who can start fires without seeming to. They owe me favors."

"What do you want in return?"

"When you get Li Xin back, you bring her here. I have work for her. And for you, if you live." Rope smiled, showing teeth that had seen better days. "Smugglers look after their own. Even the ones who fall in love with mute fugitives."

Shen Mu felt his face grow warm. He wrote, "She is my friend."

"Friend." Rope snorted. "I've seen the way she talked about you. 'Friend' is a small word for a big thing. But you can call it what you want. Just don't get her killed."

They planned through the afternoon. Rope knew the house. She had once used the cellar to store contraband before the Chorus took it over. There was a back entrance through the sewers, a grate on the roof, and a weak spot in the wall where the mortar had never set properly.

"The guards change at midnight," she said. "Pinch can handle the lock. Brick can handle the guards. Smoke will set a fire at the Joy Merchants' Hall to draw attention. You do whatever it is you do with that board."

Shen Mu wrote, "I write."

"Then write something useful."

At midnight, they moved.

Smoke went first, slipping through the carnival crowds with a flask of oil and a length of fuse. She was small and plain, the kind of person no one remembered seeing. Ten minutes later, the Joy Merchants' Hall was ablaze, and half of Last Laugh was running to watch the spectacle or steal from the distracted shops.

Shen Mu, Pinch, and Brick moved through the alley behind the red door. Brick was larger than any doorframe seemed able to contain, but he moved quietly for his size. Pinch talked constantly in a whisper, narrating his own actions as if silence made him nervous. Shen Mu did not mind. The whisper was less noticeable than Brick's breathing.

Shen Mu, Pinch, and Brick moved through the alley behind the red door. The guards had left their post to investigate the fire, as Rope predicted. Only one remained, a young man who looked barely old enough to shave.

Brick hit him once. The guard folded.

Pinch went to work on the lock. His hands were small and quick, and the lock surrendered in seconds. The door swung inward.

Shen Mu stepped inside first. The air was cold and smelled of iron and old fear. A corridor led to three cells. He could hear breathing in one of them.

He moved forward, charcoal ready. The first cell was empty. The second was empty. The third held a figure on a pallet, but it was not Li Xin. It was a man Shen Mu did not recognize, unconscious or dead.

Pinch swore. "Wrong house?"

Shen Mu shook his head. On the wall of the third cell, written in charcoal, was a message:

Gone to market. Follow if you dare. Hound

Shen Mu stared at the words. The Hound had known. He had moved Li Xin early, and he had left this place waiting like a jaw. Shen Mu felt the familiar pressure of being outmaneuvered. The Hound was not a stupid hunter. He was a patient one, and patience was harder to defeat than strength.

"We need to leave," Brick said. "Now."

They left through the back, into the sewers, emerging two streets away in an empty courtyard. Rope was waiting.

"Empty?" she asked.

Shen Mu showed her the message.

"The Echo Bazaar," Rope said. "They're taking her to the main house. The High Binder wants to question her himself." She looked at Shen Mu. "If you follow her there, you're walking into the Chorus's mouth."

Shen Mu wrote, "I know."

"Then you're even more stubborn than Li Xin." Rope sighed. "There's a grain barge leaving for the Bazaar at dawn. The captain is honest for a smuggler, which means he'll take your money and not ask why you're hiding. I can get you on it."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. I'm sending you to your death." Rope handed him a folded paper. "This is the name of a safe house in the Bazaar. A woman named Mira. If Li Xin trusted anyone, she trusted Mira."

Shen Mu took the paper. Mira's name was a small anchor in a rising tide.

He left The Drowned Cat as the fire at the Joy Merchants' Hall began to die down. The carnival had turned into a riot, and in the confusion, no one noticed another silent man moving toward the harbor.

The grain barge was small and smelled of barley and mice. Shen Mu climbed aboard and hid among the sacks. As the sky lightened, the boat cast off and turned south, toward the Echo Bazaar and the trap the Hound had set.

Shen Mu lay in the dark and listened to the water against the hull. He had failed to rescue Li Xin, but he had learned something important. The Hound was not just hunting him. The Hound was herding him, using Li Xin as the lure. Every step south was a step deeper into the Chorus's design.

He took out his charcoal and wrote on the inside of the barge's hull: "I see you."

It was not a First Echo. It was a promise to himself that he would not be led blindly. He would walk into the trap, but he would walk with his eyes open.