Jin'en withdrew the black rod into his palm. Dark light seeped back along its lines, and in less than three seconds, his palm was clean, without even a mark left behind.
Daffodil watched him withdraw his power, spun her short blade half a turn between her fingers, and offered it hilt-first.
"Try it."
Jin'en didn't take it.
He glanced at the blade, then at Daffodil's face.
"I can't use your blade."
"I wasn't asking you to." Daffodil drew the blade back and took a step away, planting her heel on the concrete to steady herself. "Use your rod. I'll strike, you block."
"Now?"
"Now."
Jin'en didn't move right away.
He lowered his gaze to his right wrist. The silver patterns beneath his cuff were quiet, but that dark-attribute power was still there.
He could feel it, like a membrane layered over Spatial Perception. It didn't take control, but he could call on it at any moment.
He formed the black rod again. The feel of it settling into his palm was completely different from the silver rod.
The silver rod was light, thin, and cold, like holding a needle.
The black rod was heavy, steady, and warm, as though someone had wrapped an iron bar in velvet and shoved it into his hand.
"Don't hold back," Jin'en said.
Daffodil didn't answer.
She slid her left foot half a step forward, blade pointing down. Jin'en had watched this opening stance for ten years.
Next came a thrust, angled left at roughly forty-five degrees.
Sure enough.
The blade came.
Jin'en flicked the tip of his rod left. The instant the black rod touched Daffodil's blade, what he felt wasn't metal striking metal.
The rod sucked in a mouthful of the dark-attribute spiritual power on the blade's edge, shifting its course by half an inch.
Daffodil turned her wrist, changing a chop into a slicing stroke that swept horizontally toward him. Jin'en lowered his wrist, rotated the rod half a turn, caught the blade, and guided it aside.
Daffodil withdrew her blade and retreated two steps.
"It sucked it in," she said.
"What?"
"When your rod touched my blade, it sucked away a portion of my spiritual power." Daffodil glanced down at the blade. There were no marks on its edge, but her fingers loosened around the hilt. "Try touching the wall."
Without a word, Jin'en walked up to the bungalow's interior wall and pushed the tip of his rod forward.
The instant the black rod's tip touched the wall, a thumb-sized bump swelled in the cement coating, as though something had pushed outward from inside. Then it collapsed into a little pile of gray-white powder.
Jin'en drew the rod back.
He stared at the powder for three seconds.
"Devouring," he said.
"Mm." Daffodil leaned against the edge of the table and sheathed her short blade. "Your dark attribute is the devouring type. It absorbs whatever it touches."
Porsette had stood silently by the door the whole time. Now she stepped forward, looking at the pit in the wall.
"Brother, this ability..." She paused, as if arranging her words. "It could work with my teleportation."
Jin'en turned his head toward her.
"What did you say?"
"My Anywhere Door briefly 'opens' the space around the destination when I teleport." Porsette curled her fingers inside her cloak pocket. "If you poke your rod into that opening while I'm opening a door, could your ability seep through the spatial rift?"
Jin'en didn't answer.
He considered the scene Porsette had described-the rift that opened in space when she teleported, and what it would mean if the black rod's devouring power could enter through it.
It meant he could attack through Porsette's door.
It meant their abilities could be used together, layered on top of each other.
"Try it," Jin'en said.
Porsette nodded, looked around, and walked to the bungalow's rear wall, where an old window had been sealed shut.
She pressed her hand against the window frame, and her gilded eyes flashed.
A rift opened in space beneath her palm, very thin, barely wider than a strand of hair. Gray-white light seeped through it.
It wasn't silver like Jin'en's spatial rifts. It was darker and thinner, as though someone had scratched the air with a fingernail.
"Now," Porsette said.
Jin'en extended the black rod, touching its tip to the edge of the rift.
Dark light surged from the rod and burrowed through the opening.
Two seconds later, a dull thud came from the alley beyond the window frame, as though something had been struck.
Porsette stopped the teleportation, and the rift over the window frame closed.
Jin'en walked to the window and looked outside-a fist-sized hole had appeared in the brick wall across the alley. Its edges were scorched black, and a layer of brick had been eaten away.
"It worked." Porsette stood behind him, her voice quieter than usual, but Jin'en could tell she wasn't afraid.
She was excited.
Daffodil left the table, came to the window, and glanced at the hole outside, then at the black rod in Jin'en's hand.
"Dark-attribute devouring, passing through a spatial rift, striking the wall." She summed up the process in an even tone. "Use your abilities together, and the damage doubles."
"But Porsette has to open a door first," Jin'en said.
"Right." Daffodil turned to face him. "So she still needs protection. This ability of yours fills the gap on the offensive side, but it doesn't cover her defense."
Jin'en withdrew the black rod, and the dark light shrank back into his palm.
"I know."
Porsette remained by the window, her gilded eyes shining in the dim light.
She watched Jin'en's back, her lips moving as though she wanted to say something, but in the end, she said nothing.
That night, the three of them each found somewhere to rest in the bungalow.
Daffodil gave Porsette the only chair and closed her eyes in a corner, her blade resting on her knees.
Jin'en spread a coat on the floor by the entrance and leaned against the door frame.
Porsette curled up in the chair, wrapped in her cloak, unable to sleep.
She shifted several times before finally turning her head toward Jin'en.
"Brother."
"Mm."
"Does Mother know about your new ability?"
Jin'en opened his eyes.
"No."
"Are you going to tell her?"
Jin'en didn't answer immediately.
He watched the sliver of moonlight falling through the gap in the door from the alley outside and thought for a while.
"Not for now."
Porsette didn't press him.
The next morning, the three of them split into two groups.
Daffodil stayed in the Bridge District to continue investigating the spatial anomalies, while Jin'en took Porsette back to the mansion.
As the car climbed halfway up the mountain, Porsette turned to look at him from the passenger seat.
"Brother."
"Go ahead."
"When you said 'not for now' last night, did you mean you were never going to tell Mother?"
Jin'en turned the steering wheel, pulling onto the gravel road.
"You've seen so many futures," he said.
"What do you think would happen if I told her?"
Porsette fell silent for a few seconds.
"She'd make me stay closer to you," she said, her voice flat. "Then she'd make you stay even closer to me. And then-"
"Then what?"
"Then we'd both become cards in her hand."
Jin'en stopped outside the mansion's back entrance and cut the engine.
He didn't get out right away. Both hands resting on the steering wheel, he looked at the gray sky beyond the windshield.
"You're half right," he said.
Porsette turned toward him.
"She'd think you were valuable." Jin'en pushed open the car door. "But she wouldn't think you were safe."
He got out, and Porsette emerged from the other side. They entered through the concealed door in the side corridor.
The corridor was empty, the wall lamps set to their daytime brightness.
When they reached the stairs, Broken Rainbow leaned halfway over the second-floor railing.
"You're back."
She wasn't wearing cargo pants today, having changed into dark trousers, but she hadn't broken her habit of going barefoot.
Her white hair hung loose, and she clutched that braided cord.
"Mother wants you in the study," she told Jin'en, then shifted her gaze to Porsette behind him. "Little Red Riding Hood, come with me."
Porsette glanced at Jin'en.
Jin'en nodded.
Porsette followed Broken Rainbow up to the third floor, while Jin'en headed toward the study.
The door stood ajar. Inanna sat in an armchair, leafing through a document, her long silver-white hair tied back.
"You're back." She didn't look up.
"Mm."
"Did you find out about the anomalies on Halfwidth Street?"
"There weren't any anomalies." Jin'en stood across the low table. "Someone caused them. Someone's releasing faint spatial energy in the Bridge District to probe for Red Letter members' coordinates. Porsette was the target."
Inanna's hand paused over the document.
She raised her head, her red eyes fixed on Jin'en.
"Who?"
"A middleman surnamed Zhou in the Bridge District."
"Have you dealt with him?"
"Not yet," Jin'en said.
"We ran into two tails last night and dealt with them. Zhou's their contact higher up. To find him, we'll have to go to his den."
Inanna watched him for two seconds, then closed the document and set it on the table.
"You have three days. Eliminate Zhou and clean up thoroughly," she said. "Porsette's coordinates must not get out."
Jin'en turned to leave.
"Jin'en."
He stopped.
"What's wrong with your right hand?"
Jin'en's back tensed for an instant, but he didn't turn around.
"Nothing."
"When you went out last night, there was one more spatial fluctuation than usual." Inanna's voice was unhurried. "You used folding twice, but one instance in between left no spatial traces. What did you do?"
Jin'en turned around.
Inanna leaned back in her armchair, her red eyes on him, the corners of her mouth curved in a faint smile.
That smile was exactly the same as when he'd first met her in the abandoned apartment building.
"I used my fishing rod," Jin'en said.
"Fishing rod?"
"Mm."
Inanna stared at him for two seconds, then looked away and reopened the document on the table.
"Go deal with Zhou."
Jin'en left the study and closed the door behind him.
The corridor was quiet. The electrical hum of the wall lamps buzzed overhead. He glanced down at his right hand. His palm was clean, the black rod's dark light completely withdrawn.
But Inanna had noticed.
Her silence didn't mean she didn't know.
Jin'en slipped his hand into his pocket and headed for his room. As he passed the courtyard, he glanced inside. The bare tree still stood behind the iron railings, its naked trunk pale in the afternoon light. The crack at its roots had deepened again.
He looked away and returned to his room.
That afternoon, while Broken Rainbow took Porsette to the training ground to practice teleportation coordination, Jin'en went out alone.
He drove to the Bridge District and parked at a corner two streets away from Halfwidth Street.
There were few people in the alleys that afternoon. Most of the shops on Halfwidth Street were closed. Only the grocery store at the alley entrance had its door half open, its owner dozing on a little stool outside.
Jin'en followed the alley deeper in, passed the abandoned apartment building, and stopped at a branching alley.
Daffodil had mentioned the middleman surnamed Zhou last night, saying he often met people behind the chess and card room midway down Halfwidth Street.
Jin'en had spent four days staking out the Bridge District. He couldn't have been more familiar with the area.
The chess and card room stood at a corner in the back alley, a faded plastic curtain hanging over its entrance. Its lights were off during the day, and the interior was thick with smoke.
As he walked over, the plastic curtain lifted, and a tall, thin man came out with a cigarette in his mouth and a stack of papers clutched in his hand.
Jin'en stepped aside and waited for the man to pass before continuing.
Behind the card room was an even narrower passage. At its end stood a small, windowless room, its sheet-metal door ajar. Voices came from inside.
Jin'en leaned against the entrance to the passage and listened. Two people. One voice was gruff, the other thin.
"-Poinsettia's coordinates. The buyer's pushing. When can you get them?"
"What's the rush? That girl's holed up in the Scarlet Letter Mansion. I can't get in."
"Didn't you say you had a way?"
"I do, but we have to wait. She can't stay inside forever."
Jin'en undid two buttons on his trench coat and pulled his right hand out of his pocket.
He neither formed the black rod nor touched his fishing rod. With his hands empty, he pushed open the sheet-metal door.
Both people in the room looked up at once.
A low table, two chairs, a phone and a kraft-paper envelope on the tabletop.
The one with the gruff voice stood first, reaching behind his waist. Jin'en stepped forward, caught his wrist with his right hand, and pressed down.
The man's entire arm was pinned to the tabletop. His shoulder struck the corner of the table, and he grunted.
The one with the thin voice backed away, his back hitting the wall.
"Boss Zhou." Jin'en looked at the one with the gruff voice. "You're the supplier yourself. What do you need a middleman for?"
Pinned beneath his hand, the man surnamed Zhou had his face pressed against the tabletop. His lips moved.
"You-you're Mandrake."
Jin'en said, "What do you think?"
"I've never done anything to you-"
"You're trafficking in Red Letter's coordinates."
"I-I just take the money and do the job-"
Jin'en released his wrist and stepped back.
The man surnamed Zhou hauled himself up from the table, rubbing his wrist as he retreated to the wall.
"Who did you sell the coordinates to?"
"I haven't sold them." The man surnamed Zhou swallowed. "We're still negotiating the price. All I have is information that Porsette appeared in Unheard-of Bay. I haven't got the teleportation coordinates."
Jin'en looked at him, clearly not believing such bullshit.