Jin'en didn't wait until the day after tomorrow.
The next morning, he took Porsette out.
Broken Rainbow blocked their way at the side corridor's hidden door, twirling a braided cord in her hand as she tilted her head at Porsette.
"You two going out again?"
"Yeah."
"Does Mother know?"
"No."
The corner of Broken Rainbow's mouth lifted. She stepped aside, her bare foot resting on the threshold.
"Bring back something to eat," she said. "The kitchen's steamed buns are too salty."
Jin'en didn't answer. Porsette followed him through the hidden door, pulling up her cloak's hood with her braid tucked inside her collar. Jin'en gave her another look-with that braid hidden inside her cloak, she looked no different from an ordinary child in a red cloak, making her hard to recognize.
Only after the car pulled away did Porsette take off her hood and turn toward Jin'en.
"Where today?"
"Bridge District Library."
"That Zhou guy said he'd leave the material the day after tomorrow."
"I know." Jin'en turned onto the main road. "But going then might be too late. Prism's people won't be stupid enough to use the front entrance when they pick it up. The lockers on the library's second floor, fourth from the left in the third row. He said once a week, but he didn't say which day. I forgot to ask yesterday."
"So we're staking it out today first."
"Yeah."
Porsette nodded and turned back to the window, rubbing her fingers against her seat belt twice.
"What do you usually do on a stakeout?"
"Watch."
"Watch what?"
"Who goes in and out of the locker area, who walks back and forth nearby. Whether anyone's staking it out from the building opposite."
Porsette tilted her head.
"How many days did you stake out that middleman, Zhou?"
"Three."
"In the same spot all three days?"
"On the opposite building's fire escape the first two nights. Behind the game room on the third."
Porsette didn't respond, but Jin'en saw in the rearview mirror that her fingers had stopped moving against the seat belt, as though she were committing it to memory.
The car stopped at a corner two streets away from Bridge District Library.
Jin'en shut off the engine, fished an old pair of sunglasses out of the glove compartment, then dug out a dark cap and tossed it to Porsette.
"Put it on."
Porsette set the cap on her head. It was so large that it covered half her face, leaving only her chin and mouth showing.
"It's too big."
"Keep it down."
Porsette pushed the brim up, barely exposing her eyes.
Jin'en glanced at her, said nothing more, and pushed open the car door.
Bridge District Library was an old three-story building, its exterior bricks blackened by rainwater, a faded wooden sign hanging over the front entrance.
At ten in the morning, few people were coming and going.
Jin'en took Porsette through the side entrance, made a circuit of the first floor, then went upstairs.
The locker area was in the farthest corner of the second floor, beside the windows, with three rows of sheet-metal lockers standing side by side. Fourth from the left in the third row-Jin'en glanced at that locker door. There were faint scratches around the keyhole, fresh ones, as though someone had opened it repeatedly recently.
He chose a reading seat against the wall and sat down with his back to the windows, where he could see the entire locker area and the second-floor entrance.
Porsette sat beside him, her cap pulled low, an old magazine she'd grabbed off a shelf spread open before her.
"Watch the people beside that locker," Jin'en said quietly.
"Okay."
Neither spoke again.
Porsette turned the magazine's pages very slowly, barely moving, but Jin'en noticed her gaze sweep over the top of the pages every few seconds, making a circuit around the edges of the locker area.
Over an hour later, someone arrived.
A bespectacled man in his thirties, wearing a gray jacket and carrying a canvas bag.
He walked up to the third row of lockers, crouched down, and fiddled with the fourth door from the left for about half a minute. Then he got up and left, his canvas bag a little fuller than when he'd arrived.
Jin'en didn't move. Porsette turned a page.
About twenty minutes later, a young woman in sportswear came through the second-floor entrance, circled the bookshelves, and stopped beside the lockers. She didn't touch them, simply standing beside them with her head lowered over her phone for about two minutes before leaving.
Jin'en tapped a finger lightly against the table. Porsette turned toward him.
"That woman," Jin'en said quietly. "She was looking at the tops of the lockers."
Porsette nodded. A layer of dust covered the locker tops. If someone frequently placed or retrieved things there, the dust would be rubbed away. The woman's gaze had swept across the tops, checking the marks in the dust.
"She was checking whether anyone had disturbed them," Porsette said.
"Yeah."
About another half hour later, a man in a black hoodie came in, his cap brim pulled low. He went straight to the fourth locker from the left in the third row, crouched to open it, took something out and stuffed it in his pocket, then stood and left. The whole thing took less than half a minute.
Jin'en stood.
"Let's go."
Porsette closed the magazine and followed. They went downstairs, Jin'en in front, his pace neither fast nor slow. On the first floor, he turned into the lending section and went around behind the shelves to the front entrance. Black Hoodie had already left the library and was walking toward Bridge District's main street at a steady pace, occasionally glancing down at his phone.
Jin'en and Porsette followed for half a block, keeping about twenty meters back. Black Hoodie turned into a side alley at an intersection, and Jin'en led Porsette after him. The alley was short, ending at the back doors of a row of low buildings. Black Hoodie pushed open an iron door and went inside.
Jin'en stopped at the alley entrance.
"Remember this location," he told Porsette.
Porsette nodded, looking over the iron door and the surrounding landmarks.
"How many people inside?"
Jin'en spread his Spatial Perception. Behind the iron door was a small courtyard, with a low two-story building inside. Within the range his perception covered, there were three living signatures, two on the first floor and one on the second.
"Three," Jin'en said.
"Going in now or heading back?"
"Heading back." Jin'en turned and walked out along the alley. "As long as we've remembered the location. We can decide when to come later."
Porsette followed beside him, speaking after a few steps.
"Black Hoodie picked up material. The man with glasses dropped off material too. The woman in between might be from Prism, checking whether anyone had disturbed the locker."
Jin'en turned to glance at her.
"How do you know?"
"When the man with glasses put his bag inside, the door was open. I saw a kraft-paper envelope inside, just like the one on Zhou's desk yesterday." Porsette's voice was level. "That was the envelope Black Hoodie took. The woman in between didn't take anything. She just stood beside it and looked for a while. She was probably checking whether the previous batch of material had been intercepted."
Jin'en said nothing and walked on for a while.
"One more thing," Porsette added.
"Go ahead."
"When that woman left, she glanced out the window. The window beside the second-floor lockers faces straight across the street. She was looking at the second floor of the building opposite."
Jin'en paused for a step.
"Why didn't you say so earlier?"
"I only just remembered."
Jin'en glanced back toward the alley entrance. The building opposite was an old four-story building. Its second-floor windows were closed and its curtains drawn; there was no telling from outside whether anyone was inside.
"Next time you notice a detail like that, say it right away."
"Okay." Porsette pushed her cap up, exposing her eyes. "What do we do now?"
"Check the building opposite."
They circled back to the street opposite the library's front entrance and climbed the stairs at the side of the old building to the second floor. A door stood ajar at the end of the corridor, no light coming through the gap. Jin'en spread his Spatial Perception-no one inside, but there was something on the table.
He pushed the door open and went in. A folding table stood beside the window, with a small camera on it, its lens aimed outside. Jin'en walked over and looked out. The angle faced the window by the library's second-floor locker area perfectly. From outside, one could see the people in front of the lockers.
Porsette stayed in the doorway, scanning both ends of the corridor.
"Someone was here." She pointed to the ashtray at the corner of the table. It held two cigarette butts, one still slightly damp.
Jin'en picked up the camera and checked it. The memory card was missing.
"Too late." He put the camera back on the table. "They're gone, and they took the stuff with them."
Porsette looked down the corridor again, clenching her fingers inside her cloak pocket.
"Brother."
"Yeah?"
"When Black Hoodie took the envelope earlier, is it possible he wasn't with Prism?"
Jin'en turned toward her.
"He was the pickup man," Porsette said. "But he handled it differently from the man with glasses. The man with glasses crouched for half a minute when he dropped things off, as though he was searching inside the locker. Black Hoodie opened the door and took it straight out, without even looking. He knew where the envelope was, which means he'd been there more than once."
"You mean he'd scouted it out."
"More than that. He knew where in the locker the envelope was, knew the lock's code, even knew there wouldn't be many people on the library's second floor at that time. That level of familiarity-" Porsette tilted her head. "He might be Prism's regular pickup man. Whenever material reaches the locker, he collects it."
Jin'en stood by the window and thought for two seconds. If Black Hoodie was Prism's regular pickup man, that meant Prism had more than one line operating in Bridge District.
"Let's head back." He put the camera back in its original place. "We'll stake it out again tomorrow."
They went downstairs and returned to the car. As Jin'en started the engine, Porsette took off her cap in the passenger seat, pulled her braid out of her collar, and turned toward the street scenery retreating outside.
"That camera-" she suddenly said.
"What about it?"
"The lens faced the library, but the camera was on the right side of the window. If the photographer wanted pictures of the people in front of the lockers, they should have stood in the middle of the window. From the right, the angle would be off."
Jin'en's fingers shifted slightly on the steering wheel.
"So?"
"So that camera might not have been for photographing the lockers." Porsette rested the cap on her knees, pressing her fingers against its brim. "There was more than one person in that building opposite who could see the library's second-floor window."
Jin'en glanced at her.
"Why didn't you say so earlier?"
"I only just thought of it."
"Next time, say it when you think of it."
Porsette pressed her lips together and didn't answer. When the car turned onto the main road, she turned the cap over and examined the label inside the brim.
"Brother."
"Go ahead."
"Prism might be watching more than just me." She put the cap back on her legs and turned toward Jin'en. "They've been watching Red Letter for a long time. Zhou said they'd approached Sister Daffodil before. Only after she turned them down did they come to me. If they could find information even on her, they might have information on others too."
Jin'en said nothing.
After the car passed two intersections, Porsette spoke again.
"Should you tell Sister?"
"Which sister?"
"The one in Bridge District."
Jin'en turned to glance at her.
"You worry about everything, don't you?"
"Sister was looking at your rod in the single-story house yesterday. She didn't ask, but I knew she wanted to. If you don't tell her yourself, she'll come straight to you the next time she sees you fight."
Jin'en turned onto the gravel road halfway up the mountain without answering.
It was already getting dark when they returned to the mansion. Broken Rainbow leaned against the wall by the side corridor's hidden door, holding a newly braided cord, somewhat thicker than the previous one and dark red.
"You're back." She tilted her head at Porsette. "Find anything?"
Porsette glanced at Jin'en, who nodded.
Porsette briefly recounted their library stakeout. After listening, Broken Rainbow wound the braided cord around her fingers twice, her green eyes on Jin'en.
"The camera in the building opposite was taken away," she said. "That means the people opposite knew you were there."
"Possibly."
"Or they might already have been planning to pull out." Broken Rainbow tilted her head. "Either way, Prism's line in Bridge District might be gone when you go back tomorrow."
Jin'en leaned against the corridor wall.
"I know."
"What are you planning to do, then?"
"Stake it out tomorrow as planned," Jin'en said. "If the line's gone, it's gone. People always leave traces."
Broken Rainbow tucked the braided cord into her pocket and straightened away from the wall.
"Fine." She took two steps deeper into the side corridor, then turned her head back. "Little Red Riding Hood."
Porsette looked up.
"You did well today," Broken Rainbow said, her tone flat, without drawing out the final words. "You remembered the details and spoke up about them. Better than yesterday."
She left, the sound of her bare feet on the wooden floor quickly swallowed by the corridor.
Porsette stood at the hidden door, stunned for a beat.
Jin'en walked past her toward his room. Porsette followed, only speaking quietly after they had walked a while.
"Sister praised me."
"Yeah."
"She's never praised me before."
Jin'en turned to glance at her.
"That's how she praises people," he said. "Says it and leaves."
Porsette said nothing more, but Jin'en noticed her tug her cloak's hood up, its edge pressed over her eyebrows, hiding most of her face.
That night, in his room, Jin'en manifested the silver rod and the black rod separately and tested each once. The silver rod's tip remained a cold silver, the spatial rift thin and sharp when it touched the wall. The dark flowing light at the black rod's tip had grown denser, and when it touched the wall, it sucked in twice as much dust as yesterday.
He withdrew the two forces and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at his right hand. The silver markings were quiet. His palm was clean.
Very soft footsteps came from outside the door. Bare feet on wooden floorboards, pausing at the doorway.
"Come in."
Porsette pushed the door open but did not step inside. She stood just outside the threshold.
"Brother."
"Go ahead."
"When we stake the place out tomorrow, what are you planning to do if there's someone in the building opposite?"
"Depends."