Jin'en drove out of the side street by the logistics storefront, but did not head straight back up the hillside.
Porsette sat in the passenger seat, the list still spread across her knees, her fingers holding down its edge without letting go.
"Daffodil, Bridge District bungalow, confirmed," she read aloud, her voice low. "Scarlet Mallow, Scarlet Letter Mansion, unconfirmed. Poinsettia, Scarlet Letter Mansion, awaiting collection."
Jin'en said nothing. He turned the wheel right, heading toward the Bridge District.
Porsette looked up. "Not going back to the mansion?"
"We're stopping by the bungalow first."
It was not quite dark when the car stopped outside 17 Halfwidth Street.
The alley's streetlights had just come on, spreading yellow light over the wet bricks. The air smelled of something burned.
Jin'en got out and led Porsette through a branching alley to the back of the bungalow. The door was shut, and no light showed in the windows.
He knocked three times, paused a beat, then knocked twice more.
The door opened a crack from inside.
Daffodil stood behind it. Her gray eyes swept over Jin'en, then Porsette behind him, and she stepped aside.
"Come in."
The room still held the same wooden table and two chairs, but there was now a canvas bag in the corner. Its zipper was not quite closed, revealing bandages and two changes of clothes.
"You're getting ready to leave." Jin'en did not sit.
Daffodil closed the door and leaned against the edge of the table.
"Prism's list has this location on it. They've already confirmed it. Someone will come sooner or later."
"I'm leaving tonight," she said, her tone level. "Moving somewhere else. I can't stay in the Bridge District anymore."
Jin'en pulled the list from his pocket and slapped it onto the table.
The paper lay open, several lines of code names and coordinates clearly visible.
Daffodil glanced down, her gaze lingering briefly on the line that read, "Daffodil, Bridge District bungalow, confirmed."
"There's probably more to them confirming my location than this one sheet of paper," she said.
"There have been unfamiliar faces around the bungalow these past few days. I spotted them twice. A cigarette seller and a cobbler. The cobbler's stall was somewhere it shouldn't have been, right opposite the bungalow's side window."
"You noticed already," Jin'en said.
"I noticed. I didn't act." Daffodil pushed the list back. "Acting would alert them. I was waiting for them to show a loose thread."
"They already have," Porsette said beside them, her voice even. "We found this in a crate in the alley behind the logistics storefront. There were other crates. There might be other things inside."
Daffodil glanced at her.
"You searched the crate?"
"I teleported in." Porsette met her gaze. "Three seconds."
Daffodil fell silent for a beat, then turned to Jin'en. "You let her go in alone?"
"There were lookouts in the back alley. I cleared the perimeter," Jin'en said. "She handled the inside."
Daffodil did not press him. She folded the list and put it back into Jin'en's hand.
"I'll clear out the bungalow tonight. On your end-what are you planning to do about the crates at the logistics storefront?"
"Someone will come to move them," Jin'en said. "We'll follow the movers."
"You said that last time. You followed the van to the logistics storefront, recorded the plates and descriptions of the people coming out. And then?"
"Then we searched a crate today and got the list." Jin'en pocketed it. "Next, we don't wait for them to move. Every time they move, they change hideouts. If I keep following behind, I'll always be half a step late. We need them to think the contents have been exposed. Only then will they move the stuff somewhere that really matters."
Daffodil looked at him.
"You want to alert them."
"They're already alerted. A page went missing from the alley behind the logistics storefront. Once the lookouts go back and check, they'll know someone touched their stuff." Jin'en leaned against the doorframe.
"They only have two choices now. Move the remaining crates, or scrap the whole hideout and start over. If they move, the stuff goes up a level. If they scrap it and start over, we've at least cut off one of their lines."
"You want them to move."
"Yes. When they move, the crates will be on the road, with the loosest guard. That's also our best chance of following them somewhere they really don't want anyone to see."
Daffodil zipped up the canvas bag and slung it over her shoulder.
"Once I've cleared out the bungalow, I'll go part of the way with you," she said. "I know the street outside the logistics storefront. If they move, they won't use the main road. Out the back alley, turn north, and there's an abandoned loading bay. That's the easiest place to park a van."
Jin'en looked at her.
"You're moving tonight."
"Tonight." Daffodil opened the door and stood to one side of the threshold. "Go back to the mansion and wait for word from me. Once I've cleared out the bungalow, I'll head toward the logistics storefront. Don't make a move before tomorrow afternoon. Let me check the loading bay first."
Standing beside Jin'en, Porsette suddenly spoke. "Sis."
Daffodil turned her head.
"Where will you stay once you've cleared out the bungalow?"
Daffodil glanced at her, her gray eyes showing little change. "There's more than one bungalow in the Bridge District."
"Your name is on the list," Porsette said, her voice as level as if she were reading coordinates. "Prism's people have already confirmed this location. If you move, they'll look again. Next time, they might do more than set up a cobbler's stall."
Daffodil said nothing.
"I saved the coordinates for the alley behind the logistics storefront," Porsette said. "If something happens there, I can get over. But you have to tell me where you are first, so I can teleport over to find you."
Daffodil watched her. Two seconds later, the corner of her mouth moved. It was not quite a smile, but her face was no longer cold.
"You do think ahead."
"It's all right to miss a step. What matters is knowing how to patch the gap," Porsette said.
Daffodil glanced at Jin'en.
Jin'en offered no explanation.
"Don't move before tomorrow afternoon." Daffodil pulled the door open. Night wind rushed in, thinning the burned smell in the alley. "We'll talk once I've checked the loading bay."
She left.
With the canvas bag over her shoulder and her footsteps light, she turned into the branching alley and disappeared.
Jin'en and Porsette left the bungalow and circled back to the car.
Once inside, Porsette gathered her cloak around her and turned to Jin'en.
"Sis won't wait for us."
"No."
"Once she's checked the loading bay, she might act on her own."
Jin'en started the engine and turned onto Halfwidth Street's main road.
"She has her reasons for acting," he said.
"But there's more than one sheet of paper in those crates at the logistics storefront. She can't clear it all out alone."
"Then what do we do?"
"Wait for her message until tomorrow afternoon. Once she moves, we'll pick things up from the other end."
Porsette leaned back in her seat and said nothing more.
By two the next afternoon, no message had come.
Jin'en spent half an hour practicing teleportation with Porsette in the training ground. She opened three portals in succession, narrowing the error in her landing from half a step to two finger-widths. On the fourth attempt, Jin'en called a halt.
"That's enough. Your stamina won't hold up if you keep going."
Porsette braced her hands on her knees and panted, her cloak sleeves smeared with a layer of iron-sand dust.
She had just straightened when Broken Rainbow leaned halfway in from the stairwell.
"Brother." She clutched a folded note. "Daffodil had someone deliver this."
Jin'en took the note and unfolded it.
There were only two lines, in Daffodil's handwriting. They were scrawled, completely unlike her usual carefully formed strokes:
Loading bay, ten tonight, silver van, two people loading, follow.
The line beneath was smaller: Left a crate in the logistics storefront's back alley. Poinsettia, collect it.
Jin'en folded the note and pocketed it.
"She told me to collect the crate." Porsette had seen the contents beside him. She straightened her cloak. "I saved the coordinates for that spot in the back alley."
"She told you to collect it, not go alone." Jin'en picked his trench coat up from the chair. "Before ten, get the contents out of the crate in the back alley. I'll handle the storefront."
Broken Rainbow leaned against the doorframe, tilting her head.
"What about me?"
"Stay at the mansion." Jin'en did not look back. "If anyone on Mother's side asks, tell them Porsette and I are training."
Broken Rainbow pursed her lips but did not argue.
At nine thirty that night, in the alley behind the logistics storefront.
There was one more temporarily rigged light in the alley than last time, illuminating the small patch outside the storefront's back door.
The back door was shut, but light shone through the gap.
Jin'en leaned behind a low wall diagonally across from the alley entrance and spread out his Spatial Perception.
There were two living signatures inside the storefront. One was moving things in the back-door partition, while the other sat near the front door without moving.
"The one inside the back door is moving cargo," Jin'en said quietly. "Once you're in, the crate is on the bottom shelf to the left of the partition. Come straight out the back door when you're done. Don't touch the lock."
Porsette crouched beside him, her hood pulled low, and nodded.
"How many seconds?"
"Five. Last time, you searched out one page in three seconds. This time, you're taking the whole set. Two extra seconds," Jin'en said.
"If you're not out in five, I'm going in."
Porsette stepped forward and vanished.
Jin'en leaned against the low wall and began counting.
Within the pool of light cast by the temporary lamp, the back door stayed shut. The light in its gap did not shift.
Three seconds.
The sounds of cargo being moved in the partition stopped for a beat.
Four seconds.
The back door was pushed open a crack from inside.
Five seconds.
Porsette appeared halfway down the alley, holding a kraft-paper envelope far thicker than last time.
"Got it." She took a breath.
"There were two more crates I didn't search. I came out first."
"That's enough." Jin'en caught her wrist and retreated toward the other end of the alley. "The people inside haven't moved."
They withdrew to the side street and got into the car. Only then did Jin'en open the envelope.
Inside was a stack of photographs and several sheets of paper.
The photographs were all of Red Letter members-side views of Daffodil entering and leaving the bungalow, shots of Broken Rainbow's back as she walked near the mansion's rear entrance, and Porsette herself standing outside the library. Each photograph had a date and location marked on the back.
The papers held more detailed records, divided into three columns.
The first column was headed "Daffodil," followed by the bungalow's exact location, her patterns of arrival and departure, and notes on the surroundings. The second, "Scarlet Mallow," read, "Inside the mansion, precise landing point unconfirmed."
The third column, "Poinsettia," read, "Inside the mansion, teleportation-type ability, requires living coordinates."
At the very bottom of the paper was a handwritten annotation, in different, more hurried handwriting:
"Daffodil has moved, bungalow cleared out. Switch to following the loading bay lead. Poinsettia did not retrieve all pages from crate. Supplement required."
Jin'en read the annotation twice.
"They know a page is missing from the crate." Porsette leaned over to look, her voice level. "They didn't notice when we searched the crate last time. This time, they did."
"Last time, we only took one sheet. We left the crate's contents alone." Jin'en put the photographs and papers back into the envelope.
"This time, we took the whole set. Once they check, they'll know what's missing."
"Then they'll move."
"They're already moving." Jin'en set the envelope on the dashboard and started the car. "Ten o'clock, loading bay. The vehicle Daffodil is following is the one moving the goods."
He drove toward the loading bay, turning into a side street at the third intersection. He switched off the lights and parked behind a row of trash cans.
The loading bay was at the end of the street. A silver van sat under its sheet-metal roof, its rear facing the loading platform.
Two people stood behind the van, loading crates. They moved unhurriedly, as though waiting for something.
Daffodil crouched behind a low wall beside the platform, roughly a dozen meters from the van.
She did not move. Her knife was still behind her waist.
Jin'en narrowed his Spatial Perception as finely as he could and swept the loading bay. Besides the two loaders, someone else sat in the driver's seat. The engine was still running.
There were no living signatures in the warehouse behind the platform. It was empty.
"Three with the van. Two loaders, one driver," Jin'en told Porsette quietly. "Daffodil is waiting for them to finish loading."
"Then she'll follow."
"Right. The van won't leave until it's full. Only once it leaves can she follow it to the next stop."
Porsette said nothing, turning to glance toward the loading bay.
The van's rear doors were still open. The loaders were stuffing the last few crates inside.
"Brother." Her voice suddenly grew softer.
"Go ahead."
"The Scarlet Mallow column on the list said, 'Inside the mansion, precise landing point unconfirmed.'" Porsette turned her gaze back from the loading bay. "But the other page said, 'Scarlet Mallow, Scarlet Letter Mansion, unconfirmed.' Same meaning, different wording. The first page was printed. The other was handwritten."
Jin'en looked at her.
"The handwriting on that page didn't match the annotation," Porsette said. "Someone else wrote the annotation."
"Did you see any other handwriting in the crate?"
"No. But those sheets in the crate weren't all the same kind of paper. The first two were ordinary printer paper. The handwritten one behind them was very thin notepaper, with ragged edges, as if it had been torn out of something."
Jin'en said nothing, turning this information over in his mind.
At least two people within Prism handled these files. One handled printing and filing, another handwritten annotations.
The annotator had greater authority, because the annotation included instructions such as "supplement required."
The van's rear doors closed.
The two people loading the cargo patted the van, went around to the front, opened the doors, and got in.
The engine gave a muffled rumble beneath the sheet-metal roof, and the van began to inch forward.
Daffodil stood up from behind the low wall. She did not follow, only watched as the van turned onto the street and headed west.
Jin'en switched on the headlights and eased out from behind the trash bins, following the van from two streets away.
Daffodil did not look back, but she reached behind her waist and tapped the hilt of her knife. Jin'en saw it in the rearview mirror.
"She wants us to follow," Porsette said.
"Mm."
The van drove west for about ten minutes, turned into a neighborhood packed with more warehouses, and finally stopped outside the back door of an old two-story building.
The engine stayed running. The person in the driver's seat did not get out, and the rear doors stayed shut.
Jin'en parked across the street and turned off the lights.
"They're waiting for someone to receive the delivery," he said.
Porsette leaned against the window and looked over.
"The person receiving it isn't here yet."
They waited about five minutes.
The old building's back door opened from inside, and a man came out in a dark, long trench coat and gloves. He was the same person they had seen outside the logistics storefront that day.
He walked over to the van, opened the rear doors and glanced inside, exchanged a few words with the driver, then closed the doors and went back inside through the back door.
The van did not move.
"He's inspecting the goods," Jin'en said.
"And after that?"
"Once he's done, the van goes inside. The goods go into the building."
The van waited another two minutes or so. Only when someone came out through the back door and gestured did it slowly reverse inside, its rear doors disappearing into the doorway.
Jin'en noted down the license plate, then recorded the old building's location and appearance again.
Daffodil's car approached from the other end of the street and stopped beside Jin'en. Her window rolled down, but she stayed in the car.
"I've looked into that building." Daffodil's voice came through the window. "The property is registered under a logistics company in the Miguel District. Its legal representative is just a figurehead. I couldn't find out who actually controls it. Not many people go in or out, but a van makes two scheduled deliveries every day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It's this same silver van every time."
"There was an extra run today," Jin'en said.
"Right. So tonight's run was added at short notice." Daffodil rolled her window halfway up. "The goods are inside. They won't be coming out anytime soon. I'll come back to watch when the van arrives for its scheduled run tomorrow morning."
"Have you finished clearing out your bungalow?"
"All done," Daffodil said.
"I'm staying down by the docks tonight. Found a temporary place. If anything comes up, send a note to the shoe repair stall on Halfwidth Street. The old cobbler will pass it on."
Jin'en nodded.
Daffodil's car left first.
Jin'en stayed across the street a little longer. Only after he watched the old building's back door close completely did he start the engine and drive back.
Porsette said nothing on the way. She only spoke when they were nearly halfway up the mountain.
"Brother."
"Mm."
"There might be more than one box in that building."
"I know."
"Can I go with you tomorrow? I haven't saved the coordinates inside the building yet."
Jin'en turned his head to glance at her.
Porsette sat in the passenger seat with her hat off and resting on her knees. Her gilded eyes looked very pale in the passing light of the streetlamps.
"Tomorrow, we'll see how things are on Daffodil's end first. When the scheduled van arrives, if they carry things into the building, then you can find a way inside to save the coordinates. Not today."
"Why?"
"They just added an unscheduled delivery today. The people inside will be at their most alert. If you go in now, that's when you're most likely to run into them."
Porsette thought for a moment, then put her hat back on.
"Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow."
As the car turned onto the gravel road, Jin'en glanced at the kraft-paper envelope on the back seat in the rearview mirror.
Prism's list contained three names in all. Daffodil's location had been confirmed, Porsette's was marked "pending collection," and Broken Rainbow's was "unconfirmed."
But after the note that read "supplement required," there was another half-line of text. He had not had time to look closely at it in the car earlier.
Now that he thought back, that half-line had read:
"Also, a file has been opened on Mandrake."
Jin'en's fingers paused on the steering wheel for a beat.
Prism was investigating him.