Jin'en folded the note and did not hurry back to his room.
"When Unica gave you the note, was there any movement over by the bare tree?"
Broken Rainbow looped the braided cord around her fingers.
"She said she hadn't dared look too closely. Mother taught us that no one was allowed to touch the tree in the courtyard, or even go near it.
Unica shoved the note into my hand and ran."
"Did you go take a look?"
"I did." Broken Rainbow tilted her head.
"There were footprints under the tree. Small ones, not an adult's."
Jin'en headed toward the courtyard.
Broken Rainbow followed, her bare feet making no sound on the floor.
The bare tree still stood behind the iron fence.
Jin'en crouched outside the fence and spread out his Spatial Perception, sweeping over the tree's roots, trunk, and the ground within two meters of it.
The spatial structure was stable overall.
But on the back of the trunk, on the side facing the perimeter wall, a small patch had a slightly lower spatial density than elsewhere, as though someone had lightly scraped a layer off with something.
"Someone touched it." Jin'en stood.
"Touched what?"
"The bark."
Broken Rainbow leaned toward the fence for a look.
There was a fresh scrape on the bark at the back of the trunk. It was shallow, but the surface had been scraped away, exposing the pale wood beneath.
The scrape had a very regular shape: three horizontal lines, as though scratched with a fingernail or a small knife.
"Three lines." Broken Rainbow tilted her head.
"Prism's mark is a triangle with a vertical line in the middle. That's three strokes. What did he mean by carving three horizontal lines?"
Jin'en said nothing.
He narrowed his Spatial Perception as finely as possible and swept upward along the trunk.
About half an arm's length above the scrapes, something small had been stuffed into a crack in the bark, caught in its folds and invisible from outside.
Jin'en reached for it, but his fingertips fell short.
He had Broken Rainbow take a step back and turned his right palm upward. Dark light condensed into a section of a rod's tip-not the entire black rod. He summoned only a short section of its thinnest part.
The tip slipped into the crack in the bark and nudged gently.
Something the size of a fingernail fell out, landing on the gravel inside the fence.
Metal.
A triangle, with a vertical line in the middle.
A Prism badge.
There was no number on the back.
"No number." Broken Rainbow crouched for a look.
"Different from the one on that Old Zheng before."
"This is used for keeping watch." Jin'en picked up the badge and turned it over. "Numbered ones belong to official members. Unnumbered ones are markers they leave around.
This one was stuck in the bark to mark the location, telling whoever came afterward, 'Someone has been here.'"
Broken Rainbow wound the braided cord back around her wrist and stood.
"Then the person who slipped in the note didn't glance at the bare tree for no reason. He was checking whether this thing was still here."
Jin'en pocketed the badge. "Someone might come to collect it tonight."
Broken Rainbow looked at him. "You want to stake it out."
"I do." Jin'en headed toward the corridor. "But not the bare tree this time. The mailbox."
Broken Rainbow followed a couple of steps.
"The mailbox and the bare tree are in two different places. If they come for the thing on the tree while you're watching the mailbox, you can't cover both."
"That's why you're watching the tree." Jin'en stopped and turned to look at her.
"I'll watch the mailbox. If someone comes for the badge, watch them. Don't make a move.
Remember their appearance and which direction they leave in. If someone comes to slip in a second note, I'll intercept them."
Broken Rainbow unwound the braided cord from her wrist and looped it twice.
"All right. But I don't need to stake out the tree. I just need to leave something there."
"What?"
Broken Rainbow took a small gray-white clump from her cargo pants pocket. It looked like a wad of crumpled cotton thread.
"A remnant of Eye of Bewilderment." She pinched the clump of thread. "Not a complete illusion, just a tiny bit-if anyone comes within two meters of the bare tree, this thread will move. When it moves, I'll know."
Jin'en glanced at the clump of thread. "How long will it last?"
"One night. It'll disperse tomorrow morning."
"That's enough."
At eleven that night, Jin'en crouched in the shadows of the alley outside the mansion's front gate.
The mailbox was mounted on the stone wall beside the gate. It was made of sheet iron and had already rusted a little.
Jin'en leaned against the inside of the alley entrance and spread out his Spatial Perception, covering a radius of a dozen or so meters around the mailbox.
Broken Rainbow was behind a third-floor corridor window, with a view toward the bare tree in the courtyard.
At eleven forty, someone came.
The first thing Jin'en sensed was a living presence, approaching from the gravel path halfway up the hillside. They had avoided the main road to the front gate and taken the side slope.
One person.
The footsteps were light and unhurried, but before each step landed, there was a half-beat pause to check the ground.
Jin'en drew farther back into the shadows at the alley entrance.
The newcomer crept up the side slope to the outside of the front wall, crouched beside the mailbox, and reached toward its slot.
Jin'en walked out of the alley. He did not run, his pace neither fast nor slow. His military boots made little noise on the gravel, but it was clear enough in the quiet night.
The newcomer whipped her head around but stayed crouched on the ground.
It was a woman.
A short gray jacket, tightly tied hair, and little expression on her face.
She did not run when she saw Jin'en. She withdrew her hand from the mailbox slot and slowly stood.
"Mandrake," she said, her tone flat, as though confirming an answer she already knew.
"Who sent you?"
"I came on my own."
Jin'en took a step forward.
The woman did not retreat, but her shoulders tensed.
"What do you do in Prism?"
"Pass on messages." The woman pulled her hands out of her jacket pockets. They were empty.
"Old Zheng told me to deliver a second note. He said you hadn't reacted to the first one in the mailbox, so the second had to go somewhere you'd see it."
"Old Zheng knows I'm in the mansion?"
"He guessed. The first note sat in the mailbox for a day without anyone touching it, which meant the people in the mansion either hadn't found it or hadn't taken it seriously. Old Zheng said to deliver another one, slip it under the door. Someone would step on it eventually."
Jin'en said nothing, waiting for her to continue.
The woman took a folded piece of paper from an inside jacket pocket and offered it to him.
"Old Zheng also said to stop staking out the old building. Everything in it was moved out this afternoon. You won't find anything by watching it."
Jin'en took the note without opening it right away.
"Moved where?"
"I don't know. Old Zheng only told me to pass on the message."
"You're lying." Jin'en's tone barely changed.
"If you didn't know where it was moved, they wouldn't have sent you to deliver the note. Sending a messenger who doesn't know the contents is a wasted trip."
The woman fell silent for a beat.
Her shoulders tensed a little more.
"I really don't know the exact location. Old Zheng only told me 'east.'" She paused. "The warehouses behind the secondhand market in the east."
Jin'en unfolded the note and glanced at it.
There was a single line on it, in handwriting different from the first note's, more scrawled:
"The old building is empty. Eastern warehouse complex, third row, toward the back. If you don't come before tomorrow night, the goods will be moved."
Jin'en folded the note and put it in his pocket.
"Where's Old Zheng?"
"I don't know. He told me to go back to the Bridge District after delivering the note, not the old building."
"Where in the Bridge District?"
"The card and chess room behind Halfwidth Street. He's waiting for me there."
Jin'en took half a step back, clearing the way out of the alley.
"Go back and tell Old Zheng I got the note," he said.
"I'll go east before tomorrow night. Tell him to have the goods ready."
The woman glanced at him, said nothing more, and turned to leave the way she had come.
Her footsteps were a little faster than before, but she still kept them quiet.
Jin'en waited until she was far away before leaving the alley entrance and heading toward the concealed door in the mansion's side corridor.
As he passed the courtyard junction, Broken Rainbow leaned halfway out from behind the third-floor window and gestured to him-the thread hadn't moved.