NOVEL WEB Chapter 273: Walk With Me
The Market of Faces wasn't a place. It was a seam, stitched from doorways the law pretended not to know about. Even as the law bought its wigs and false eyebrows from their very stalls.
Here, a barber over a noodle shop could turn a child sweet with bowls of broth and cut off his hair while the parents cried downstairs about the price of rice.
Here, a lacquer man could paint a bruise over a birthmark or a birthmark over a bruise. A seamstress could unpick a boy and sew him into a girl, and if you didn't know the shape of the stitch she used, you'd walk past her work without ever noticing it.
But Yan Luo knew every stitch. Each one of these men and women were his people, whether they accepted that or not.
He went first to the wig-mistress in the Yellow Street. She eyed his sleeve with professional appreciation and fear.
"Too early," she said, hands already moving to lift the lid off a basket that looked like it held laundry but didn't.
"Too late," he corrected, and set the basket aside without touching it. "Show me last night's sweepings."
Sweepings tell the truth the mouth won't. She brought him a dustpan full of stuff that had been swept up but not yet thrown out.
He pinched through the hair. Children's hair was fine in a way even the poor can't copy. He found three colors: coal black, ash brown, and a brown so soft it went red when light dared to touch it.
"From where?" he asked.
"From wherever the wind pays," she shrugged, not quite looking him in the eyes. "You know how it is."
He let the red-brown sift through his fingers. "From a boy who wouldn't sit still."
Her eyes flicked to his. "Those are always the last jobs I take. My hands shake."
"Who brought it?"
"A runner. Never looks straight. Never carries anything heavier than what fits in a sleeve. They call him Light-Step. He thinks it makes him a poet." Her mouth curled. "He isn't."
"Where does he drink?"
"Where the ale tastes like soup and men leak louder than they pour," she said. "By the south granary."
He put down the pan. "Thank you."
"You'll burn me if you find I lied to you," she responded with a long sigh. It wasn't a question so much as a statement of fact.
"I'll buy you a new broom and find someone to help you with your work if I find you didn't," he said.
She breathed out and looked smaller.
"Thank you, my Lord."
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Light-Step didn't try to run when Yan Luo sat across from him at the creditor's table. He froze and miscounted his own dice instead—a tell Yan Luo appreciated for its humility.
"You carried hair," Yan Luo said.
Light-Step shook his head so hard his braid hit his cheek. His eyes went wide and his breath started coming out in short pants. "I didn't, My Lord."
"You carried hair," Yan Luo repeated softly, and pushed a small clay cup toward him. "And you carried a sweet bottle of root water for a child who didn't drink it."
Light-Step stared at the cup like it might be poison. It wasn't. Yan Luo wanted his tongue working, and until he figured out how to bring the dead back to life, dead men told no tails.
"From whom," Yan Luo asked, "to who."
"B-broker," Light-Step stammered. "From the paper sheds to Glass Alley. Not the front shop. The back. He said it was nothing. Said it was just… just a trade like any other."
"The broker's name."
Light-Step looked at the table, his hand trembling slightly as he swallowed roughly. "We don't say names there. That is your own rule."
"You are right," Yan Lao agreed. "It is one of my rules, and only I can say when you are allowed to break it. Say the name."
Light-Step swallowed. "Master Hui."
"Master Hui," Yan Luo repeated, tasting it. "The same Master Hui who buys girls to make them wives and boys to make them writhe."
Light-Step winced. "I'm just the delivery man," he whispered. "It's none of my business what happens to the packages I deliver."
"Walk with me," Yan Luo said. "If you walk too fast, I'll break your ankle." He stood. "If you walk too slow, I'll break your other ankle."
Light-Step walked exactly the right speed.
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Glass Alley was not made of glass. Instead, it was made of lies thick enough to shine. A bead-merchant kept the front, all bracelets and prayer ropes and small sparkling things that made poor women feel rich for an hour.
Master Hui took meetings in the back.
Yan Luo walked through the front without pausing. The bead-merchant reached for the shelf where she kept the knife she had promised herself she'd never have to use; Gaoyu relieved her of it and set it down again so politely she forgot to be outraged.
Master Hui rose when they entered, which was a point for his instincts. He didn't reach for the drawer under his table, which was another. He clasped his hands and smiled. "Yan Luo," he said. "You honor my poor room."
"Tea," Yan Luo said, sitting. "Then talk."
Master Hui poured with steady hands, which told Yan Luo nothing but that the man had trained his fear somewhere useful once. "To what do I owe this—"
"A child," Yan Luo said, and the room went smaller. "Taken from the palace. Brought through a hole like a rat. Touched by hands you profit from. Where is he."
Master Hui's smile didn't crack. "I handle objects, not outrages."
"Your ledgers don't care what you call them," Yan Luo said pleasantly. "Bring them to me."
Hui didn't move, so Yan Luo moved for him. He drew the drawer before the man could decide whether to stop him, and lifted out a bamboo case. Inside: slips. Codes. Marks. Yan Luo did not read them. He sniffed them.
Glue new. Ink not yet fully cured. He rolled the top slip between finger and thumb. It came away clean. No grit from the floor. No finger grease from ten hands. Recently written. Recently handled by one hand—Hui's. Good.
He turned the second slip. Names were never names in these places. They were jokes and cruelty. Lotus, for a girl with broken teeth. Ox, for a boy who could lift a sack because he had no choice. Little Crane.
He stopped there.
Crane.
A toy crane had sat by the boy's pallet. He remembered because he remembers everything she looks at when she thinks no one is watching.
"Where," Yan Luo asked.
"I don't know the meaning of the marks," Hui lied smoothly.
"You don't need the meaning," Yan Luo said. "You need the map in your head you pretend you don't have."