The First Court of Hell was a decaying Tang-era yamen stitched together from slabs of black basalt and bone-white marble. The roof eaves were carved in the shapes of demon claws and the gates were each embossed with a hundred faces, none of them identical.

  Briar shivered and pressed closer to Callie, her boots already ruined by the river of brackish water which pooled around the group’s feet.

  Set dead center were the infamous bailiffs of the Underworld: Ox-Head and Horse-Face.

  Ox-Head towered three meters, his horned skull gleaming and eyes sunk deep above a snout that dripped black phlegm. Horse-Face was taller, leaner, with a mane that drooped like seaweed and teeth yellowed into a predatory smile. Both wore heavy black armor etched with talismans, though only Horse-Face had bothered to polish his badge of office.

  “State your business,” Horse-Face whinnied. “If you are lost souls, queue to the left. If you are petitioners, be prepared to wait for eternity.”

  Ox-Head snorted. “And if you are food, surrender now.” Neither of them were deterred by the Bai Ze talismans most of the group wore.

  Callie stepped forward

  “We’re here to see the judge of the First Court,” she said, producing Huan Fu’s jade pendant and holding it up with two fingers. “We’re from the Necropolis.”

  Horse-Face leaned in. “Authentic,” he said, with a tinge of disappointment. He sniffed at Callie’s hair. “You smell sweet Sister Red. You may enter. Behave as if you belong, and nobody will eat you until the scheduled time.”

  He rapped the butt of his spear against the gate, and the doors parted just wide enough for the party to squeeze through. The air beyond was a stew of incense, blood, and wet ash. The screams were more sporadic than expected, punctuated by the nervous clatter of abacuses. Somewhere deep inside, the paperwork of damnation ticked ever onward.

  The central hall opened into a chamber lined with cages, each filled with souls queued for processing. The freshly dead were easy to spot: they looked shell-shocked, their clothing pristine. Others had been here longer, skin faded to parchment and eyes slightly glassy.

  Tanith paused at the sight. “This is… remarkably well-organized,” she whispered.

  “They say that the third Emperor spent half his reign developing this charter of the terrestrial hell,” Zhao Tong added helpfully.

  He led them toward a side corridor, where a smaller gate was watched over by a lesser demon, this one more lizard than mammal. It wore a vest and monocle, and seemed deeply invested in the note book it was keeping.

  “Name and purpose,” it hissed.

  Zhao Tong bowed, then announced them all: “Zhao Tong, Briar, Tanith, and Calanthe. Petitioning entry to the Quarrelsome Village in the Third Court.”

  The demon scowled, but stamped a seal on a slip and waved them through. “You lot,” said the demon pointing at Briar, Tanith and Zhao Tong. “Keep away from me. You stink!”

  The main court resembled a civil hearing more than a torture chamber.

  Souls shuffled forward in lines, shepherded by demon clerks wielding stout rods. At the far end, seated behind a desk, was King Qinguang: the judge of the First Court. The desk was dominated by two large buckets containing red and green lingqian (令箭); which would be cast to the ground and retrieved by the court ushers once the appropriate sentences had been determined.

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  Qinguang was unimpressive at a distance; a middle-aged man with a ruddy face, a neatly trimmed beard, and a red robe. But as they approached, the air pressure changed. His gaze swept across the lines of souls and the flood of paperwork, and even the demons cowered.

  A sudden crash drew all eyes: a soul in the line had attempted to bolt, only to be seized by a whip-thin demon clerk and hurled onto a pit of writhing centipedes. The clerk made a note in his book, shrugged, and got back to work.

  Briar stared, wide-eyed. “It’s certainly quite… dramatic,” she said under her breath.

  Callie shrugged. “Hell is like hospitals. Ninety percent paperwork, ten percent screaming.”

  They waited as Qinguang processed the line, each soul evaluated with a glance and a stamp, then dispatched left or right. Only once did he pause, when a petitioner produced a petition for appeal written on actual gold foil. He read it, then ate it, and sent the soul to the spike pit.

  Tanith leaned in. “Do we go up together, or is it better if we split?”

  Zhao Tong considered. “Best to be united. Any hint of division and they will punish the weak link.”

  Callie nodded. “Briar, stay close. If anything goes wrong, we might have to fight our way out.”

  Briar managed a shaky smile.

  The demon clerk on duty announced them: “Special petitioners with a jade pass from the Necropolis.”

  King Qinguang looked up. His eyes were small, and full of the weary contempt of an abattoir worker.

  He muttered to himself, then motioned them forward. “Who among you is the petitioner?”

  Zhao Tong raised his arm.

  Qinguang nodded, then fixed his stare on Briar. “You?”

  Briar startled. “Field assistant, Your Majesty.”

  “You look more like a liability,” Qinguang said. “Reason for visit,” Qinguang continued, without looking up.

  “Seeking transfer to the Third Court,” Zhao Tong said, presenting the petition. “To see my sister, Zhao Lu.”

  Qinguang glanced at the petition and let out an audible groan. “The jade pendant is to see me, not for extraordinary visits to other courts. We’re not a petting zoo here.”

  He lifted the petition between two fingers, as if it might be contagious, and read the first line.

  Briar and Tanith took up position just behind Callie; Briar fishing her ledger from her vest.

  Qinguang read, then made a noise between a grunt and a laugh. “You’re requesting to see a soul in the Quarrelsome Village. No one goes in there who isn’t condemned.”

  “It’s a medical consult,” Callie said, “and a final visitation for the next of kin.”

  “You should remember that the proper route is a written request two weeks in advance, with endorsements from either a Buddha or the Emperor. You have neither.”

  He folded the petition and cast it into a bronze brazier where it was incinerated.

  Callie ground her teeth together. “Is there any way to expedite the process?”

  Qinguang shrugged. “There’s always a way. But the cost is usually paid in someone else’s suffering.”

  A soul near the front of the line, an older man with a brand on his forehead, suddenly broke from the queue and ran toward the exit. Two demon guards intercepted him instantly, one snapping his legs at the shins with a sickening crunch, the other dragging him back by the hair. His screams were stifled by a leather gag.

  Tanith whispered, “That’s overkill, even by Hell’s standards.”

  Qinguang caught the comment, and for the first time looked directly at them. “You’re surprised? This is the First Court. We merely usher the penitents to the appropriate districts. A couple of shattered shins do not count as punishment.”

  He paused for a moment, then his gaze flicked to Briar, who had started to sketch the judge’s profile in her blue ledger. The page was already filling with quick, sharp lines: the judge’s rounded skull, the thick brows, the neat beard.

  Qinguang went very still. “Where did you steal that?” he demanded icily.

  Briar froze, brush hovering over the page.

  Callie stepped between them. “It’s just a book. She keeps notes.”

  Qinguang snorted. “Just a book? Don’t insult me. That’s a Blue Ledger, and not a common issue. The version you have... ” He stood up and snatched it from Briar’s hand before anyone could react. He flipped it open, scanned the contents, and his mouth fell open.

  Callie’s mind filled spontaneously with images from the Seventh Court of Hell, that reserved for theft and robbery—the Mountain of Knives (刀山), the Forest of Sword Trees (劍林), and souls crushed under Gold Boulders.

  She looked at Zhao and Tanith and both nodded discretely back at her. What were the odds that they would need to fight their way out of hell on their first visit there?

  Callie sighed deeply. This was almost ridiculously predictable.