For three days, I had toiled in the stagnant air of the Coiled Serpent Alley, turning the small, unassuming courtyard into a carefully calibrated stage. I needed to simplify the game, removing Song's more unpredictable options.

  My back ached and as I dug I had plenty of time to think. At that moment I wished I had Xiao Kai with me. If she were here, most of this backbreaking work would be unnecessary, although I'd still prepare some traps. Lacking her martial force, this was the safest play. In truth I'd yearned to speed her release from the Censorate's prison. I'd heard many stories about that place and usually that was only where characters went at their lowest points.

  I also remembered Layla's words. A man of rare integrity. Not a rabid dog. I had killed one-Eyed Xiong and 'Shadowless Hand' Gao, but in some ways they had deserved their fates. Xiong was a killer bandit who murdered people in front of my eyes and both were moments from killing me. These traps would be for capture, not for killing. Neutralize, not destroy. I hoped that would be enough.

  I leaned on my shovel as I was lost in thought. I started to ponder if my actions were taking things too far. Not in the case of this soldier, but everything I'd done so far. Had I caused enough butterfly effects to alter the future I knew? Would history still come to pass as it had? Would my Fiancée and I even be born?

  The heavy main gate creaked open, and I straightened, my hand instinctively going to the hilt of my first sword leaning against the wall. It was only Xiao Qi, his face beaded with sweat, a flask of cool water in his hand.

  "Master," he said, his voice urgent whisper as he handed me the flask. "I just left the paper merchant. He said a man matching the soldier's description approached him an hour ago."

  He took a breath. "Just as you instructed, the merchant told him he'd been supplying a scholar fitting your description, who rented the courtyard at the end of a few possible alleys including the Coiled Serpent Alley. They are on their way" Old Liu, the paper seller could absolutely sell the whole forgetful old man story, this way we'd probably have time for a messenger to get here before our prey found his way here.

  I drank deeply from the flask, the water a cool relief. "Good," I said, my voice hoarse from dust and exertion. "Our work here is done, then. Go back to the shop. Make sure your apprentices are seen closing up at the usual time. Take the secret exit." I motioned towards the fake wall in the room behind me.

  He gave a firm nod. "Be careful, Master."

  He slipped out the back, leaving me alone in the waiting silence. The sun began its slow descent, painting the high walls of the alley in hues of orange and bruised purple.

  I hastily made my final preparations, sweeping away the last traces of my work, scattering dust and debris to make the courtyard look neglected, forgotten. I covered the yard with dust and dried leaves, not yet broken down from last fall and the winter. I left the courtyard gate wide open.

  Then, I retreated to the small, shadowed room at the back of the courtyard. I lit a single, sputtering oil lamp, placing it on a low table where its light would be the first thing a man entering the hall would see.

  Then I heard it.

  A single, careful footstep on the gravel of the alley, then another at a firm pace, gradually increasing in volume. The sounds stopped just outside the gate.

  Then, a sound so unexpected it almost made me flinch.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Three firm, polite raps on the heavy wood of the open courtyard gate. A man's voice, clear and authoritative, followed. "Wei Jin of the JiangNan Circuit. Is there a Master Zhang within?"

  I almost smiled; Layla had been spot on, this was a man of principle, following protocol even when hunting a conspirator. I had to make him walk into a cage.

  I put on my paper mask and unsheathed my sword slowly. I reached down, my fingers finding the thin, nearly invisible silk thread I had laid across the floor. I gave it a sharp, decisive tug.

  CRASH!

  From within the shadowed hall, the ceramic vase I had balanced precariously on a stand toppled to the floor, shattering with a sound loud enough to echo in the small yard. In that same instant, I pitched my voice into a guttural snarl of desperation, the words aimed not at the door, but at a phantom within the room.

  "This is the end, Vice Director Song!"

  THWACK!

  I brought the heavy meat cleaver down with all my might, sinking it deep into the block of fresh pork I'd placed on the table. The sound was a wet, sickening percussion of steel cleaving flesh and striking wood. To complete the gruesome tableau, I kicked a wooden bucket at my feet. A wave of dark, viscous pig's blood washed across the room, splashing against the doorframe. To an outsider, it might have looked like a spurt of blood.

  The effect was immediate.

  "Hold it!" Wei Jin roared, his voice a thunderclap of command. I could hear the surprise and panic in his voice, but he clearly was a man of action.

  He didn't wait for a reply. He charged through the open gate and his right foot came down hard on the loose floorboards in the middle of the courtyard, exactly where I had intended.

  CRACK!

  The hinged wooden panels, covered in dust and debris, gave way with a sharp splintering sound. His leg plunged downwards a short distance and the two hinged wooden pieces caught around his ankle as he tried to pull his leg up. His forward momentum was brutally arrested. He pitched forward with a strangled grunt of surprise and pain, his charge ending prematurely before he made it to my room. This was my chance.

  I reached inward, pulling on the tiny, warm ember in my core. A thin, warm stream of energy flowed into my head and down my arm, and the world seemed to slow by a fraction of a heartbeat. My senses sharpened and I felt as if I flew when I leapt out from the shadows of the center room. My attack was a single slash aimed directly for the side of his neck but I'd made ready to halt my Jian a moment before it made contact. With a blade at his neck and his leg immobilized, he'd be pacified in a single stroke.

  Wei Jin was no common foe. He deftly brought his still-sheathed dāo up. My jiàn screamed as it met not flesh, but the thick, reinforced leather of his scabbard. My blade already slowing, he could hold the block with only one hand. His left hand stabilized the block while his right yanked the dāo free from its sheath. Metal scraped against metal as the edge of my blade slid against the side of his where it had cut into his scabbard. A blade of gleaming, practical steel flashed in the moonlight as he swung in a powerful, horizontal arc from the ground, aiming to sever my legs.

  I took a half-step back, the wind from his blade stirring the hem of my robe. My eyes caught the glint of a small, squarish shield still strapped to his back.

  He started to try to say something but I gave him no time. I pressed the attack, my sword a flicker, feinting high towards his head. He saw through the feint, bringing his dāo up in a ready guard to intercept the inevitable drop-cut. But he was expecting an attack against his body. My cut was aimed even lower.

  Empowered by my qi, my jiàn descended, bypassing his blade completely. There was a metallic ring as it struck the iron pin of the trap's hinge a pin I had already filed most of the way through. The metal sheared, and the entire clamping mechanism gave way. The floor around Wei Jin's leg dropped another foot into the pit, but also opened wider, in a twist of grim irony, freeing his trapped ankle.

  But for an instant, he was falling and completely off-balance. I saw a chance at a killing blow, the back of his neck exposed. But I hesitated. A man of rare integrity. I decided to go for a disarming strike instead. My blade descended towards the back of his hand instead, a moment too slow.

  He flattened himself against the ground, lifting his freed leg up, and rolled in one smooth motion. My jab scraped against the floor stones instead of his hand. He came out of the roll with his dāo already swinging in a vicious sweep aimed at my ankles. There was no time to parry, only to retreat. I drew Qi to my legs and leapt backwards, landing on the short stone steps leading to the center room. Over the second pitfall trap I'd been digging earlier.

  He used the lull to pull the shield from his back into his offhand. I took this moment to speak, pointing my sword at him. "Lay down your weapons. Vice-Director Song is not the man to die for."

  The man, who had been about to advance behind his shield, froze. "Song?" he said, his voice a low baritone, perplexed. "I don't know who you're talking about."

  Of course, he would say something like that. Feigning ignorance—I would have done the same. Still, a flicker of doubt entered my mind.

  "I don't want to hurt you," I tried again, this time my voice earnest. "But if you'd only call off your investigation and walk away...."

  I didn't get to finish. He had clearly decided to subdue me first.

  He surged forward, his shield held low, not as a weapon but as a battering ram meant to knock me off balance and send me tumbling.

  He stepped right onto the flagstone I had prepared as the cover for my second trap.

  Unfortunately, I had rushed its construction, unable to find a thinner, more convincing replacement for the original heavy stone. To my horror, the slab bore his full weight.

  I flicked my sword to my off hand and forced my Qi to my palm to block, feeling my reserves running low. The impact was jarring, but I felt no Qi behind his strength, and my block staggered him momentarily. My sword clashed with his dāo, edges biting into each other, edge lock preventing him from attacking me with his blade.

  With the last of the warm ember in my core, I channeled the energy not into my arms, but down, into my leg. I stomped down hard on the very stone slab that held his weight.

  Spiderweb cracks instantly shot through the heavy flagstone. With a sharp, grating crack, the stone shattered, and the world fell out from under him. He let out a choked cry of surprise as he plunged into the darkness of the pit. He was fast, impossibly so. Even as he fell, he released his dāo, which clattered into the depths below, and his fingers found purchase on the broken edge of the pit, his body dangling over the abyss.

  I looked down at him, my face impassive behind the mask, but a cold sweat was trickling down my back. I was exhausted, the last of my qi spent.

  It was then that a second man appeared at the open gate of the courtyard. I internally cursed. An accomplice. Just as I tensed for another fight, a shock of recognition hit me. The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

  "Wang Er?"

  Wang Er, equally surprised, recognized the scholar's robes and tall stature from the man with the cart he'd escorted before. Then his eyes fell to the familiar jiàn in my hand, the same blade he had seen wielded in the gorge at Black Wind Ridge. I saw his mind working behind his eyes.

  Wei Jin stole a moment to glance back and forth between us. He let go of the edge and landed on his feet. He'd been hanging by an arm, but the pit bottom wasn't that much deeper.

  Wang Er finally gave a deep bow to me and said "Master?"

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