As Xiaodan collapses to the floor he catches the young woman letting out a weary sigh, and the sound triggers a fleeting burst of shame. He shouldn’t be leaving things like this, should he? With the last of his strength he resolves to apologise to her at some point, if he ever wakes up again.

Then he’s dead to the world.

He was only out for a second. Xiaodan shook his head and sat up, gingerly probing his teeth with his tongue. He spat. It tasted of copper, and left a dark red smear across the boards.

“Charming,” Tsang Wai Yi observed.

Her frog, sitting on the back of her chair by the far wall, croaked in agreement.

“You hit me,” Xiaodan said, bewildered. “You’re not supposed to –”

“Why shouldn’t I?” The little woman snorted. “You think I need your family’s money, boy? You think I need to put up with a petulant brat who likes to throw his weight around? Not the case, I can assure you. Everyone else turned you down flat. Why come to me, otherwise?”

“Nobody forced you,” Xiaodan said sourly.

“You see?” Tsang Wai Yi gestured with her sword. “What did I do? you’re thinking. I never asked for this – constantly trying to distract from how it is you ended up here, down on your backside. Lashing out the moment anybody challenges your version of events.”

She looked faintly comical, standing there, even with his ears ringing and blood in his mouth; five and a half feet with that ridiculous hair. It was piled on top of her head, fixed in place with a comb inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and hanging down around her shoulders the way a teenaged girl might style it.

She must have been young once, Xiaodan decided, though at fifteen he couldn’t see much trace of any such thing.

Tsang Wai Yi still dressed in the same ridiculous, threadbare pink jacket, decades out of fashion, patterned with falling bauhinias. Petal, the old men called her in the marketplace, with easy familiarity. Faa faan por, the street children yelled, or Gram'ma Flower, flocking around her as she sighed, rolled her eyes, and dug in her pockets for candy.

“Petal” could also be read as “to split” or “to divide”; to slice something into pieces as easily as breathing.

“Get up,” Tsang Wai Yi said, and her frog leered from its perch.

“Why should I?” Xiaodan glared at her.

“Because,” the little woman said patiently, not at all perturbed, “you show some promise with that thing, when you put your mind to it. Because if you could take a few hard knocks without sulking, you might make something of yourself, Hēi Yīng or otherwise. Because I am curious, despite myself, whether you will manage.” She smirked. “Nobody forced me.”

“And this is supposed to help?” Xiaodan muttered, rubbing his jaw. “Beating me senseless?”

“In a word?” Tsang Wai Yi shrugged. “Yes. Anything less just encourages you to wriggle out of your responsibilities. You could be an excellent swordsman one day, boy, even with that arm. But if you keep indulging your fondness for elaborate, self-pitying excuses, you’ll find yourself in a sorry state, sooner or later.”

Xiaodan wakes up, and finds he’s gone blind.

He’s lying, like an invalid, sprawled out across a great stretch of animal hide, from the feel of it, with a pillow stuffed with straw under his head and a thick woollen coverlet draped over him. The bedclothes smell old – musty and time-worn – but not unpleasantly so, and they’re so warm he’s already on the verge of dozing off again.

But he can’t see.

Slowly the memories flicker to life. He met that young woman in the caves, and together they escaped one of the giant salamanders. Still in shock after Zhong’s death, after running from the Yèkǒng, after falling into these peculiar caves, he’d demanded she answer his questions. He’d tried to bully her, and she –

His face flares so hot that Xiaodan has to throw off the covers to cool down. You like to throw your weight around, don’t you? Apparently he’s changed precious little in nine years.

But he can’t see.

If he concentrates, a faint, ghostly mesh appears in front of him, like a lace curtain spread impossibly fine across the void. That suggests his eyes are still working. That being the case, there’s still no light. Xiaodan sits up and strains as hard as he can. Nothing. Not even a pinprick. Wherever this room might be, it’s sealed up tight.

And yet.

Is that really what’s going on?

The young woman obviously carried or dragged him the rest of the way, rather than leaving him to die. She’s changed his clothes, dressed his injuries, and even bandaged his leg. Xiaodan is forced to admit this is a considerable effort to go to for a stranger, just to have them bed down in a closet without even a candle.

Abruptly panic starts to clamp his throat shut.

He can’t see –

Xiaodan screams in alarm, thrashes, and falls out of the bed.

It’s cold. Not as frigid as the caves, or the water in the stream, but uncomfortably chilly. There’s a hard stone floor, with some kind of reed matting laid down over it, the fibres pricking his bare feet. Maybe not a closet, but it’s a small room nonetheless. There’s no echo in here, and his voice sounds flat and dead.

“Keep it down!” someone yells irritably from the other side of the wall. Human, but clearly not the young woman.

“Sain?” another stranger shouts. “You all right?”

“Fine!” That’s her.

So she really did save his life. That’s twice now.

Xiaodan hears footsteps, the sound of a bolt drawn back, and then a door swung open. He can hear her breathing, standing on the threshold.

“You’re up, then.” She doesn’t sound too pleased.

“I can’t see,” Xiaodan says weakly.

“I don’t follow,” the young woman says.

“There’s no light,” Xiaodan points out.

“Well, no,” the young woman says slowly. “There wouldn’t be.”

He can hear her moving, stepping through the doorway, and then the stuttering, grinding noise from something being dragged along the flagstones. More footsteps, a short grunt of effort, and then the sound of a heavy weight dropped softly into… a chair, Xiaodan realises, or a stool, perhaps. She’s sat down.

“Who are you people?” Xiaodan whispers.

“The Jīngguò sect.” She snorts. “Who else would we –?” A pause. “They still call us that, right? Up there?”

“A… sect?” There’s a whole lot in that short sentence to unpack, but this is the first thing that sinks in. Even one human being was a shock, and now there’s a sect?

“I guess.” He can hear her shrug; a rustle of fabric as her shoulders go up, then down. “Not like we burn too many offerings, these days. There’s no mysteries of the inner circle, or…” She trails off. “But sure. A sect.”

“And this explains why you’re keeping me in the dark?” He manages to push himself back up to sit on the edge of the bed, shivering slightly in the cold.

“What?” The young woman lets out a bark of laughter. “You think you deserve special treatment, is that it? You can’t even handle a sword. You think anyone would give you a flame?” She rocks back and forth on the chair. “Did you think this through at… at all?”

“What do you mean,” Xiaodan says carefully, “think this through? I didn’t have time to –”

“Did you have a plan?” She claps her hands together on the last word. “Did you do any preparation?” Again. “People don’t generally traipse down here on a whim –”

“Then I must be a special case.” It comes out more aggressively than he intended, but this conversation is evoking some of the panic he felt down in the tunnels.

Silence.

“You’ve never heard of the –?” the young woman begins.

“Jīngguò sect?” Xiaodan shakes his head, then remembers she can’t see him either. “No. Never.”

“You have no idea where you are, do you?” She sighs. “How did you manage –?”

“I…” Xiaodan bites his lower lip.

He can’t simply launch into an explanation of everything that got him to this point. The war, the Yèkǒng, the journey from Gāozhū, Zhong’s death, the flight into the mines; she’d think he was touched in the head if she heard all that out of the blue. Do they still call us that? she said, so presumably she’s not too familiar with the world above ground.

But what can he tell her instead?

“I was travelling,” Xiaodan says slowly. “I came here looking for… something. I only had a general idea where it was – I was being chased by someone who wanted to do me harm, and tried to escape into the mines, without thinking about it. I was running through the tunnels in the dark, and just – fell through the ground. When I came to –”

It sounds just as ridiculous as he feared, phrased like that. He blushes, in the darkness, suddenly thankful she can’t read his expression.

“You mean you fell in here?” She’s softened her tone, but her voice still gives the distinct impression she’s looking down on him. “By accident? Someone up there doesn’t like you much.”

“I’m alive,” Xiaodan points out.

“I suppose.” The young woman sighs. “Right. Very well. We should probably still do this by the book, or else you’ll end up even more confused. Are you okay to go out?”

“Like this?” Xiaodan says doubtfully.

He’s guessing the sect, whatever its strictures, still frowns on its adherents walking around in public in their undergarments.

“Your clothes are on the dresser,” she says. “Oh. Of course. Top of the cabinet. A foot from the bed. The boots are on the floor to the right hand side. Knock on the door when you’re done.” He can hear her rising from the chair. “And try not to take too –”

“Wait,” Xiaodan interrupts.

“Yes?” The impatience in that one word is so great that for a moment Xiaodan almost fancies he can hear her rolling her eyes.

“Where do I…?” There’s another, more pressing need that demands to be taken care of.

“The bucket,” the young woman says. “Under the bed.”

“Bucket?” Xiaodan blurts out.

“Because it’s easier cleaning up after you that way,” the young woman says heavily, as if explaining something to a child. “Because I don’t much like the idea of having to teach you how to go potty before we’ve even been properly introduced. What, you just assumed we’re all savages or something?”

“I just…” Xiaodan trails off. “Right. Fine. Bucket.”

She closes the door behind her with just enough force to demonstrate what she thinks of the arrangement.

I’m alive, at least, Xiaodan thinks as he finishes dressing. He steps awkwardly into his boots. The Yèkǒng’s dead. The people who were chasing me have no idea where I am.

Then again, neither does he. He’s still trapped in here, dependant on the kindness of strangers, and while these people don’t seem to want him dead, apparently some of them are feeling none too friendly.

First things first. He shuffles gingerly across the matting, feeling for the door.