“I never thought I couldn’t stand you,” Sain says in a low voice. She bends down, picking up her sword again.

“Forget that part.” Xiaodan waves a hand in frustration. “Why the change of heart? Why are you so concerned about what I might be planning to do? Why show me off to your – to your father? Why is it so important to you what he thinks of me? Can you just tell me what’s going on?”

He swallows, remembering what happened the last time he put that question to her. “Please?”

“This is the house,” Sain says. “Stop. Let me knock.” Xiaodan feels her left hand on his chest, gently pushing him back. “She doesn’t like surprises.”

“Doesn’t like?” They’re on the upper level, where the porters wouldn’t let him take deliveries, but it seems to be much the same as the area where Sain lives. Xiaodan tilts his head, but can’t hear anything untoward; just the usual whisper of background noise.

“She’s not dangerous.” Sain snorts. “I just don’t want to go barging in.” She raps, lightly, on the door, and calls out in a soft voice. “Mei! You in there?”

The two of them stand there, waiting. Xiaodan hears Sain humming under her breath. Footsteps approach the door, shuffling along the floor, and it’s hauled open painfully slowly, as if it weighs as much as the entire house.

“Kept me waiting,” Sain begins, and then she stops.

What follows is an elderly voice through a toothless mouth, coming from a few feet off the floor and almost unintelligible.

“Uh, yes, mother,” Sain says. “Is she there? I don’t –” She grinds her teeth. “What’s the word –”

“Let me,” Xiaodan offers.

Because he can tell what the old woman just said.

The migration underground began after Emperor Shen Chang redoubled his efforts, the functionary in the records office told him. If Xiaodan had his doubts back then, well, this is absolutely Heaventongue as it used to be spoken centuries ago, or something very close.

“Come again…?” Sain trails off, incredulous.

“Your health, mother,” Xiaodan says. Most of what the archives had were court documents. He probably sounds like someone play-acting as a Shen Dynasty official, but there’s no helping that. “My esteemed companion and I were wondering if, uh, the Lady Duàn Mei was available. Just for a moment.”

“Well, now,” the old woman says, and chuckles. “A man of culture? Down here? Wonders will never cease. She’s in her studio. In the back.”

“Regretfully I only had the opportunity to study, ah, polite speech,” Xiaodan says, wishing the ground would swallow him up. Does this remind her of the people who drove the Jīngguò sect underground in the first place? “I apologise if my poor facility with language evokes –”

“Oh, no,” the old woman assures him. “The memories are… not unwelcome. Probably best Sain doesn’t start talking like that, mind you.” She steps back to wave them through. “I hadn’t planned to die laughing.”

“What was that?” Sain says in a low voice, rounding on him as they walk through the house.

“She thought it was funny,” Xiaodan mumbles. “That I was talking like a noble. From three hundred years back. She said she didn’t want to hear you doing it. And, uh, your friend is in the back.”

“I did wonder.” Sain lets out a long breath. “How do you –? No, who are you?”

“You first,” Xiaodan says.

He wonders if this might get her angry, but Sain just shakes her head. He can practically hear her smiling ruefully.

“Fair.” She grabs his hand. “This way. I don’t want you knocking over any of her things.”

Even if he can’t reach out and touch anything, Xiaodan still has the distinct impression of being surrounded by a cornucopia of antiquities, or at least esoterica. The corridors feel narrower, the sound echoes back to him in unexpected ways, and the air is different, drier and dustier than a lot of the city

The smell, too, reminds him of the rich noblemen he got introduced to after his engagement to Zhaoling; men who spent hours locked away in their private rooms, contemplating some rare lacquered drinking vessel, smoking pipe, or mummified relic.

There’s another smell here too. Something bright, sharp, and earthy, almost alive –

“Is this him?” somebody says.

The new voice is calm, confident, a woman a good few years older than either of them.

“This is him.” Sain pulls Xiaodan forward. “I just want…”

“A moment alone?” the voice – presumably Duàn Mei – suggests.

“Some privacy,” Sain says heavily. “You can stay –”

“Are you sure?” Duàn Mei presses her.

The other woman is audibly smirking.

“Would you knock it off?” Sain mutters. “It’s not that important. Just – things. Things he doesn’t know. About this place. And I don’t want my father to wander in and start –”

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” The older woman cuts her off. “Sit down. There’s stools by the far wall. Just watch your step.”

“What is it you’re doing?” Xiaodan says, unable to stop himself. “I can smell –”

“Clay,” Duàn Mei says.

She’s in her studio, the old woman had said. In the back.

“She’s an artist,” Sain adds.

“To some,” the other woman says wryly.

There’s a series of dull, wet slapping sounds as she returns to moulding whatever it is she’s working on.

“But,” Xiaodan begins.

“But what?” Sain says sourly. “You think blind people don’t need art?”

“Sain,” Duàn Mei says gently. “Leave the poor boy his dignity, eh? If all he’s run into are those two horrible statues, well. Yes, we make art. No painters down here, I admit, but there’s plenty of tactile stuff.”

“Tactile?” Xiaodan asks.

“Here,” Sain says impatiently. She takes his hand again, and lifts it briskly. Her collar, Xiaodan realises. He’s touching her collar. It’s an oddly intimate gesture; he can feel her breath on his wrist.

“What are these for?” There are rings at the edge of the fabric, sewn in place so they spin around the seam, but he has to force them to turn; they won’t move if he just touches them.

“Fidgeting,” Sain says. “Like she says. Tactile. She made all my rings –”

“All?” He’s held her hand more than Zhaoling’s at this point, and never noticed anything.

“I took the others off.” She steps back. “Once my father had his bright idea. To stop you asking dumb questions –”

“What did I just say?” But Duàn Mei is laughing, clearly unperturbed by Sain’s prickly responses. “Sit. Now, young lady. Or I’ll tell Sirke you’re making a nuisance of yourself.”

“We leave the caves,” Sain says quietly, leaning back in her chair. “Some of us. I’m sure you probably worked that out.”

“Even though I’m slow?” But it’s been nagging him for a while now. Even with the lightstones, the farms can’t be their sole source of food. The city’s desperate for wood, but things would be far more urgent without something topping up their stockpiles.

“We call them rangers,” Sain continues. “That covers a lot, to be honest. They don’t all end up going outside. Some just wander around the caves, check on the wildlife, on the…” She stops herself, and Xiaodan wonders what she just avoided mentioning. “They try to keep us safe.”

“Where do they go?” Xiaodan says. “The ones who leave the caves?”

“All over.” He hears her lift her arms and wave. “They’re usually disguised as… monks, beggars, stuff like that. Sometimes it’s –”

“For their own safety?” Presumably some of these people are blind.

“Yes,” Sain says. “Or sometimes it’s just to avoid attention, even if they could handle it. Most people don’t know we’re here, and we’d like to keep it that way.”

“So what do they do?” Xiaodan asks.

“What don’t they do?” Duàn Mei says lightly. “Sorry. Go on.”

The sound of wet clay being forced into new shapes continues.

“It depends.” Sain takes a deep breath. “Whatever needs doing. Buying supplies. Lots of supplies. Building materials. Food we can’t grow. Or stuff we can, but better quality. Maybe we need to raise funds to buy the supplies. Or could be someone decides we need some new blood, and goes out recruiting.”

“And nobody’s asked you to do this?” Xiaodan says carefully.

Sain’s silence at this point speaks volumes.

“He tells me no,” she says at last. “I’ve told him I’m ready, over and over, and he still tells me no.”

“Is that why the two of you are…” Xiaodan scratches his nose. “A little tense? Around each other?”

“Partly.” Sain leans forward. “We argue over… the city. The sect. He thinks I don’t…” She trails off. “He’s worried.”

About what? Xiaodan thinks, but he stays quiet.

“Is he now?” Duàn Mei murmurs. “And here you told me he was just –”

“I will stuff that clay in your mouth and use it for a mould,” Sain says wearily, “then see if anybody can work out what it is.”

“I like it.” The artist is laughing. “Maybe that’s your true calling.”

“How often do you send the rangers out there?” Xiaodan says, trying to drag the conversation back on track. “If your father keeps saying you’re not ready for the job.”

“Not that often.” Sain is rocking back and forth in her seat. “Two, three times a year. So as not to give the outside world too many clues we’re down here. The last one was more than six months ago.”

“But,” Xiaodan begins. What does this have to do with me? he wants to ask, only the words remain unspoken. Inadvertently, he’s had an epiphany. He can finally come clean about the reason he – and Zhong – arrived at the mines in the first place.

They don’t know, he thinks.

“What is it?” Sain says in an anxious voice, as if she can see the light that’s suddenly come on his head.

“We need to get your father,” Xiaodan swallows. “You wanted to know who I am, and what I’m doing here? I have to tell you, and it needs to be right now.”