Page 66 of The Wind Dancer
At a nearby table, a girl staggered, her eyes were dull, and her hands were shaking as she tried and failed to light another pipe. She barely had anything on, aside from the purple bruises on her thighs. A person sat nearby, watching with lazy interest, but not helping.
The guards observed me enter without a word. People like me were rare here. A white-haired middle-aged man took a few steps toward me.
“You’re not welcome here. This isn’t Lower City for you to be so impudent, guild member or not.”
“Are you the boss of the guards?”
I got a short nod in response.
“Teach them that grabbing people is a bad idea if they’d like to keep their arms.”
A smile appeared on the old man’s lips. He had obviously grown up on the streets like me and had learned good manners there. “Aren’t you afraid that they’d break your arms?”
I looked him straight in the eye, and he understood.
“If you have a problem, then tell me the time and place. And my friends and I will be there.” The daggers appeared in my hands as if by magic. That was enough for us to reach a mutual understanding.
“My man was out of line. But this place has its own set of rules.”
“They didn’t explain them to me. So let’s say this whole thing was a misunderstanding.”
“Excellent. Now what do you need? A girl or a boy? Judging by your looks, drugs aren’t your thing, right?”
“Seriously? Who’d want any of this?”
“There are plenty of people who’d be enthusiastic to partake.”
That made me feel sick. The wind was right. This place needed to be cleansed.
“I’m being expected.”
“We weren’t informed.” The gray-haired man was very confident. Clearly, he didn’t understand who he was messing with.
“There’s a man waiting for me on the third floor of the basement.” He tensed at these words, but tried not to show it.
“We weren’t warned.” He repeated, like a protective mantra.
“I wasn’t supposed to come alone. The lotuses promised to accompany me, but it so happened that the petal flew away and promised to return.” It was curious how people on the streets learned to speak in allegories, considering that such language was usually associated with nobles.
The man nervously swallowed at my words and then nodded.
“I’ll escort you. Try not to cause any problems.”
My lips curled into a smile.
“Problems? Me?”
I wanted to kill them all. I inconspicuously tapped the earring and almost immediately got a response back. Mei Lin was ready and was just waiting for my signal.
CHAPTER 19
The heavy door slid open, revealing the lair of the man who might already have marked me for death.
The first thing that hit me was the smell. It wasn’t incense or spicy herbs, but a combination of dry paper, lamp oil, and a faint hint of something else. Iron? In the office? Was my intuition just telling me that blood had been shed within these walls? I took a step inside, feeling the air press down on my shoulders. Here, power ruled.
The room seemed to be arranged to perfection. There was nothing out of place and no unnecessary clutter. The walls were paneled with dark wood, and there was a massive table with nothing but scrolls and seals in the center. It felt as if life itself flowed strictly according to a plan here.
The man who had sent the lotuses after me was sitting at the table. I needed to understand why he had done that. Was it all about the amulet?
