I'd expected Zhao Hengyuan to burst in again with accusation dressed as grief. He didn't. Meiling didn't try to be the storm, either. The two of them had gone still; sometimes that meant a bigger wave later. Sometimes it meant they were smarter than they looked. We would learn which.
When Ren rose under guard, the cart still open and the coin still bright, I took one of the silver bars from its nest. It was heavy enough to crack a skull. Or a habit.
I set it on the desk beside our cold bowls. "We'll melt this one for hooks," I said. "Rugs don't trip boys if you force them to hold where you put them."
Mingyu had his fingers on the rim of his bowl again, that small half-smile in his eyes that meant the board inside his head had already changed. "Hooks," he repeated, pleased. "Hooks it is."
As Ren passed, he made the mistake of glancing at the phoenix engraved into the arm of my chair. Not greed—envy. As if he believed the difference between us was furniture.
