Yizhen exhaled first, long and low, and wandered over to toe the ledger with his boot. "Black circle on white," he mused. "Foreign stitch. West road late. Rope bought unmarked, temple quarter looped." He crouched, flipping the book with two fingers the way you flip a fish you might or might not keep. "They left us an entire story."
"People always do," Xinying breathed.
He glanced up.
There was blood on her wrist where the rope had kissed too hard. He reached, then checked the impulse the way a man remembers to bow in front of a god he might tease later. She noticed the restraint and let him have the victory.
"Allow me," he offered, pulling a clean square of cloth from inside his sleeve. "If we start with poultices, the story ends without me, and neither of us wants that."
"Mm," she allowed, letting him cradle her hand, letting him see exactly how steady she still was. It took a bit of effort for her to suppress the smile on her face.
