He put iron into his eyes and said nothing.
"You made three mistakes," she went on. "First—you didn't learn the scent of my house. Second—you walked into a city that eats men like you and assumed you would be the one doing the chewing. Third—" she set her palm on the table "—you believed a rumor about who holds the leash."
He tried for contempt. It sat poorly in a mouth that tasted of fear. "You're not the leash."
"No," she agreed, soft. "I'm the wolf."
The room did not move. Even the flame seemed to go narrow with the sentence.
She lifted two fingers.
Yaozu's shadow detached from the wall and took the not-quite-awake one to a second ring. It was far enough that the sounds of him trying to pull breath through his panic would feel like something that could happen to someone else.
"Your guild," Longzi said, finding the step again. "How many cells inside our walls."
"No guild," the prisoner shot back, too fast.
"Too slow," Yizhen corrected him mildly.
