Shortly after first light, one of Huo Zhenyang's attendants hurried into the outer courtyard and stopped before Qin Hualing. Soot marked the hem of his robe. He bowed, still breathing hard.
"Senior Investigator. We knocked on Lord Cai's door, but he did not answer."
Qin Hualing looked past him toward the western side of the residence. Servants crossed the courtyards with buckets, towels, and broken roof tiles.
"When was he last seen?"
"Yesterday."
"Who entered?"
"No one. We sent for you instead."
"Who has stood outside the room?"
The attendant named himself and two others of the household. No delegate. No physician. No servant sent in to wake Cai Hongwen.
"Take me there."
He led her through two courtyards and along a covered passage. Morning light reached the eastern walls, but the guest rooms ahead remained dim. Two household attendants waited outside the last door. Both moved away from it when they saw her.
Commander Wei Zhennan came from the opposite end of the passage at the same time. His robe had been changed since the night before. Nothing in his bearing showed whether he had slept.
"Investigator." His eyes moved once to the closed door. "What happened?"
"No one here has seen Lord Cai since yesterday."
Wei Zhennan stopped beside the nearest pillar. "I will enter with you."
"No."
He looked at her.
Qin Hualing looked at the three attendants. "No one enters until I return."
All three bowed.
Qin Hualing opened the door.
The room beyond it was still. A dark west-facing window looked over the damaged city. The low tea table stood near it. Cai Hongwen lay on his side beside the table, one arm stretched across the floor.
His fingers had stopped short of the small brass bell.
Qin Hualing closed the door behind her.
She did not go to the body at once. Her eyes moved around the room first. There was no blood on the floor and no cut in Cai Hongwen's robes that she could see from where she stood.
She crossed to him without touching the table and examined him with her spiritual sense. There was no trace of life.
Qin Hualing rose and returned to the door. The three attendants were where she had left them. Wei Zhennan still stood beside the nearest pillar.
"Lord Cai is dead," she said.
One of the attendants looked at the closed door, then quickly away.
Wei Zhennan's face hardened. "Was he killed?"
"I do not know."
He took one step toward the room.
Qin Hualing remained in his path. "Stop."
Wei Zhennan stopped. "He was the head of this delegation."
"You still wait outside," Qin Hualing said.
Wei Zhennan held her gaze for a breath, then stepped back.
Qin Hualing turned to the attendant who had fetched her. "Bring Tie Yuan."
The attendant left at a run.
She set the other two at opposite ends of the passage. Delegates came in ones and twos, heard that Cai Hongwen was dead, and were sent back. Huo Zhenyang's people brought word that the City Lord had been told. Qin Hualing allowed no one through the door.
Tie Yuan arrived while the morning light was beginning to reach the western roofs.
He came alone. Qin Hualing asked nothing about the night. He looked first at Wei Zhennan, then at the closed door.
"You sent for me."
"Cai Hongwen is dead."
Tie Yuan's face did not change. "Show me."
Qin Hualing led him inside. Wei Zhennan remained outside.
Tie Yuan stopped one pace beyond the door. His eyes passed over the dark window, the table, the body, and the hand stretched toward the bell.
"No trace of life," she said. "No visible wound. I have not moved him."
Tie Yuan studied Cai Hongwen. "Could the formation have killed him?"
"It may have. When Cai Hongwen entered Redstone yesterday, he had only just broken through to mortal shedding. His cultivation was so unstable he could barely maintain the early stage."
Tie Yuan swept his spiritual sense over Cai Hongwen. His brow tightened. He looked from the body to the window.
"Cai Hongwen brought them here," he said.
"Who?"
"The people he thought would help him secure this city. Last night they raised a formation over all of Redstone." Tie Yuan's gaze settled on the body.
"Can you prove he brought them?"
"Not yet."
"Then we question the delegation."
Qin Hualing opened the door and asked for a clean cloth and a plain wooden box. The nearest attendant brought them and passed them across the threshold.
Tie Yuan watched as Qin Hualing lifted the brass bell. It was light in her hand, ordinary brass without an inscription or trace of qi. She wrapped it, placed it in the box, and closed the lid.
They left the room. Wei Zhennan had not moved from the passage.
The attendant sealed the door. Qin Hualing kept the box.
Qin Hualing turned to the nearest attendant. "Tell City Lord Huo I need guards at both ends of this passage. All delegates remain in their rooms until Tie Yuan and I call for them."
Wei Zhennan looked from her to Tie Yuan. "You mean to confine the entire delegation?"
"Until I know which of you served Cai Hongwen," Tie Yuan said. "He is dead. I mean to make sure his faction dies with him."
Huo Clan guards now stood at both ends of the passage. Doors closed one after another as word passed from room to room.
Qin Hualing looked at Wei Zhennan. "Commander. You first."
Wei Zhennan stepped away from the pillar and stopped in front of them.
Tie Yuan looked at him. "Who came into Redstone under your delegation's protection?"
A small crack sounded between Wei Zhennan's teeth.
His lips parted. Something red-black stained his tongue. The smell of iron and bitter medicine reached Qin Hualing.
"Move," she said.
His qi burst through the passage.
The guards staggered. Wood groaned overhead. Wei Zhennan's blade was in his hand as his sleeve settled, but he did not strike at Qin Hualing. He crossed the space between them and cut for Tie Yuan's throat.
Pale light met the blade and turned it aside. The edge missed Tie Yuan, but the force behind it did not. He struck the railing and went through it in a crash of broken wood, falling into the courtyard beyond.
Wei Zhennan followed him.
Qin Hualing pushed the wooden box into the nearest attendant's arms. "Hold this. Do not move."
She stepped through the broken railing.
Tie Yuan had already rolled to his feet. Dust covered one side of his robe. Wei Zhennan landed in front of him, blade raised, the veins in his neck swollen beneath the skin.
Qin Hualing reached him first.
His blade came down hard enough to split the stone where she had stood. She moved inside the next cut and struck his forearm. Wei Zhennan gave ground, then drove his shoulder toward her with enough qi behind it to break a core formation cultivator's body.
She turned with the blow. His shoulder passed her by a hand's breadth. Pale light opened his sleeve from shoulder to wrist, leaving a shallow line of blood beneath it.
Wei Zhennan did not seem to feel the cut. His eyes had reddened. Heat rolled off him, carrying the same iron smell as the pill.
The pill had forced more power through him than his body had any right to hold. It had not remade that body. His blade was fast, but Qin Hualing saw his shoulder turn before every cut. His feet struck with terrible force and recovered a fraction too slowly. Each breath came shorter than the one before it.
Dead, he could answer nothing. She let another opening pass and struck the flat of his blade instead.
The weapon rang across the courtyard. Wei Zhennan's hand shook. He caught the hilt in both hands and came at her again.
Doors opened along the passage behind them. One delegate stepped out, and the Huo Clan guards barred his way. Others crowded the thresholds, some armed and some empty-handed.
"Remain in your rooms," Tie Yuan said.
No one obeyed at once. No one came farther either.
Wei Zhennan heard them. His gaze moved once toward the far end of the courtyard.
Qin Hualing saw where he meant to go.
He struck at her face, abandoned the cut before it landed, and broke for the outer passage. The flagstones cracked beneath his first step. On the second, blood ran from his nose. By the third, the qi around him had begun to beat unevenly.
Tie Yuan stood in his path.
"Out of my way."
Tie Yuan did not answer.
Wei Zhennan thrust for his chest. Tie Yuan waited until the blade was almost on him, then turned and struck the inside of Wei Zhennan's arm. He could not stop the charge. He did not try. His palm shifted it one pace from the outer passage.
One pace was enough.
Qin Hualing caught Wei Zhennan's sword wrist from behind. Her other hand struck beneath his elbow. His fingers opened, and the blade went spinning across the stones.
He twisted toward her, qi surging again. For an instant the swollen veins spread across his jaw and the pressure in the courtyard rose until the watching delegates drew back from their doors.
Then the pill took its price.
Wei Zhennan's breath failed. His knees buckled as he turned, and Qin Hualing drove him face-first onto the stones. Her knee held one arm. Her qi pressed down through his back until the violent power inside him could no longer rise.
He struggled once. Blood spilled from his mouth, red-black with what remained of the pill. Then he lay still beneath her, breathing in short, ragged pulls.
Tie Yuan retrieved the fallen blade. A bruise was already spreading along his cheek, but he stood straight.
"Alive?" he asked.
Qin Hualing swept her spiritual sense over Wei Zhennan. His life was weak beneath the burning in his blood, but it remained.
"Alive."
She looked toward the delegates gathered behind the guards.
"Back inside. All of you."
This time the doors closed.
Behind them, the seal across Cai Hongwen's door remained unbroken. The attendant still held the boxed bell against his chest. In the courtyard, Wei Zhennan drew another ragged breath.