The infirmary stores were never fully quiet.
Even at this hour, there was the low scrape of ceramic lids, the faint bite of alcohol in the air, the whisper of cloth being torn into strips by practised hands. The main ward slept behind a screen of latticed doors, but this back room stayed awake for men who did not bleed loudly enough to earn a bed.
Zhenan stood at the narrow counter, with his hands bare, a shallow bowl of boiled water cooling beside him. He tore a thin strip from a length of clean cloth and laid it out with care. His thumb throbbed dully where the skin had split. A neat cut from the swallow-wing knife he'd caught in the Veil Zone.
He had not bound it yet.
The door behind him opened.
He did not turn.
He recognised her Qi. Familiar, disciplined, threaded with a quiet, habitual confidence.
Huo Mei.
She did not announce herself. She came in as if the room already expected her, and perhaps it did. The Black Lotus compound remembered its own.
"You're doing this yourself?" she asked, light, curious rather than reproachful.
He glanced over his shoulder. "It didn't need waking anyone."
She came closer, boots quiet on stone. He felt her before she touched him, the faint warmth of her presence threading into the room. She stopped at his side and looked down at his hands.
Her gaze went immediately to his thumb.
"That's fresh," she commented.
"It is."
"That's not from training," she added, after a beat.
He dipped the cloth into the bowl and squeezed it out once before meeting her eyes.
"Dock?" she asked mildly.
"No."
"Patrol?"
"Not exactly."
Huo Mei held his gaze a moment longer than necessary, reading what he offered and what he didn't.
"Well," she said, reaching past him to take a small jar from the shelf, "it's already closing. You're lucky."
She handed him the jar. He recognised the seal. A salve used for shallow blade wounds.
"You should apply this first," she said.
He took it without comment and tipped a measure of the salve over the cut. The sting flared, sharp and brief. His jaw tightened. He did not hiss.
She watched his face while he did it.
"Be careful, Zhenan," she said. "People don't usually get that near you unless you let them."
The words landed deeper than they should have.
Zhenan noted that, and disliked it. Not the concern. The accuracy.
He wasn't sure why he hadn't moved the blade farther away. Or why he hadn't discarded it the moment he'd cleaned it. Or why the idea of explaining any of it to her felt wrong in a way he couldn't yet name.
He pressed the cloth to his thumb. "You make it sound personal."
She smiled faintly. "Everything is, if it's close enough."
He wrapped the cloth around the cut, neat and tight, and tied it off with a quick knot.
Her eyes stayed on his hands, thoughtful now rather than simply observant.
"They're talking again," she said lightly, as if it were nothing worth weighing.
He glanced up.
"About the Mantle. About needing more people ready, if things shift," she went on lightly.
Her Qi ran a shade hotter, contained but eager, as if the idea pleased her.
"Not just Vice Elders and Elders anymore."
Zhenan's jaw set. Impatience from the Bureau was never about efficiency. It was appetite.
And if they were pushing Mantle work below Elders and Vice Elders, that meant Senior Ascendants. Men like him.
He was young and "promising" in Black Lotus. That was the sort of thing that became a collar if the wrong hands liked the sound of it.
For years, Elder Qiang and Vice Elder Bai had bent the record around him, sanding down numbers, misplacing assessments, letting his control read as steady instead of exceptional and dangerous.
Not hiding him, exactly. Just keeping him from being singled out too soon. Crimson Red instead of Star Silver. Field work instead of inner halls.
He wanted to keep it that way. It felt safe. For now. But safety in Black Lotus was always borrowed.
"Rumours like to run ahead of orders," Zhenan said.
Mei smiled. "Orders always catch up."
He felt his Qi draw inward, the way it did when a path narrowed ahead.
Only then did he flex his thumb, testing it.
"Better?" she asked.
"Good enough."
She replaced the jar on the shelf then turned to him again. "I was looking for you."
He met her eyes. "I gathered."
Her eyes flicked, briefly, to the doorway. "Your room?"
He hesitated for half a breath.
He could feel the Veil still clinging to his thoughts. Release had always been his way of smoothing that edge.
"I could use the company," he said, at last.
She smiled. Something in her Qi eased, as if she had expected the answer and was quietly gratified to be right, already certain the night would end where she intended.
A few moments later, they left the infirmary together, their steps falling into an easy, unremarked rhythm. Passing through the compound at night meant avoiding the brightest paths, skirting courtyards where lanterns still burned for late meetings.
As they passed one of these courtyards, Zhenan's thoughts went to Bai Lin. She had wanted to speak to him since the writ arrived. Zhenan had not made the time.
He would tomorrow. Tonight, he needed his thoughts quieter than answers would allow.
At his door, he paused. "Give me a moment."
He entered alone, quickly crossed to the mat, and slid the swallow-wing knife from where it rested, in his sleeve. He hid it beneath the mat with practiced care.
His room was spare, as always. Mat. Low table. Lamp. Nothing left where it could be read.
He went to open the door to Mei.
She said nothing and shrugged out of her cloak and set it aside without ceremony. She moved as if the space already knew her, but she did not take it for granted. That was the difference.
He reached for his forearm and, with a small turn of his wrist, he let the weight run, links sliding free in a soft, controlled whisper. His fingers guided it, folding metal into metal, tension released in precise measures until the last section settled into his palm.
He set it aside on the low table, coiled tight and obedient, as if it had never been anything else.
Huo Mei watched the movement, her eyes flicking from his hands to his face, then back again. "You still wear that," she said lightly.
"Habit," he replied. The truth, or close enough.
Her mouth curved. "You know," she said, eyes on the chain and stepping closer, voice low and deliberate, "metal has other uses."
Her fingers brushed the coiled metal on the table. "Tell me," she said looking up at him, slowly smiling, heat threaded through her Qi, "have you ever wondered how much easier it would be to keep me still?"
His Qi answered before his body did, tightening, then warming. This was familiar ground.
She leaned in, close enough that her breath warmed his throat. "You like control, Zhenan. Don't pretend you wouldn't enjoy using it on me."
She kissed him then, unhurried, certain. Zhenan responded, hands finding what was familiar, body settling into a rhythm that required no thinking.
Mei knew it too. That was the point. No guessing, no weighing, no consequences that lingered past dawn.
Usually, that was enough.
She drew him down to the mat, movement smooth, her mouth warm at his throat, her fingers tracing lines she'd memorized months ago. His breath hitched when she bit, lightly. He let himself sink into it.
And then, his focus slipped.
A flash of jade green cloth in a mirror. Long lines and eyes looking at him.
Mei felt it at once. She pulled back just enough to look at him, dark hair spilling over one shoulder. "You're drifting," she murmured.
He blinked once. "I'm here."
Her thumb pressed into the muscle below his collarbone, grounding, claiming. "You're usually sharper."
That stung more than it should have.
He shifted beneath her, rolling them so he could pin her wrists above her head, not to dominate, just to reset the balance.
Her breath caught, a pleased sound. Her Qi slid closer, not just warm but appraising, as if she were enjoying the way his control felt under her hands. Zhenan caught the note and recognised it. Desire, yes. A physical one. He also felt the second note in her. The part that counted him as an advantage.
But Jade Wind crept back in anyway.
Stone. Fog. Jade Wind Qi brushing his senses like a dare. The remembered snap of a blade cutting air. The certainty in her Qi when she realized she'd been seen and thrown steel at him anyway.
She twisted her wrists experimentally; he loosened his grip without thinking.
She smiled, slow.
He kissed her again. Harder this time, as if pressure might drive the other image out of his head. For a moment it worked. Heat, movement, the familiar slide of skin and breath.
He anchored himself in her. In the weight of her body, the sound she made when he shifted his grip. His Qi settled, aligned to hers. Clean. Controlled. For a breath, he believed he had it again. That this was enough.
Mei responded at once, sensing the change. She pressed closer, hands firm, mouth intent, as if rewarding the return. As if claiming it.
Then the silence between heartbeats filled with fog again. Zhenan's mind split despite him, slipping back…
That Jade Wind girl. The instant her pressure eased. Not retreating. Choosing distance. The clean withdrawal of someone who knew when a line had been drawn and chose not to cross it.
Mei stayed close, forehead brushing his jaw, testing whether nearness could still hold him.
She kissed him again, slower now. Searching. For a moment, there was something almost careful in her touch.
Her Qi tightened, no longer playful. It pressed, testing whether he would follow or yield. When he did neither, the tension stayed. Unspent.
She drew away. Sat back on her heels and looked at him.
"This isn't doing what it usually does," she said.
He exhaled and dragged his hand back through his hair. "No, it isn't." A pause. "That's on me. I shouldn't have taken what I couldn't give tonight."
She studied him for another heartbeat. Something unreadable crossed her Qi, then smoothed away, but it did not return to its earlier ease.
She rose and adjusted her robe.
"Next time," she said, hand on the doorframe with her Qi pressing just enough to be felt, "make sure your body is all mine. I'll claim every inch of you properly."
He met her gaze long enough to acknowledge what she wanted from him, and what she had not taken tonight.
The door closed.
He told himself he would make it right next time. His Qi did not believe him.
His mind was already elsewhere. That, more than Mei's last words, told him something had shifted.
He sighed, then lay back on the mat and stared at the ceiling.
His mother had a proverb for nights like this. Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking. As a boy, he'd listened for the street and felt brave when nothing came. Now the compound was quiet, and his conscience was the one making noise.
His hand slid under the mat anyway, and drew the swallow-wing knife free.
Its balance sat perfectly in his palm. Too perfectly. His thumb brushed the curve without thinking, and a sensation rose unbidden. (Is sensation the correct word?)
The way her Qi had brushed against his own, not flaring, not retreating, but testing him with calm curiosity. The way her body had committed to motion, refusing to be the prey.
The thought slid warmer than it should have.
More compelling than the touch he had just turned away from.
That unsettled him.
He closed his fingers around the knife once, sharply, and forced the image down.
Discipline. Control. Warnings were supposed to end curiosity, not feed it.
He set the blade back where it belonged and lay still, breath even.
Next time, he told himself, there would be no hesitation. He would be firmer. Clearer.
He would make sure she understood the danger and stepped back.
Order, not mercy.
He told himself that, like it could erase the warmth in his chest. It didn't.
His Qi drew in, tight and stubborn, refusing to smooth.
Sleep did not come.