The Lantern Market glowed like a spilled jewel box, ten thousand paper flames bobbing over silent stalls.
Hajin walked the aisles alone, turning the plate from Oren's mask over and over in his coat pocket. Every stallholder along the row smiled at him with the very same careful smile, hands folded, mouths shut.
"I'm looking for whoever sells chisels," he told a tinsmith, "one with a worn edge, like the one in my pocket."
The man's eyes flicked toward the rooftops, then back, a frightened bird watching a cat.
"Please buy a lantern, honoured guest," the tinsmith answered, in the flat voice of a man reading from a card.
'He wants to tell me something. His mouth won't let him.'
"Blink twice if somebody's standing behind you with a blade," Hajin said, very softly.
The tinsmith blinked twice, slowly, then smiled even wider than before.
"Buy a lantern," he repeated, tossing a coin onto the counter, "I'll take the red one, if it's lucky."
