The first change came through the lamp flame at the junction.
It bent toward the stone wall without a draft. Lu Chen saw it over his shoulder, a thin light stretching away from its wick. The guards stopped examining Liu San. One looked upward; the other caught the unconscious apprentice beneath the arms and began dragging him out of the passage.
The screening had begun above them.
Lu Chen could not see the mirrors. He felt their work as a pressure against the breath he had hidden beneath his navel. The outer crust of suppression held, but something seemed to be pulling at the living warmth underneath. He pressed his palm against his belly and fought the urge to clamp it tighter. He had nearly torn himself apart doing that before.
Keep moving.
He ducked beneath the drainage arch. The bucket from last night was gone. Someone had taken it back to the wash racks, leaving a dark circle on the stone. Lu Chen did not stop to wonder whether they had looked further.
The first grate remained where he had wedged it. He lifted the lower edge and pulled it aside. The rotted upper ear fell apart, striking the sill. The sound carried behind him. He squeezed through and reset nothing.
His work lamp had stayed in the forge. He used his stored breath to find the bank, reducing the flow whenever the next foothold became clear. Last night's crossings were still in his hands, in the raw wrist and the battered knees. Familiarity made them quicker. It did not make them dry.
At the second frame he caught his vest against a bar. The cloth tore before he noticed that the tie around one spirit stone had loosened. He stopped with his shoulder wedged in the opening and felt for the wrapping. It was still under his shirt, slipping downward against his skin.
He held it with his bandaged hand, backed clear, and tightened the tie. The pressure from above had not reached him fully yet. Its faint pull remained, urging the hidden ring outward. Lu Chen's breath came shallowly through his teeth.
He crossed the broken bank by his slate marks. The poisoned water was higher now. It covered the foothold he had used before, forcing him to hang longer from the wall. Halfway across, he heard a boot scrape at the first grate.
Someone had followed the sound.
Lu Chen reached the far side, slid behind the third gate, and listened. A lamp glow appeared through the darkness behind him. The pursuer stopped at the broken bank. Another man joined him. They did not try to jump. One lowered a pole into the water; the other examined the handholds.
They would cross.
Lu Chen loosened a needle from his sleeve. He considered sending it backward through the opening. The men were distant, partly screened by the frame, and already holding their lamps away from their bodies. He had no clear target. Spending Qi there would give them his position and leave him less for the last gate.
He put the point against his own cuff and moved on.
The nest at the fourth frame had changed. Several grubs clung lower on the bars. The gap underneath was still open, but cloudy strands crossed the little stones he had left as markers. He took the scraper out and cleared the nearest without standing below the bodies.
The pole struck stone behind him. The guards were crossing the broken bank.
Lu Chen laid himself down. He pulled his coat beneath his chest to keep its loose edges from catching, pushed his flask higher, and worked his head under the gate. One shoulder passed; the other dragged against the iron.
A grub touched his back.
Lu Chen jerked forward. Its hooks caught the coat collar. He felt the cloth tighten at his throat and began clawing at the bank in panic. His cheek went into the cold runoff. He forced his face up, coughing, and reached backward with the scraper.
The creature pulled again. His breath closed.
He twisted onto his side as far as the frame allowed and shoved the scraper between his collar and the iron. The hooks tore through cloth. Lu Chen slid clear, leaving a strip of the collar in the grub's mouth. He rolled away from the gap and coughed water onto the bank.
He had swallowed some. His throat stung. He wanted to sit until it stopped. The lamps behind the nest were growing brighter.
The pursuers halted when they saw the hanging bodies. One raised a shield above his head and sent the pole forward first. The grubs folded toward it. The other man held his lamp back, keeping the light from passing directly beneath the nest.
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They had seen the danger. They would take longer to cross it, but not forever.
Lu Chen went through the fifth frame. Its softened fastening broke under his hand. At the sixth he stumbled, caught a bar, and drove its jagged edge into the cut across his palm. The binding filled with warmth. He left it wrapped; undoing it now would cost more time than he had.
The outer wind met him before he saw the seventh grate.
He reached the closed frame and put his face near the bars. The ledge outside was still there, a narrow lip of stone coated with fresh ice. Below it lay broken rock, then a slope disappearing into storm. He could not simply leap and hope to land. The chart's descent began beneath this outlet, and he had only the tools of an apprentice.
He opened the flask.
The remaining vitriol sloshed heavily at its bottom. He directed it onto the cleared lower fastening. Then he treated the upper ear, spreading what remained with the blunt edge of his scraper. The last drops crept slowly from the neck. He waited for them rather than throw the flask away.
The pressure behind him strengthened. It came through the stone in a broad, sickening pull. Lu Chen's hidden ring lurched against its coating. He bent over, stomach contracting, and breathed through the pain. He could not tell whether the mirrors had found him. He only knew the suppression would not remain steady if he stood here until the searching force reached its fullest strength.
The frame refused to move.
He levered at the lower ear. Soft iron broke away, leaving the pin jammed beneath it. He braced the scraper and pulled again. Its bent handle twisted in his hand. The palm cut opened wider; his fingers slid along the greasy grip.
Lamp light reached the sixth frame.
Lu Chen wrapped the handle in his sleeve. He pulled with his body rather than his wrist. The lower pin tore free. The gate tipped but hung from the top. Wind drove through the new opening and struck his face with ice grit.
He pushed at the upper fastening. It had not softened enough.
The guards were calling to each other. One had ordered his companion to keep the entrance covered rather than rush straight through. A spear slid into the gap behind Lu Chen. Its point searched the bank, struck his abandoned scraper cloth, and withdrew.
He took a needle and passed it through the rotten iron ear, using the wire to pull loose fragments out of the joint. The needle itself could not hold the gate's weight. He kept it clear of the load, tugged the last softened piece aside, and withdrew it as the frame began to descend.
It struck the sill. Lu Chen flung himself backward before it trapped his foot. A spear came through the sixth gate and hit the stone beside his head. The pursuer had taken a low position behind the bars.
Lu Chen kicked the freed frame outward.
It slid over the lip and fell, dragging old moss and stone chips after it. The wind roared into the siphon. The lamp behind him went out. In the sudden darkness, the guard cursed and withdrew the spear to protect his face.
Lu Chen crawled onto the outer ledge.
The lip was too narrow to stand on safely. He kept his belly against the rock, one arm inside the opening. The skinning knife went into his good hand. He tested a stone seam beneath the outlet. The horn handle turned in his fingers, but the blade held when pressed sideways against firm rock.
It was not a climbing hook. If he hung his whole weight from it, it might snap or come free. He used it only to steady the descent while his boots sought the charted shelf below.
Behind him, a hand struck the inside sill.
Lu Chen lowered himself before the guard could reach his collar. His first boot found nothing. The second scraped ice, then met stone. He bent his knees and moved his weight down. The knife loosened. He caught the upper lip with his wounded hand and almost screamed.
A spear thrust through the opening.
He let go.
He dropped onto the lower shelf, struck his ribs against its edge, and slid toward the drainage run. His breath left him. He clawed at the rock with both hands until his fingers caught a rough seam. The cold ate through the torn coat. Water struck his legs and pushed them downhill.
The opening above remained close enough for the spear to threaten him. Lu Chen crawled sideways, using the knife to clear ice from the next handhold. He rounded an outcrop just as the point struck the place he had left.
He lay behind the rock until he could breathe again. Every breath hurt along his side. The stone bindings pressed into the bruised flesh. When he checked them, both wrappings remained beneath his vest. The token and flask were there too.
The knife's edge had chipped during the descent. Lu Chen found that when it slipped against the next seam, leaving the horn handle loose in his palm. He changed his grip and used the blade's sound portion to clear the ice. He could not trust it as a weight-bearing hook. The wounded hand stayed on rock whenever he moved his feet.
At a bend, his torn boot exposed bare toes to the drainage spray. He pulled the foot back, rubbed away the dirty ice with his coat, and wrapped it in a strip from the damaged hem. Doing that cost time while the men above were looking for him, but walking onward with the sole open would make the next slope impossible. He tightened the strip with his teeth, put his foot down carefully, and continued before his fingers lost their feeling.
The guard's light returned above him, but it showed only the outer lip and the rushing water. A body could not come down that slope carrying a spear and a shield. The man stayed at the opening and called for a different route.
Lu Chen moved before they found one.
He followed the outcrop downward, keeping away from the runnel. His boots slipped more often than they gripped. Yan's grease pouch remained unopened in his belt; he had no safe place to use it yet. At the bottom of the first descent, a torn patch of coat caught on rock. He eased it loose rather than leave a bright scrap to point after him.
The storm closed around the outlet. Above, the mirrors' pull thinned, then faded. Lu Chen did not open his suppression to test whether they could still find him. He kept the ring covered and put one foot beneath the other.
He reached a sheltered crack in the stone when the valley's next horn was sounding. Inside it, he could crouch without standing in the wind. He pushed aside the loose snow, checked the nine needles, and wrapped the bleeding palm in the cleanest cloth he had left.
The siphon was behind him. You Ming was still all around him. He ate a little of the saved mash and spent the remainder of the darkness keeping his eyes open, listening for boots above the crack.