Naye, a city that sells the stars by the hour. A fare split seventeen ways, a fog on the Black Swamp she means to sell the cure for, and a hill where she says something louder than she meant to.

A circle that burns, a town where the waiters bow in terror, and a man who went out in the night to find the way north. The last rooms on the Firebird are already going.

A square of giant birds, a young master with something to prove, and the price of standing in front of the wrong person. Then a month in the air, thin walls, nosy neighbours, and a man who has stopped needing to hide.
⚠️ Content warning: sexual content (heavy petting, 18+).

Yan City is a twentieth of the north, and the walk in is “not far”. A lady’s carriage, a mask that costs half of everything, and the only time she has ever paid the asking price.

Meat for a growing tiger, clothes she says she doesn’t need, a granny with black teeth, and an inn with one room and one tub. He gives her two options. She writes a third.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (18+).

A bounty board with a familiar book on it, a jade drive read to the very last line, and a new contract with a new face in it. Eight days of looking end on Life and Death Street, above a dead end.

A fox in an alley, a boy who’ll do anything, and a woman who won’t take yes for an answer until he’s heard what it costs. The night before the intake, she gets a new face.
⚠️ Content warning: violence, and a character killed and eaten by a beast (on-page).

Registration day at the Lei Tian Platform. A heckler gets a diagnosis, a big man with a bigger sword opens a back door, and a hall full of sons wants to know who she is.

The Soul Stone shows something only one person sees, a hand never reaches her collar, and that night her attendant hasn’t been dismissed.
⚠️ Content warning: violence (a broken wrist), explicit sexual content (18+).

The herb test moves to a building shaped like a cauldron. A name she mustn’t laugh at, a name he can say out loud, a girl in lilac the whole city calls the genius, and a herb she has a whole bed of at home. Then someone asks the question she was hoping nobody would.

Lunch at the herb test, and a new friend who’s a little too free with his arms. A second test with a recipe she’s never made, a shop on South Street, and a referral that pays better than it looks.

The last night in Yan City: a bath, two choices, and a third she writes herself. Then a bird to Dao Xin, a question nobody else thinks to ask, and a room with four beds in it.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (18+), biting.

A fight she doesn’t stay to watch, and a stranger who won’t give his name. A wall, a loan with terms, a market where one pill sells far too well, and a room of her own at last.

A man who isn’t allowed to touch her, and four pills bought for what they’ll tell her. A stall nobody lasts three days at, a classroom waiting for one answer, and a new neighbour.

A man who sits on the end of her bed and only watches, and a friend who won’t hit back. A boy whose name opens gates, a bet at two to one, and a beast taller than the stewards’ hall.
⚠️ Content warning: violence (a beating; a beast fight with a bite wound and blood), injury.

A man who asks before he crosses her threshold, and a friend who won’t take a gift until he does. Seventy-five sets of herbs from four stalls, a buyer who learns the right number, and a stranger guarding the wrong door.

A pretty boy guarding a step nobody asked him to keep, a young master she last saw bidding at the Firebird, and a barrier that has an opinion about who gets through. Three hours behind a closed door, a message to be passed on exactly as given, and five beasts with a great many questions.

A man who comes back at dawn with a mound of dead beasts, and a bath where the only rule is that nobody touches. A debt paid early, a mask nobody else would buy, and a stall kicked over on the herb terrace.
⚠️ Content warning: nudity (non-explicit), animal death and mild gore (a mound of dead beasts).

A young master who pays double and calls it honest, a room that is one-tenth jade chest, and six points she always keeps back. Then an old man on a rock who charges everyone one point to pass and her ten, a class she never reaches, and an offer worth a great deal more than the toll.

An opinion that costs a kiss, a purple card that can put a second name on a plaque, and a lease in five clauses with one of them crossed out. Then seventy-one level-five pills gone in under an hour, an offer to a boy who never has time to cultivate, and two people who go very quiet at the words level ten.

Two nights in one bed with a man who keeps to his side of it, and an old man shouting her name at the barrier at dawn. A cup of tea that goes to the wrong person, a gift worth more than a house, and a clause in a lease that doesn’t survive the night.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (18+), biting.

Somebody has rented her Dead Corner for ten days, and nobody is buying from him. Ten pills in a cloth in her sleeve, a deal struck behind the stalls, and a man in a grey robe who goes down the terrace steps with one hand on the wall. Then eighteen days in which the market stops being what it was, a note left on an elder’s desk, and three thousand four hundred points.

A pavilion made of the sea, a wall she walks into nose first, and a scroll that costs every point the two of them have. Then a girl in pale violet who doesn’t know her, a question asked twice, a challenge she turns down, and a duel with terms nobody expected.

A jade drive read on the walk up the valley, and a name at last for the old man on the rock. A cold black box from a man with a long moustache, a Da Shixiong who didn’t bring a present, and a white ball that decides for itself whose sleeve it lands on. Then a girl in pale violet who is going to have to call her something new, and a face held for a count of thirty-one.

A cauldron two men high, a pill that tries to leave by the door, and an old man who isn’t quite the one she met yesterday. Floors, beds, a courtyard to sweep, a girl in pale violet on the path at dusk, and a pond nobody warned her about. Then a library shelved upside down, a door that opens somewhere above her eyebrows, and a pair of hands that learned this before she was born.

An old man in his sleeping robe with both hands out, and a question about a cup of tea that only one person should be able to answer. A secret kept for a hundred years, a promise without a vow, and a lesson in letting a pill breathe. Then a big man on the plank bridge with a letter, one secret traded for another, and a goodbye at the gate that doesn’t go to plan.

Teng ZiXin smiles on the path, and it is the most frightening thing at Dao Xin. A friend in a thin dress tries the oldest trick there is on a boy who isn’t there, a gap on a high shelf gets noticed, and a bag goes missing at the old man’s gate. Then a very angry master, a Vice-Principal who comes nearly running, and a new cauldron that hums.

A quiet season at Dao Xin, a tiger cub asleep on her mother’s core, and a bond that goes silent without warning. A year to the day since the second contract, a square of paper carried in a sleeve from dawn till dusk, and a brush taken to every clause. Then a first flight that doesn’t know how to stop, a pill the colour of a coal, and a lesson in using all of one head.

A wet night, three bowls of lake water and a stuck drawer that finally gives. A pill every woman in Ward B wants, a farm cat that isn’t one, and a girl in pink who remembers a face from a counter in Yan City. Then a cub with a great deal to report, and a discount that costs rather more than two points.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (18+), biting.

A girl with a loose curl who keeps happening to be on the same path, and a wolf cub with a great deal to report. A queue out of the registration hall, a board of rules that comes down to a great deal of kicking, and a young man who asks the wrong person to give way. Then a bowl of stone seats packed before daylight, two beasts on her head, and a boy in white who stands at the edge of the stage looking at the sky.
⚠️ Content warning: mild violence (a tournament brawl).

Two small beasts in a dealer’s cage and a crowd of women bidding over them. A first place that comes home as a lacquered box, fifty fruits at ten points apiece, and a fruit that tastes of nothing at all. Then a back rub with an ulterior motive, two hundred cauldrons in long rows, and a pill she has only ever made once in four tries.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (18+).

A bronze lamp that reads a pill by its light, a message from a master who isn’t even there, and three sixes on a board that has never shown more than one. Then a name on an old list she read the wrong way, a girl in pink who won’t go easy on her, and a room of black stone where the weight comes down on body and soul alike.

Twenty-nine seconds past the half-hour, a new name at the top of the board, and a body that has to be carried home. Then a question on a quiet path through the pines that she answers in a way he never expected, a brave girl in pink at the arena gate, and fifty mages on one stage, with two of them sweeping it clear and heading her way.
⚠️ Content warning: mild violence (a tournament brawl).

Two against one on open stone, a seal she has practised every night while her master was away, and a blow from behind she should have seen coming. Then a small bottle of water, a slip about which day, five places to share out among the five left standing, and a man in the far corner of the stands who shouldn’t have been there at all.
⚠️ Content warning: violence (a broken shoulder), injury.

A door in the air that finally opens, and a country on the other side with no sun and no edge to it. A leopard made of weather, an hour that won’t end, two boys at the gate with their minds made up, and a long flight north with somebody’s hands on her waist that know exactly where she’s ticklish.
⚠️ Content warning: mild peril, non-lethal electric shocks (training).

A road that wasn’t there a breath ago, five platforms, and a welcome meant to take the shine off. A smiling stranger who asks too many questions, a seal that answers them, one room argued down to a price, and a question on the end of a bed that she doesn’t answer, and doesn’t refuse.
⚠️ Content warning: combat.

Eleven hundred paces and a leopard that has decided she is its job. A room with nothing in the air, a line tens of millions of years old, and a question she won’t answer yet. Then three cupboards she hasn’t opened in a year, a quarrel the little ones have copied word for word, and a grey egg that has been very quiet for a very long time and wakes up thirsty.

A promise made on a path through the pines, called in at last and kept on her terms: a list she gets in the wrong order, and a knot she learned at the counter. Then a morning with something missing from the floor, a joke that lands harder than he meant it to, and somewhere new for something to grow.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (18+), consensual power exchange (she’s in charge), orgasm control.

A round white building full of stone rooms, prices that went up by half a year ago, and a rule that hangs on the colour of a card. A tease across a stone room, a card put back in while she isn’t looking, a red herb behind glass and a basin marked with a thumbnail. Then a queue somebody pushes into, a question about brothers, and a door hardly anybody in Ward A can walk through.

A ring of thirty doors where there should be thirty-one, three strangers who come out of them at once, and twelve points a day she feels like a tooth. A stall somebody else is sitting at, a basin of water thrown across a floor, and a month of looking up at the place where he isn’t. Then a boy who climbed a whole ward to keep a customer, a fight on the eighth stage that nobody expects to last, and a fan.
⚠️ Content warning: violence (an arena fight; a man badly burned).

A trump card made up on a stage, a hand on the wrong shoulder, and a mosquito that never bit anyone. Four hundred points, a sixty-forty split traded for a room, and a man who says two thousand would have been too cheap. Then a mountain that gets heavier the further in you go, a note on a bedroom table, a stranger who stands with his back turned while she breaks through, and a debt she can’t put a price on.

A door that opens before she touches it, a dare she doesn’t set the terms for, and a leg that picks the worst moment to cramp. A golden herb that won’t bend, a number that won’t stop climbing, and a contract she reads twice so somebody else doesn’t have to. Then an egg that learns what it’s afraid of.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (18+).

A letter with one line she reads four times, a room nobody else may enter, and a drawer she won’t touch however long he looks at it. Five tasks on a board, a daydream about two prizes, and a friend whose one-afternoon contract won’t end. Then a new rule read out on the plaza steps that ruins everyone’s plans, a silence two hundred people deep, and a wide grass plain where somebody is left with his hand in the air. Then a long run north, a race with stakes she won’t repeat, and a smell on the wind from the far side of the ridge.

A hollow full of men in grey and the things that are killing them, one word in answer to who she is, and a broken breath she decides is not her business. A map drawn over years in three different hands, and a favour she won’t name yet. Then two days of running, a hill that turns out to be a country, a cave mouth where somebody weeds the flowers, and the one word she should have kept to herself.
⚠️ Content warning: violence and gore (a massacre and its aftermath; bodies and dismembered beasts).

A question she already knows the answer to, a diagnosis nobody believes, and a snake who says one word too many. A stranger standing on nothing, a grudge she makes up on the spot, and a half-hour she knows is far too long. Then a flame no bigger than a lamp’s, a list she has kept for a year, and a valley by a stream where she finally asks what he’s been hiding.
⚠️ Content warning: violence (a man loses an arm; two killed).

A forfeit paid under an old pine, a line she draws without looking, and a promise never to do that in the wild again. A basket of the kind a woman takes to market, a guest who kneels because he chooses to, and a name she nearly laughs at. Then a question about who knew where she had gone, a lantern coming up the valley in the dusk, and a pair of eyes on the plaza steps that come to rest on the two of them.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (18+), outdoor sex, mention of murdered students.

Five elders round a table, a hood with a young man’s voice in it, and a statement that stops exactly where she means it to. A finger on her wrist all the way home, a bill presented with condolences, and a door shut very politely on a friend. Then a reward chosen for what she doesn’t ask for, a quiet young man who wants very little, and two hours in a room with no door.
⚠️ Content warning: mention of murdered students.

A shifu in the wrong mood at dawn, four hours of sorting roots, and a question she had an answer shelved for. A jade slip tossed across a tea table, an old man the colour of a ripe plum, and a name he says with an edge on it. Then a reading she does the way she reads everything, a barrier she feels go up, and a first step that is much harder than it sounds.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (18+).

Ten nights of a number that climbs a little less each time, a ladder she reads on, and a shifu who signs her out in the wrong mood. A stranger at the south gate who says he has a little sister here, a note with a bun drawn at the bottom, and a boot with something sticky running down it. Then a borrowed beast on holy stone, an arrow that changes its mind in the air, and a line from a long time ago said quietly under the noise of the crowd.
⚠️ Content warning: violence (a fight on a public platform; mild).

A barrier round a rest-house room, an old friend who has learned to think before he talks, and a choice of messenger she can’t fault however hard she tries. A sentence carried a very long way, word for word. Then a day of noodles and lamps on somebody else’s purse, three shadows nobody sees, a dimension with nothing in it, a slip signed without being read, and a line in her book she leaves unfinished.

A fare that doubles going south, five coins for a friend who has never seen one, and a borrowed face let go at the last bend before home. A study where a question goes unasked, three cups set out before anyone arrives, and a young man who drops his broom. Then a valley of green peaches, a story told three ways by three people, two old trees that flower out of season, and an old man who walks her as far as the last house before the ferry.
⚠️ Content warning: mention of attempted assault (backstory); death of a parent (backstory).

A puzzle she works out on a mountain path, a question about the air she takes far too literally, and a plaza full of people where somebody died once before. A bluff about specks and blindness, an entrance in red silk and gold flowers, and a word that should never have been said. Then a warning that goes further than she meant, a conversation in two stretches of grey with a pill on the table, a bear having burrs combed out of its stomach, and a line in her book with the figure column left empty.
⚠️ Content warning: graphic violence (amputation); torture (interrogation threat).

A yard so full it moves like one animal, a good table she refuses to give up, and one finger on a big man’s shoulder. Word of something under the sea, a map she can only just afford, and a market stall laid out the wrong way round, with a sign that makes the whole row stare. Then an old face with silver hair who doesn’t stop to talk, and a trick with the sun she could have been doing for a year.

A town where everybody has heard something and nobody knows anything, a menu like a letter from home, and one sip of the best thing in the house. Then a room with very thin walls, a small green bottle she has been meaning to show him, and terms she has had ready for months.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (anal fingering).

Breakfast in her own face for once, a hideous mask that is exactly the point, and a neighbour much tidier than his bed. A girl in apricot silk with a tongue like a wasp, one word across the table, and a rumour that stops her chopsticks. Then a day out with the household, a fish-wife’s smoked eel, a shop that smells of camphor and good thread, an old woman who knows red from red, and a friendly meeting in the market that was arranged a day in advance.
⚠️ Content warning: mild language.

Three people at breakfast tell the same story about a fog, and a teacher says no before the question is finished. A room upstairs where the students do sums they shouldn’t, a lumpy lacquer face worn for the best of reasons, and four days on the back of a bird that never lands. Then a field of roped-off sections where nine people who could kill each other sit down to argue about money, a woman in rose who is used to getting her way, a weight leaned on her from thirty yards off, two men who come down out of a broken sky, and a corridor where she says exactly the wrong thing to exactly the right person.
⚠️ Content warning: sexual innuendo/discussion; mild language.

No birds past the islands, a square full of people stepping up onto the air, and one long sentence in a language nobody on Long Xiang speaks. A remark about luggage she never hears, a friend who flies all the way back down the column for nothing, and a rope going slack. Then two old men quarrelling in front of everybody, a bare black rock with a hollow under an overhang, a small grey cat who says yes without understanding the question, and a white wall standing on the sea.
⚠️ Content warning: implied sexual content (non-explicit, fade to black).

Eleven beasts against eight Emperors, a fog that drinks, and a sleeve full of pills she gives away two at a time. Then a paradise with a clean blue sea and nine red-crowned cranes, a beach where everybody yawns in the same breath, and a flick to the forehead. A fox queen in a veil fine as smoke who wants Ling Xiao dead, slowly, a long run out over the white water where nobody can see, and a quiet sentence that tells her what “the real me” means.
⚠️ Content warning: graphic violence; a death by burning; brief magical compulsion.

A stone that warms in his sleeve with news from a long way off, and an honest answer to what she smells like. Then the whole household out at once under open sky for the first time, a little girl who counts what she has been told not to touch, and a palace coming down round a man whose mother had hopes for him. And behind the palace, a warm lake with two waters that never mix.
⚠️ Content warning: deaths (mostly off-page or aftermath: palace guards; a killing reported second-hand).

One pearl between the two of them, and warm water that goes cold all at once. Then twenty thousand metres of dark with no edges to it, a reach she has never had the room to test, a question about her own lake she never thought to ask, and something worth diving for.
⚠️ Content warning: claustrophobia; deep water.

Two thousand casts of a net on the floor of the sea, a report she takes for good manners, and a conversation above West Sand she was never meant to hear. Then a grudge older than she is, a debt she asks to have put on her account, and a loan handed straight back.
⚠️ Content warning: betrayal; threats of murder.

A face she asks back, a hand nobody else can see, and a man walking out of the mist in a colour she has never seen him wear.
⚠️ Content warning: graphic violence; a death (mostly off-page).

A dragon who is too old, a number she names, a word she doesn’t say, and a bill she couldn’t have written better herself.
⚠️ Content warning: violence (burns).

A girl who is cleverer than she looks, a question nobody should be asked, a clause proposed on a battlefield, and the first meeting of a very small committee.
⚠️ Content warning: explicit sexual content (18+): anal fingering, vaginal sex; an off-page death.

A mark that rises out of the skin, an earring that isn’t the colour it looked, a debt struck off by someone else, and a ledger carried forward.
End of Volume 2.