Dawn came grey and cold.

  A met Chen Ling at the building's main door. She wore plain clothes—the kind that didn't attract attention, the kind that said ordinary without needing to say anything at all. He had learned to read such things in his weeks here. Clothes were language. Every choice communicated.

  "You'll let me do the talking," she said. "She's old and she doesn't trust strangers. Especially not strangers who ask questions about things best forgotten."

  "I understand."

  They walked.

  The eastern quarter was older than his part of the city—narrower streets, buildings that leaned toward each other as if sharing secrets, the smell of cooking fires and something else, something ancient that hung in the air like smoke from a fire long extinguished.

  The old woman lived at the end of a courtyard even smaller than the building's. A single room. A single window. A door that had been painted so many times the paint had become its own kind of wall.

  Chen Ling knocked.

  Silence. Then footsteps. Then the door opened a crack, revealing an eye that had seen more years than Grandfather Wen.

  "Chen Ling." The voice was dry as old paper. "I wondered when you'd come."

  "You knew I would?"

  "I knew someone would. Eventually." The door opened wider. "Come in. Both of you."

  ---

  The room was small but not cramped. Everything in it had a place and had stayed in that place for so long that moving it would have felt like violence. A bed. A table. A single chair that the old woman took, leaving them to stand.

  "You're the one they call Chen Wuhuang," she said, looking at A.

  "Yes."

  "That name will get you killed."

  "I've been told."

  The old woman made a sound—not quite a laugh, not quite a cough. "Sit on the floor, both of you. I'm too old to look up for long."

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  They sat.

  "You want to know about the building," she said. "What it was. What it's for."

  "Yes," Chen Ling said.

  The old woman was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I was a girl when your husband's father ran things. He was a good man. Knew the building's history. Respected it." She looked at A. "You've been in the cellars?"

  "Only briefly."

  "Then you don't know. No one does anymore." She leaned forward. "The building wasn't built as a tenement. It was built as a waypoint—a place for travelers making the crossing from the eastern valleys to the city. But not ordinary travelers. Special ones. The kind who carried things that couldn't be seen."

  "What kind of things?"

  The old woman's eyes moved to Chen Ling. "You really don't know, do you? Your husband never told you."

  "He died before he could tell anyone."

  "Yes. He would have." She sighed—a long, worn sound. "The building sits on something. A crossing. A place where the world is thinner. The old stories say that things can pass through there that can't pass anywhere else."

  A went still.

  "Things from where?" Chen Ling asked.

  "From elsewhere. From other places. From—" The old woman waved a hand vaguely. "From where the travelers come from. The ones who aren't quite human."

  The fragment pulsed against A's chest.

  "You know something about that," the old woman said, looking at him. "I can see it in your face."

  "I know that there are other worlds," he said carefully. "Other places. I came from one."

  The old woman stared at him for a long moment. Then she nodded, as if confirming something she had always suspected.

  "Then you understand. The building was built to receive things from such places. To store them. To keep them safe until they could be moved again." She looked at Chen Ling. "Your husband's family knew this. They protected the secret for generations. But when he died, and you took over—the knowledge died with him."

  "Until now."

  "Until now." The old woman leaned back. "Someone is coming. Someone who knows what the building really is. And they're bringing something with them."

  "The shipment."

  "Yes. But it's not just a shipment. It's a message. A proof. A way of showing that they can use the crossing." She looked at A. "The one called Jian. He's not the first. There have been others, over the years. But he's the first who's patient enough to plan, to wait, to buy his way in through men like Wei's brother."

  "He wants to use the building as a gateway."

  "I think he wants to own it. Control it. Decide what comes through and what doesn't." The old woman's voice dropped. "And if he does, then whatever is waiting on the other side—whatever has been waiting for generations—will finally have a way in."

  ---

  They walked back in silence.

  The city moved around them—ordinary people doing ordinary things, unaware of what their world rested on. A felt the fragment pulsing against his chest, faster now, as if it too understood.

  At the building's main door, Chen Ling stopped.

  "She was telling the truth," she said quietly.

  "Yes."

  "This is bigger than Wei. Bigger than House Jin. Bigger than anything I imagined."

  "Yes."

  She looked at him. "And you're going to have to face it. Because you're the only one here who understands what's coming."

  He touched the fragment beneath his shirt.

  "Not the only one," he said. "I have you. I have Lina. I have everyone in this building who doesn't want to see it become a gateway for something none of us understand."

  Chen Ling looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded.

  "Then we have three months to get ready."

  ---

  End of Chapter 35

  ---