The ghost in the darkness let out a high-pitched squeak and Chang-li realized the body he was holding against his was soft and small and curved. "Min?"

He let go of her. She gasped as she stepped back.

Joshi was awake now, sitting up silently.

"We have to go now," Min said. "The abbot is going to hand you over to the Office of Cultivation."

Chang-li was stunned, but Joshi was already on his feet, gathering up his things.

"You're not surprised?" Chang-li asked.

"When I saw the look in the abbot's eyes, I worried," Joshi said quietly. "The man is a good teacher, but he has no courage in his heart, or else he would not have accepted my father's offer."

"How are we to get out of here?"

Min pressed something into Chang-li's hands. He peered at it in the dimness, made out a crude sketch showing the way to a small gate. Memorizing it, he thrust it into his robes.

"Let's go."

They snuck through the silent halls, past rows of closed doors. Snores issued from a few. In others, he heard rhythmic humming and chanting as monks performed their cycling techniques.

The map had shown them crossing the Great Hall and then taking a side door out. Chang-li slid back the door, stepped in, closely followed by Min and Joshi. They started along the deserted tables.

When they were halfway through the room, a dozen monks stepped out from behind pillars. They were led by the thin, officious monk who had inspected their papers.

"So," he said, "Did our hospitality not suit you?"

Beside him, Chang-li felt Joshi drop into a cycling technique. Min was cycling too, ready to summon her lux bow. He felt helpless. He couldn't cycle without risk of killing or maiming himself.

"I have no ill will against this place," Joshi said. "You took me in, you taught me. Let us go now. We have business elsewhere, with my brothers."

"You have something that does not belong to you," the monk said. "Something that the Office of Cultivation will pay dearly for."

"I did not know the monks of Harupa cared so much for coin," Joshi said.

"The monks of Harupa care for the safety of Harupa. Surrender now, and we will turn you over without further violence."

Without bothering to answer, Joshi wove together his Binding Chains and lashed them at the monk.

The other monks dropped into a form Chang-li knew as Tiger's Stance. Excitement filled him. Joshi had taught him this, and had taught him how to counter it.

He drew his sword, the one he'd gotten in the vault. "Thieves' Blade," the guardian had called it. He didn't know why yet.

The monks sprang forward, weaves in hand.

Beside him, Min summoned her bow. She fired an arrow as Joshi leapt forward at the oncoming monks. Chang-li stepped to the side to give Min a clear shot.

Two of the monks peeled off, approaching him. Their hands wreathed in red lux, with orange tips like Joshi used, their bodies blazing with lux.

Chang-li balanced on the balls of his feet. "What good as a cultivator with no lux?" one of them challenged. Chang-li didn't bother to answer.

They approached. One crouched in a Leaping Tiger posture, the other hanging back with his hands raised; Growling Tiger.

Chang-li knew just what to do. He stepped in, his sword whirling. The Leaping Tiger sprang forward; the monk had a blue weave between his hands. He threw it at Chang-li.

Chang-li slashed at it. His sword sliced through the lux, dissipating the weave, and, to Chang-li's surprise, absorbed some of the lux. Now his blade glowed blue.

He stabbed out and caught the man in the shoulder. The monk cried out and swung at him with one red-gauntleted fist. Chang-li twisted aside. The fist whistled past his face.

The other monk came whirling in, fists and feet flashing. Chang-li went high to counter his blows, then ducked low and slashed.

He heard Min's bow twang and twang again, and Joshi shouting as he laid about him. He was focused on his two opponents. They stepped back, and one threw a long rope of orange lux at him.

Chang-li sliced it cleanly with his blade, stealing that lux as well.

His sword had interesting properties, but what good was it if he couldn't actually channel the lux?

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No. He might not be able to channel lux, but he had learned something about his will on reaching the Peak of Spiritual Refinement.

Chang-li focused on his sword as he watched his opponents circling him. They darted in and he stabbed at them, catching one with a slice across the chest that cut his orange garments.

Across the room, Joshi was engaged in a flurry of fists with three monks. They had him surrounded and he should have fallen, but Magen was behind him, bobbing merrily every time Joshi punched. His fists were reflected in half a dozen directions.

Min had felled two of them. She had kept between Chang-li and Joshi's fights, making herself hard to approach, but now two monks with lux shields raised to deflect her arrows were moving in.

Chang-li barred his teeth. He needed to deal with these two and go help his allies. He stepped forward, thrusting, and caught one of the two under the arm. The man cried out, staggering backward as blood flowed down him. He was already channeling Purification of Mind and Soul. As he collapsed to the ground, Chang-li left him. He'd be alright if he kept that up, but it ought to keep him out of the fight for long enough.

Now the other monk launched himself at Chang-li in a jump similar to some of Joshi's. But Chang-li had spent many hours sparring Joshi and knew his tricks. This man was no match. However long and hard the monks of Harupa trained, they clearly were lacking something, a brutal edge gained when fighting tower beasts or racing to beat other sects to the goal.

Chang-li focused on his opponent. The man landed, sending up a wave of force around him. Instinctively, Chang-li raised his blade. It cut the wall of air, parting it around him harmlessly. Then Chang-li stepped in, swinging. The man raised a hand to block, and Chang-li's blade sliced right through his lux gauntlet and his arm, severing his hand just above the wrist.

The monk stared at the stump in horror. His weave lost. His pattern gone. Blood flowed from the stump. He looked at Chang-li, eyes wide, mouth agape.

"You... you..."

Chang-li was done here. He pivoted and kicked outward. His sandaled foot connected hard with the man's midsection and knocked him back twenty feet to crash into a table. His will was hard as iron. He was not the student, inquiring about the nature of the universe. He was the master, controlling it. His core spun off-key inside him, but he ignored it.

Enemy dispatched, Chang-li turned and raced to Min. She had peppered her two assailants' shields with arrows. Each impact had staggered them, so they were still a few feet from her, but almost close enough to seize her. Min fired another arrow, and then the first of the monks was on her. Dropping his shield, he grabbed her around the body, pinning her arms to her waist.

Now the other dropped his shield and conjured a red lux blade. Chang-li's vision blurred with rage. He raced forward, instinctively channeling lux to speed his feet and strengthen his arm. His core was all wrong, his cycling off, but he had to stop them right now.

He focused his will and his blade. All of that excess lux he had accumulated gathered there on the blade.

He wasn't close enough, was still feet away. He imagined his sword slicing into the head of the man who had seized Min, and the lux from his blade flew forward, straighter than an arrow, and stabbed itself through the man's head behind his ear.

The monk fell forward, taking Min with him. She was pinned, the sudden dead weight holding her as the other monk came on, but now Chang-li was there.

Maddened, he swung his sword and cut the man down.

Not even bothering to see if the man lived, he dropped his cycling technique and bent over Min. He pulled the dead monk's arms from her and helped her up.

Min looked over his shoulder. Her eyes widened. She conjured her bow and shot an arrow past his head.

Chang-li stepped aside and turned. Min's arrow had taken another of the monks through the chest. She was breathing hard, hair falling into her face. His core rumbled inside him. In shock, Chang-li cut off his cycling. What was he doing? He could get himself killed.

He stared around, taking in the Great Hall now filled with blood and bodies. Joshi was still fighting two men. Several others lay crumpled at his feet. And more bodies lay where Chang-li had cut them down. They weren't the first enemies he'd been forced to kill. He hadn't asked for this fight. But still, it left him queasy.

Joshi shouted and knocked both his opponents back against the wall, stunning them. He retreated, joining Chang-li and Min. "Let's get out of here."

The skinny monk who had overseen their paperwork slipped out from behind a pillar, holding up his hands.

"You will not get away with this!" he shouted. "A copy of your license has been given to the cultivation official here. Your name and description will be in every corner of the land by this time next week."

"Then we'd better not be," Chang-li said grimly. Joshi took a menacing step forward.

The last monk glanced around, squeaked, and ran for the far door.

Chang-li, Joshi, and Min went out the side.

Well before dawn, they recovered their horses from the grove where Joshi had left them on a low ground tether and were riding westward.

"I hope your brothers will have better hospitality than that," Chang-li called to Joshi as they went.

"They will," Joshi said grimly. "Or at least, if they do not, they will kill us outright. My people do not take in guests only to betray them to the Empire." He spat.

"How were you able to find us?" Chang-li asked Min.

"Brotherhood people everywhere." She shrugged. "Not Oaken Band, of course. The Kurayim Brotherhood serve in this part of the world. Oh, I had to promise them aid. They want to raise up cultivators too."

Chang-li shook his head. "We're a little busy right now to take on any more disciples."

"Don't worry. I told them they had to go and ask my grandfather. By the time they get a messenger there and back, we should be at the Heart of Ice and have you cured. Did you learn anything important there?"

Chang-li related what the abbot had told him.

Min pursed her lips. "Do you think he was telling the truth?"

"Yes," Joshi said. "Or at least, I think what he told us was true. He may not have told us everything, but I do not think he lied."

"Doesn't really get us much farther, does it?" Min stared out over the ears of her horse.

"We'll have to be careful who learns this knowledge," Chang-li said. "This Lens sounds like something a Prism would be interested in."

"A Prism might be our only chance of figuring out how to cure you," Min said. "One who isn't tied to the Emperor and his rules."

Chang-li stopped. He hadn't thought of that. "You're not suggesting we might ally with — her?"

"I think we should keep all of our options open," Min said steadily. "If the Inquisitor would have seen you dead because you had this? If the cultivation official just now tried to have you captured? Then it suggests this Lens is something the Emperor doesn't want you to have. Perhaps we need to be looking for allies who already despise the Emperor."

That made Chang-li's stomach turn. "After what she did, Min? She nearly destroyed your home and everyone you've ever known."

"I know," Min said quietly. "But that's what my other grandfather taught me. Not Grandfather Jiang, but Governor Gao. Sometimes you can't afford to pick your friends from the people you like. Sometimes you must seek allies among the enemy of your enemies."

Chang-li hated to admit that she might be right.

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