Cousin Su Wenfu rode through the eastern wing's outer gate at the second hour past dusk on the eighteenth day of the first month of the autumn — exactly on schedule.
He was thinner than he had been in the spring. Four months in the foothills had done that. He dismounted at the inner courtyard, handed his reins to Pan Lin, and climbed the eastern wing's stairs at his unhurried pace.
By the third hour past dusk, the writing room was full.
Su Yan at the head of the table. Aluan at the door. Linglong and Cousin Su Lin opposite each other on the side cushions. Master Mu, who had come from his back garden three streets over at Aluan's quiet morning summons, on the cushion to Su Yan's right. Hua Lin, in his plain steward's robe, opposite Master Mu. Cousin Su Wenfu, dust still on his collar, on the foot cushion across from Su Yan.
Cousin Su Wenfu unrolled three sheets of carefully drawn rice paper.
"The maps," he said, in his low even voice. "The first is the kingdom's south-eastern foothills at full scale. The second is the small ravine eight days' ride south of Mei-cun, at a tenth scale. The third is the substrate-cloak's outline, drawn from my readings at three li, which I have cross-verified by twelve separate measurements over a period of three weeks."
He laid the third map at the center.
The substrate-cloak's outline was an *ellipse*. Long axis, perhaps three hundred paces. Short axis, perhaps a hundred and eighty. Centered on a flat outcrop of pale stone at the head of the ravine. The cloak's edge was clean — the substrate read sharp at the boundary, then nothing.
It was, by every careful preceding small private read of Sebastian Yan's biology, *the substrate signature of a buried facility approximately three hundred paces long, deliberately suppressed by a substrate-cloak generator at its center*.
"Active or dormant," Su Yan asked.
"Dormant. By my read, the substrate-cloak is running on its baseline calibration — the lowest setting that maintains concealment. It is not actively suppressing any internal activity. There has been no substrate-pulse coming out of the location, in any direction, in the three weeks I monitored it. The facility is — by my read — *empty of cultivators*."
"How long empty."
"By the substrate-cloak's preceding settling pattern, I would estimate at least *eighteen months*. Possibly longer."
Su Yan nodded.
That was longer than the three years Master Lou's intercepted notebook had implied. The Hollow Veil chain had — by the small careful preceding small private hour of regional command's reorganization — *abandoned* the facility earlier than Su Yan had calculated.
"Entry points."
Cousin Su Wenfu pointed at the map's western edge. "There is one visible entry. A small careful preceding stone door at the western face of the outcrop, perhaps two paces high and one wide, of plain pale stone. The door is — by my read at three li — *sealed*. By substrate-lock. The substrate-lock is, by the careful preceding small private hour of my read, *not Aleph schema*. It is — by the closest match in my preceding small private trained library — *Hollow Veil's standard regional facility lock*. The lock is calibrated for keys of the Veil's preceding small private operative tier. I do not have, by my own preceding preference, the careful preceding small private keys."
He paused.
"There may," he said, "be other entries. The substrate-cloak suppresses my reading of the ravine's lower portions. I cannot, by the careful preceding small private hour of my three li distance, register what the lower ravine contains."
Linglong, on the cushion to Su Yan's left, inclined her head.
"Sister-brother."
"Yes, Linglong."
"By my own preceding read of the careful preceding small private map, the substrate-cloak's preceding small private range will be — *no obstacle* to me. The careful preceding small private cloak is, by Cousin Su Wenfu's preceding read, of Hollow Veil regional standard. The careful preceding small private substrate-cloak technology of the Hollow Veil is — by my tree-mother's preceding teaching — calibrated to suppress *human substrate readings* and the preceding small private reading instruments the kingdom of Beicang's standing scholarship has built. It does *not* suppress — by the careful preceding small private hour of two hundred years of Hollow Veil's preceding small private bookkeeping, by my own tree-mother's preceding teaching — the careful preceding small private *wood-spirit substrate's preceding small private inherent reading*. I will, by my own preceding preference, *walk into the cloak*, *read what the cloak is hiding*, and *report* — without the cloak's preceding small private generator registering my passage."
She paused.
"By my own preceding preference, sister-brother — I would prefer to do this *first*, before any of us approach by other means."
Su Yan looked at her.
He inhaled.
"Linglong."
"Yes."
"The careful preceding small private hour will — by my preceding read of the careful preceding small private mapping plus your preceding small private capability — require, *also*, my own preceding small private substrate calibration to be in proximity. The substrate-anchor stones I am carrying — Master Qing's preceding small private gift — will, by Master Qing's preceding small private second-meal teaching, *gather residual substrate-traces only when in immediate physical proximity to the trace's source*. You can read the cloak from inside without alerting the generator. You cannot, by your preceding small private substrate, *carry* the substrate-anchor stones. The stones recognize me uniquely."
"By the careful preceding small private hour of my own preceding small private read, sister-brother, the careful preceding small private hour will require *both of us* to enter."
"Yes."
"Then by my own preceding preference, I will *enter first*, by my preceding small private wood-spirit substrate, and *open the western door from inside* by the careful preceding small private hour of the cloak's preceding small private suppression's careful preceding small private inherent inability to register a wood-spirit's small careful preceding interior movement. You will follow, by the small careful preceding hour of one open door, with the careful preceding small private substrate-anchor stones."
Su Yan held very still.
He looked at the map for a count.
He looked at Linglong.
She — by the careful preceding small private hour of two years' careful preceding small private growth in the eastern wing — was sixteen by her people's count. Her small careful preceding form-body was at the apparent age of nine, with the small precise unhurried discipline of a young wood-spirit who had been raised, by two centuries of her preceding small private tree-mother's preceding teaching, to *walk substrate-clouds* the way human cultivators walked across stones.
She was, by every careful preceding small private substrate read he had ever performed of her, *capable* of the work she had just proposed.
She was — by his own careful preceding small private bookkeeping — *the only person in his organization* who was capable of it.
He inclined his head.
"Linglong. I accept the plan. We will leave for the south-eastern foothills in five days. Cousin Su Lin will arrange the cover-story. Hua Lin and three of his recruits will travel with us as our combat backup. Master Mu, by your preference, will conduct your daily morning sword discipline at the foothills' camp by quiet preceding standing arrangement. Cousin Su Wenfu, by your preceding small private exhaustion of four months, will *not* travel with us; you will, by your preceding small private preference, rest in Cloud Sky and resume your operations south after one month's recovery."
Master Mu inclined his head — small, formal.
"Acceptable."
Hua Lin inclined his head.
"Acceptable."
Cousin Su Wenfu inclined his head — and looked, very briefly, *grateful*.
The careful preceding small private hour of the autumn's preceding small private operation — by the small careful preceding small private hour of one council's preceding small private agreement — *closed*.
Su Yan rolled the maps and tucked them into the false bottom of the writing table.
He inhaled.
In his chest, the ember pulsed — slow, considered, *grave* — and the dry voice, very quietly, said: *The careful preceding small private hour ahead is, by my preceding read, the most physically dangerous of your two-year plan. Be careful.*
Su Yan inclined his head, in the lantern-light of the writing room, in the direction of the ember.
He stood.
He went to the side garden, where Linglong had — by her preceding preference — gone to think.
He sat beside her on the small folding-bench under the eastern eaves.
They did not, in the small careful preceding small private hour, speak.
In the small clean preceding autumn evening of the eastern wing of the Su clan's compound, in the small careful preceding small private precise hour of two substrates settled side by side on one bench, the careful preceding small private fourth quarter's preceding small private most active operation — *the descent into the City of the Voiceless* — was, by both their preceding mutual preferences, *six days* away.
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