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bag hidden behind a bamboo panel in the room Raidon shared with a man named Huang.
    Huang was heedless of the concealed box, which would have made the man an ideal lodge mate, except for Huang’s arresting odor. At first, Raidon endeavored to ignore the smell. Eventually, he decided the best way to disregard the aroma was to avoid it. Raidon began spending mote and more of his free time away from their room.
    Thus Raidon chalked up his discovery of a fine tea house to serendipity. The tea house became, in just a few short tendays, his favorite place in all of Shou Town.
    The server poured another cup from a porcelain pot, and Raidon tapped three fingers on the table in thanks. Long Jing, also called West Lake Dragon Well, was the best green tea in the city of Telflamm, and maybe all of Thesk. He sipped.
    Perfection. Some of his tension evaporated in the wafting steam and delicate taste.
    Long Jing was shipped from the east at great expense— Raidon indulged himself, though he could scarcely afford it. It was grown only in the mythical Zhejiang province in but a few tea gardens. Local teas couldn’t match it. Raidon hoped rumors of trade disruptions along the Golden Way were merely merchants’ talk, a bluff used as a bargaining tool to drive up prices. Raidon didn’t mind high prices, as long as the tea remained available. West Lake Dragon Well was worth it.
    But his cares could never be drowned, only momentarily assuaged. Raidon grunted and took another sip. Around him, gentlemen of leisure enjoyed similar moments of peace, savoring their favorite teas. One man had brought his pet bird. The red-feathered creature held tightly to its silver perch and twittered a pleasant song. Singing wasn’t permitted in the tea house, though apparently the ban didn’t apply to pets. Or perhaps, the ban didn’t apply to this particular man of leisure.
    His name was Chun. Who could have guessed that from all the tea houses in Shou Town to choose from, Raidon and Chun would find the same one?
    Raidon considered serendipity again—if not for his lodge mate’s disagreeable scent, Raidon wouldn’t be present to contemplate violence. Raidon would still be worried about his petition to the Nine Golden Swords. As the elders of Xiang Temple taught, “The usefulness of a cup is its emptiness.” In other wotds, he hadn’t known Chun would be here, but now that he did, Raidon could adapt the moment to his ambition.
    Chun had wronged Raidon, though the man of leisure didn’t know it. Chun had taken a family heirloom from his father in payment for a debt never incurred. Chun had stolen Raidon’s family legacy. His grandfather’s sword, his daito, handed down from his own grandfather, who gained the sword from a dragon. In the normal course of things, Raidon’s father would have passed the daito down to Raidon’s fitstborn child—but Raidon’s father was dead, and the daito was gone.
    Raidon stood and shook out the sleeves of his decorous silk jacket. They snapped, as if he were initiating the first moves of the Leaping Tiger. He paid his coins on the table, then his hands were empty, open, capable of anything. Like the empty cup.
    To restore the honor of his dead father and absent mother, Raidon had pledged the legacy would be restored to the family. He would claim grandfather’s daito, even if comity in the tea house had to be sacrificed.
    He bowed to the server, then walked toward Chun’s table. Chun sat with two other men and a dark-haired woman—Chun’s girl of the day? The men were of the Nine Golden Swords, as was Chun. Raidon knew it by the small tattoo each displayed. He had petitioned to join the secret society of vicious criminals. He had petitioned in order to get close to Chun, a mid-level thug in the hierarchy. All those preparations had been unnecessary—chance had dropped into his lap an opportunity to confront Chun.
    Raidon reached the table. He stared straight at Chun, ignoring the unspoken rules of civilized behavior