“Keep your hands to yourself, boy! You think I don’t know what you want? Maybe to throw me down these stairs?”
Another murmur.
“Ha! First you take my diamonds, then you drag me all the way across the city like a criminal. My bones ache with all the walking.”
A guard moved into view, his expression wooden. Behind him, still out of sight on the stairs, another guard spoke stiffly. “We gave you a receipt for the diamonds, madame.”
“What does that do for me? Eh? You will find some reason to fine me and keep my diamonds. Or maybe you think your superior will never know about them. But I will tell him, and he will take them all and leave nothing for you. Did you think of that? Do you hope that maybe I will die in my sleep before I tell him about my diamonds that you stole? And if I don’t, maybe you will help that along, eh?”
With those words, Grandmother hobbled slowly into view, mounting the last few steps with precarious determination. Another guard hovered at her side, looking harassed and as if she might have been right. He might well be hoping the old harridan would die in her sleep. Soon.
Lily did not let her expression show anything more than surprise, but she had to swallow to keep down the laughter. And the relief. Grandmother had gotten herself arrested, just as she planned.
It was surely natural to stare at the newcomers, though. Cynna was. Ah Li was. Even Alice watched, eyebrows ever-so-slightly raised.
Fist Second Fang frowned at the first guard. “What is this?”
“Sir, we received information that this woman—Madame Chen Chan Ying—is the owner of a diamond mine, but has not paid the annual tax. When we asked her—most politely, sir, I assure you—she could not produce her stamp. She does not have any documents at all with her.”
“Who provided this information?”
“One of the Siji, sir. Mei Bo is the owner of the chún-chún she traveled on, and he informed the stamp agent at the docks, who sent for us. I spoke with Mei Bo. He says that she bragged often about her mine and once let it slip that she did not pay the annual tax.”
“He does not have proof of this? It is only his report of something she once said?”
“No proof, sir. But he is a carrier of the official mail.”
Fang’s eyebrows lifted. “A man whose word has weight, then. Who traveled with her? Surely she has a son or other relative with her.”
“No, sir. She traveled alone.”
Grandmother broke in, speaking in that shrill, wobbly voice so unlike her own. “And why should I not? There is no law that I must have a son. No law to say I cannot travel to Lang Xin if I choose! And no law that says I must bring all of my tax stamps with me when I travel. Who are you?” She peered at Fang in nearsighted suspicion. “I do not know you. Are you responsible for these hooligans who stole my diamonds? Seven diamonds! Do not let them tell you some other number. Seven!” she finished triumphantly, as if the number alone proved their guilt.
“I am Fist Second Fang.” Fang gave her a short bow and turned to his man. “We will have to send to the magistrate of her district for tax information. Madame Chen, where do you live?”
Grandmother launched into a story about her village, a tiny village they would not have heard of, no, for it was very small. She told them about her husband and how he died, describing his deathbed in ghoulish detail, and about the day she first arrived in this realm, a confused lái who was taken in by her husband’s family—though he was not her husband then, of course, but they were married a year later. His family members were either saints of kindness or merciless slave-drivers—she switched points of view mercilessly—but they were not good at producing male children, for she had no male relative to escort her to the capital. Just as mercilessly she diverted Fang’s increasingly impatient questions about where, exactly, she lived. She ended by accusing “them”—an amorphous group who seemed to consist of everyone in authority—of ignoring the claims of a feeble old woman with no son to protect her, and returned to her unshakable belief that the guards had stolen her diamonds.
She was enjoying herself hugely.
At last Fang extracted from Grandmother the location of her unknown and probably fictitious village, which told him who her magistrate should be. He would contact the magistrate about her taxes, he told her, and with visible relief had her taken to a cell. She went, muttering under her breath about hooligans and “seven diamonds. Seven.”
Alice turned to Ah Li. “Perhaps you should simply demonstrate the results now. I can observe the full spell later. I am a bit pressed for time.”
Lily badly wanted to mindspeak Grandmother. She wished someone would send her to her cell where she belonged—where she’d be alone—but had to stand there and wait while Ah Li demonstrated the spell.
“We do not know yet how long the ash will hold the magic and intention,” Ah Li said, taking a small pinch of it between her thumb and finger. “But this is quite fresh, so it should work. I activate it by placing it on my tongue, where I can easily integrate it with my Gift.” She did so, then moved to stand in front of the tiny white-haired woman whose name Lily had forgotten. She stared at the woman’s body, then: “Ah! I see it. A tumor in her right breast, very small, not much bigger than a grain of rice. A tumor so small I may be able to destroy it.” Her voice was triumphant.
Alice nodded. “Very good. That is what the Zhu Shēngwù found, also. It appears the spell works.”
Ah Li beamed. “It is a most wonderful spell! I could never have found such a tiny tumor without it.”
“Which means I owe you two payments,” Alice said, looking at Cynna. “First I will finish making my second payment. The current variation in time between your realm and ours is approximately fifty-two seconds. The daily variability over the last thirty-one years has ranged from eleven hours and twelve minutes to thirty-two seconds.”
Cynna was silent, intent, then said slowly, “In other words, the time difference between this realm and mine has never been less than it is right now.”
“Not in the last sixty-seven years. We have not negotiated your bonus payment.”
“No. I rely on you to agree to a fair payment.” Cynna glanced at Lily, then looked back at Alice and asked the question the two of them had agonized over. Well, questions. They had a list in descending priority, starting with a couple they didn’t expect Alice to answer. “What is the magical construct in Dis that touches on this realm designed to do?”
“I will not answer that at this time.”
“When, precisely, will the children arrive, and what happens when they get here?”
“I will not answer that at this time.”
“What is your Gift?”
“I will not tell you that.”
“What will the time variance be between this realm and ours at one hour after moonrise today?”
Alice smiled a very small, tight smile. “It should be zero.”