The first snowflake of the night landed on the back of Ziyan's hand and did not melt.
She watched it for a breath, wondering if the sky was running out of warmth—or if she was. Below the north wall, the city's murmur had thinned to the small, stubborn noises of a place that had learned there was no such thing as full sleep anymore. A shutter creaked. Somewhere a baby cried twice and was soothed. A dog barked at nothing important and then at something it could not see.
"Still awake," Feiyan said behind her, voice a low thread in the wind.
"So are you," Ziyan replied.
Feiyan joined her at the parapet, hands tucked into her sleeves. "Shuye reports the last of the pitch set under the outer alleys. If Xia presses too hard, we can turn the streets into a question."
Ziyan's mouth curved. "And we provide the answer?"
Feiyan shrugged. "Or we let them try to invent one while on fire."
Torches glimmered in Xia's camp beyond the fields, now a dense, organized glow. The rhythm of their watch-drum was steady, neither hurried nor slack. The sort of discipline that had swallowed other kingdoms whole.
"They're ready," Ziyan said.
"They think they are," Feiyan corrected.
A runner panted up the steps, snow grinding under his sandals. It was Ren, ink still under his nails, his hair hastily bound. "From the south watch," he said, breathless. "Movement in the lower quarter. Not our patrols."
Ziyan's fingers tightened on the stone. "Xia can't be inside already. They'd need ladders, ropes—"
"Or a key," Feiyan said.
They descended from the wall without running, but every step carried an edge. The streets below were narrow and crooked, cobblestones half-hidden under packed snow. Lanterns had been shaded to slits; only thin lines of light marked doorways. Wei and Li Qiang met them at the bend of an alley, ten men behind them.
"South postern," Wei said. "Gate-wardens swear they've seen no one. But Ma from the watch swears just as hard that he saw shadows where there shouldn't be any."
"Shadows go where they're wanted," Feiyan said.
They moved as a small spearpoint through the dark, boots whispering, weapons sheathed. Ziyan smelled damp stone, old smoke, the faint, sour tang of fear that clung to walls after riots.
The south postern crouched between two abandoned warehouses—one burned, one merely empty. A single lantern burned by the arch, its flame thin and steady. The gate itself—iron-bound wood, reinforced with fresh beams—sat closed, its lock newly greased.
Too newly.
Feiyan's hand brushed Ziyan's arm, then pointed—without looking like she was pointing—at the snow. The drift before the gate was smooth. No footprints. No disturbance. The latch, though, hung at an angle too careful to be careless.
"Don't touch it," Ziyan murmured.
She flicked two fingers. Li Qiang circled left, Wei right. The men behind lagged a pace, eyes searching the eaves, the corners, the deep mouths of alleyways. Snow fell in patient, equal measure on everything.
A soft scuff sounded above them.
Feiyan's knife was in the air before the sound finished. A muffled curse answered it. A figure dropped from the warehouse roof, landing badly, one leg buckling. Wei's spear pinned his cloak to the ground before he could rise.
He wasn't Xia.
He was a Qi man—lean, rope-muscled, clothes patched and repatched again. A trader's son or a porter. His eyes showed more hunger than hatred.
"Don't move," Wei growled.
Feiyan knelt, retrieving her knife from the wooden beam above. "You pick a lock with sloppy hands," she told the man. "If the snow above the gate had lied, I might have believed you knew what you were doing."
The man swallowed. His gaze darted to Ziyan, then away. "You… you're her."
"Which her?" Ziyan asked calmly.
"The… the Phoenix," he whispered.
She felt the word hang there, heavy and wrong and wanting. She did not touch it. "What is your name?"
He hesitated. Feiyan's blade point dipped just enough to remind him that silence was not a refuge.
"Lin," he said. "Lin Tao."
"And what were you doing on my gate, Lin Tao?"
He swallowed again. His tongue flicked across cracked lips. "Making sure," he whispered.
"Of what?" Ziyan asked.
"That it would be open," he said, half-defiant, half-terrified. "When Xia comes. They promised—" His voice broke. "They promised food. For my street. For my family. They said if I left the bar loose, they'd pass us by. They said…" He trailed off.
Feiyan's hand tightened on her knife. Wei made a sound low in his chest. Li Qiang's gaze went flat.
Ziyan knelt so she was eye level with the man. Snow dusted her hair, settling like ash. "How many in your house?" she asked.
He blinked. This was not the question he'd expected. "Four," he said. "My wife. My mother. Two little ones. The youngest can't— she's been coughing for days. No medicine left." Pain flashed through him, raw, uncovered. "I know what you did to the steward," he blurted. "Everyone's talking. I know you said there'd be no mercy. But they said— they said if I didn't do it, Xia would burn us first. And if I did, they'd let us live."
Feiyan hissed between her teeth. "Wolves don't keep promises to sheep."
Lin Tao's jaw worked. "You can't know that."
"I do," Feiyan said. "I've watched men like that my whole life."
Ziyan studied him. The fear in his eyes was honest. So was the desperation. So was the choice he had half-made. "You came alone?"
His gaze flicked once toward the burned warehouse. Feiyan's knife was already out of line of sight again.
"Bring them," Ziyan said.