Feiyan met him on the roof above the west gate.
Bai'an at dusk was a spilled lacquer box: roofs in ordered rows, river teased into canals, lamps blooming like cautious stars. From up here, it looked almost calm.
"You walk heavier when you keep something to yourself," she observed.
Ren didn't startle. Two months of her appearing out of the city's corners whenever his mind was most crowded had burned that reflex out of him.
"Is this on your Road's law tablets?" he asked dryly. "Article four: 'Generals shall not be permitted secrets because they clomp on the tiles.'"
"I'll carve it if you like," she said.
She sat on the ridge with the careless balance of someone born to heights that could kill. Her grey scarf had picked up the city's smells: coal smoke, fried batter, river.
"You were in the hall," Ren said. "On the beam over the northern door. You heard."
She shrugged. "Your Emperor has fewer guards with eyes up than he thinks," she said. "He spoke well."
"For now," Ren said. "Zhang will write again. Louder. He'll send more stories about Yong'an corrupting our border villages. Sooner or later, someone here will think a little war on the far frontier is the cheapest way to look strong."
"And will you march?" she asked.
"If ordered," he said simply. "I am a soldier. I obey. But I can choose how I obey. Which hills I tell them are too muddy to take. Which scouts I send. Which letters I write first."
She considered him.
"You're not one of ours," she said. "You're not one of theirs, either. You stand on the line and call yourself a fence-post."
"Fences matter," he said.
"Yes," she said. "So do doors."
She leaned back, looking at the sky.
"Zhang tried to break Haojin," she said. "Du Yan bent instead. Ziyan cut her law into pieces and hid it in cupboards."
"You told her to, I suppose," Ren said.
"Ji Lu told me Zhang's order was coming," she replied. "Wang Yu showed him which pigeon coop to talk to. I told Ziyan it was a trap. She told Sun Wei to be smarter than his temper. For once, he listened."
Ren let out a breath that could have been amusement.
"You collect disobedience the way some men collect coins," he said.
"Coins feed no one if they stay in jars," she said.
Below them, the city's lamps began to bloom. Somewhere a drum thudded, unhurried. Bai'an slept easily when it could.
"Yong'an is not ready for war on two fronts," Ren said. "Qi and Xia both. Even with Han's riders and your jars and those ridiculous tablets."
"No," Feiyan agreed. "They're not."
"You still mean to push them there," he said.
She tilted her head. "Not yet," she said. "Right now, they're still busy learning how not to obey in ways that get them crushed. Rebellion is a craft. You don't throw a novice into mastering without letting them ruin some clay first."
Ren thought of Ziyan in Ye Cheng's smoking square, hair full of ash and law already shaping behind her teeth. "She's not a novice," he said.
"Her people are," Feiyan corrected. "Shuye. Sun Wei. Lin Chang. The midwife. Even your Ji Lu. They're learning where their backs end and other people's orders begin."
"Ji Lu is still Qi's man," Ren said.
Feiyan's mouth curved. "For now," she echoed his earlier words. "But he sent warning. So did Wang Yu. That's two stones moved a finger-width out of Zhang's hand."
Ren rubbed his thumb across the ridgeline, feeling grit.
"The Emperor asked me whether Yong'an is our enemy," he said.
"And you said?" Feiyan prompted.
"That they are an inconvenience," he answered. "And a door."
"Accurate," she said.
"He asked if their law feeds his people where his has given them hunger," Ren added quietly. "He told me to tell him if I ever see that."
Feiyan stilled.
"That," she said after a moment, "is a dangerous question."
"For whom?" he asked.
"For everyone who thinks thrones are the only furniture Heaven allows," she said.
Wind lifted her scarf, then set it down.
"What will you do?" she asked.
He watched the streets below: a cart struggling up a lane, a woman with two buckets balanced across her shoulders, a child running with a stolen bun, laughing.
"I will watch Haojin," he said. "And any other place your sparrows land. If I see our border villages eating because of your law-houses instead of despite them, I will send a report that makes it more expensive for my Emperor to destroy them than to ignore them."
"And if he orders you anyway?" she asked.
He did not look at her.
"Then I will obey slowly," he said. "And I will tell you where not to stand when the orders fall."
She nodded once.
"You are not one of ours," she repeated. "But you are not one of theirs."
"I am one of his," Ren said, nodding toward the inner roof where the Emperor's hall glowed. "Until he stops listening."
Feiyan's smile was thin and almost fond.
"You would like Ziyan," she said. "You two are both too polite with your rebellions."
Ren snorted. "Polite rebellions last longer," he said.
"Sometimes," she said. "Sometimes they just give your enemies nicer phrases to carve on your grave."
She stood, easy on the tiles.
"I'll carry your answer back," she said. "She'll want to know why half her enemies haven't tried to kill her yet."
"Tell her," Ren said, "that some of us are curious what she builds when we're not kicking the scaffolding out from under her."
Feiyan's eyes glinted. "Curiosity," she said. "My favorite sin."
She walked away along the ridge, silhouette soon another shadow among many.
Ren stayed on the roof a little longer, watching Bai'an pretend to be safe.