The pill was an inch from his lips when the door opened.

Lin Xuan’s hand jerked sideways in a small reflex he had been training out of himself for two months. The Stage Six pill slipped under the loose cuff of his sleeve in the same motion, and the violet vial in his other hand vanished behind his back against the chair. By the time Lian had finished crossing the threshold with the tray, both objects were out of sight and his palms rested on the edge of the desk, perfectly empty.

"Xuan."

She still had her eyes on the floor. She always crossed his rooms that way, with the soft apologetic step she had used since the first month she had carried meals up to a boy who could not lift his own head off the pillow. Her body had not unlearned it.

He let his face arrange itself into something like patience.

"Lian. What are you doing here at this hour?"

Her gaze came up at that and her eyebrows pulled into a small, indignant fraction.

"What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m bringing you dinner. The way I always do."

"Oh." He blinked once. "Right. Right. Sorry. My head was in the clouds."

She set the tray down on the side table by the window and uncovered it with the unhurried efficiency she brought to everything. Clear broth, a small pile of greens, two cuts of grilled fish, a dish of steamed rice. The smell reached him a heartbeat later and his stomach reminded him, distantly, that he had eaten nothing since before the yard.

"Head in the clouds." She did not quite smile, but the line at the corner of her mouth shifted. "Is that what you call it these days? Are the disciples that much work?"

He let out something not quite a laugh.

"The bases are improvable. I’ll say that diplomatically. But I won’t complain — they’re working, they want to learn, and the ones who didn’t want to learn have already removed themselves from my problem. I can see a light at the end of this. A small one. The size of a candle, maybe. But it’s there."

She stopped with one hand still on the lid of the broth bowl. When she looked at him properly, her expression had shifted.

"You shouldn’t overwork yourself, Xuan. Not so soon. It hasn’t been long since you were still crippled on that bed. Please don’t make me watch that again. Rest when you can."

He held her gaze and decided against the easy answer.

"You don’t have to worry about that. I’m fine. And I’ll be fine."

"Hm."

"I mean it."

"Hm."

He let the second one go and decided not to argue it. She had earned the right to be skeptical about his definition of fine.

He shifted the angle instead.

"How are your lessons going with Master Fu?"

That brought a proper smile out, small and pleased, and he caught it before she put it away.

"He says I’m learning quickly. A lot, he says, and faster than he expected. He thinks in a few months I’ll have a solid base and start being of real use to the Pavilion." She paused. "He also tells me I should stop being your maid."

"Does he?"

"Almost every day now."

"And you tell him?"

"I told him I study herbs in the morning and serve the Young Master in the evening, and so far the two haven’t interfered with each other. He keeps trying to come up with a counterargument. He hasn’t found one yet."

In the corner of Lin Xuan’s vision the panel chimed once.

[ I love her. ]

He pressed the inside of his cheek with his tongue to keep his face level.

"Sounds like an airtight position."

"He thinks so too. He just won’t say it out loud."

She replaced the lid on the broth and stepped back from the tray with the same quiet step she had come in with.

"I’ll leave you to it. When you finish, leave the plates outside the door and I’ll come back for them later. Rest, Xuan. Really. Please."

"Lian."

She paused at the doorway and half-turned.

"Thank you for the food."

She gave him the small bow she always gave him when no one else was watching, the one that was less protocol and more her, and pulled the door shut behind her. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The latch clicked.

He listened to her steps fade down the corridor before he moved.

The Stage Six pill came back out of his sleeve. The Stage Seven vial slid out from behind his back. He set them on the desk and looked at the two of them under the lamp. The first vial was already open. He cracked the violet wax of the second one with his thumbnail and tipped that pill into his other palm.

Two pills. One in each hand. Pea-sized blue, pea-sized violet. Side by side under the lamp they looked almost decorative.

The panel sharpened.

[ I still think this is sketchy, Xuan. ]

’I know.’

[ It’s not impossible. I can guide you through the consolidation in real time and stack both breakthroughs back to back without giving you the standard window between them. You’ll come out the other side before sunrise. You might be a little late to drill your slaves in the morning, but you’ll be standing. ]

’Slaves...’

[ Retainers escalates with use. Either way, the result is the same. Standing. You’ll be standing. ]

The panel went quiet for a breath.

[ You will also suffer. A lot more than the version where you actually wait twelve hours between them. I want that written into the record before you swallow two pills like a man trying to speedrun organ damage. ]

’I appreciate the concern.’

[ That was not concern. That was me formally objecting before becoming an accomplice. ]

’Objection received.’

He turned the two pills between his fingers. One carried a faint warmth through the porcelain shell. The other felt cold enough to have slept in a mountain spring. His stomach, traitorous thing that it was, seemed to understand both were about to become its problem.

’But we do not have a lot of time. If the suffering is coming either way, I would rather compress it into one night and hate myself efficiently.’

The panel softened a shade, the way it did when Mira was already inside the operation despite her complaints.

[ Fine. Let’s go. ]

He raised both pills.

He swallowed them in one motion.