Kaien had a friend named No Songyi.
I knew this the way I knew most things about Kaien's life before me: through careful attention and the occasional document on his desk that I had no reason to read but read anyway because old habits do not care about the rules of this particular life. No Songyi appeared in old correspondence, in a framed letter on the wall of the study that I had never asked about, and in the occasional reference Kaien made to a person who had, apparently, known him since they were both young men learning to fail at archery in the same provincial courtyard.
He arrived on a Tuesday afternoon in early autumn, when the heat had finally broken and the air had that first cool edge that made everyone in the city seem slightly more awake.
