# The Dragon of Montgomery Street

By FENGHUA WANG

An Iron Triangle Novel

A The Chinatown Exorcist Romantic Suspense

Chapter 1

The fog rolled in off the Pacific like a living thing. Yue Lin stood at the window of a hotel on Nob Hill, watching it swallow the Golden Gate Bridge inch by inch, and thought: Wang was right about this city. The feng shui was terrible.

"Water and Metal in direct clash," he'd said on the plane, the compass already spinning in his hand. "The bridge channels both. Every car that crosses it gets a micro-dose of elemental warfare. The city's been vibrating with anxiety since 1937."

"You can feel that from twelve hours away?"

"I can feel it from the moment we cleared customs." He'd put the compass in his pocket. The needle was still. Waiting. "There's something else. Something active. Someone in this city is using feng shui deliberately. Not for harmony. For extraction."

"Draining."

"Draining."

That was twelve hours ago. Now she was standing in a hotel room, the file on Sterling Cross spread across the bed. Forty-seven years old. Tech billionaire. Founder of Cross Academy , a network of private schools across the Bay Area. The stated mission: "Unlocking human potential through ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience." The unstated mission, according to his sister Eleanor: draining children's charts to fuel his own.

Wang was on the phone with David, getting the latest from Interpol. The compass was on the nightstand. The needle was pulling toward something , not danger, not yet, but the promise of it.

Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. She picked up.

"Yue Lin." A woman's voice. American. Nervous. "My name is Eleanor Cross. Sterling is my brother. I'm the one who sent the letter."

"I know who you are. Where are you?"

"Outside your hotel. The lobby. I wanted to meet in person. I didn't — I didn't want to do this over the phone."

"Come up. Room 412."

Three minutes later, Eleanor Cross was standing in their hotel room. She was forty-three, dark hair pulled back, the kind of face that had been pretty once and was now just tired. She was carrying a leather briefcase that looked older than she was. Inside: her father's records.

"Julian Cross," she said, setting the briefcase on the bed. "My father. The man who drained children for thirty years. You stopped him. In London. You restored forty-seven children's charts. You —" She looked at Wang. "You saved my life. I was one of his students. From age eight to seventeen. I didn't know what he was doing to me until you came. I thought I was just — tired. All the time. For no reason."

Wang was very still. "You were one of the forty-seven."

"Yes. You restored my chart. I was in the hospital for three weeks after. The doctors said it was a rare autoimmune disorder. I didn't correct them. But I knew. I knew what you'd done." She opened the briefcase. Inside: hundreds of pages. Charts. Names. Dates. "My brother Sterling — he's building what my father built. But bigger. More systematic. He's franchising it."

"Franchising."

"He's packaged my father's techniques into a curriculum. 'Cross Method.' It's being sold to private schools across the country. Meditation. Visualization. 'Energy alignment.' They all sound like wellness practices. They're not. They're draining techniques. Disguised. Every child who does the Cross Method gets a little more tired. A little more anxious. A little less — alive. And Sterling gets a little stronger."

"How many schools?"

"Seven so far. All in the Bay Area. He's about to sign a deal to expand to fifty. Nationwide. If that happens —" Eleanor stopped. Swallowed. "Thousands of children. Over the next five years. Tens of thousands."

Yue Lin picked up one of the charts. A child's chart. Eight years old. The Water element was already showing signs of drainage. "Where are the records?"

"His private server. At the Cross Academy headquarters. Montgomery Street. The building used to be a bank. The vault — the vault is where he keeps everything."

"A vault."

"He thinks my father's techniques are treasure. He's been collecting them. Cataloging them. Building a — library. Of draining techniques. From all over the world." She looked at Wang. "You're the only person who's ever stopped him. My father. I mean. Sterling isn't as skilled as my father. But he's more organized. More ambitious. And he has something my father never had."

"What?"

"Money. A lot of it. And a security team that used to work for the CIA."

Wang looked at Yue Lin. She looked at him. The compass on the nightstand was spinning. Fast. Counterclockwise. Danger.

"We're going to need backup," Yue Lin said.

"I know someone." Wang pulled out his phone. Dialed a number he hadn't dialed in years. It rang twice.

A voice on the other end , gruff, familiar, half-asleep. "喂。边个？你知道现在几点吗？我这里是半夜。"

"Rocky."

Silence. Then: "阿乐。你叫我乐少。你十几年没叫过我Rocky了。出什么事了。"

"I need you. San Francisco."

"How fast?"

"Now."

The line went quiet for three seconds. Then: "我到机场。最快一班。你发地址给我。我,," A pause. "你没事吧？"

"I'm fine. She's fine. We have a problem. A big one."

"Sterling Cross?"

"How do you know about Sterling Cross?"

"He找过我。两个月前。他想买我的货。不是古董。是——他说他听说我认识你。他说他需要你帮他做件事。我没理他。但他的人一直在跟我。我觉得——" A pause. "我觉得他有问题。所以我一直在查。我自己查的。没告诉你。不想让你担心。"

Wang closed his eyes. "你查到什么了。"

"他有一个仓库。不是那个学校。另外一个地方。在奥克兰。码头那边。我去看过。里面——阿风，里面全是小孩。至少三十个。他们在——我不知道他们在干什么。但那些小孩看起来很累。很——不是正常的累。是——像是命被吸走了。"

"They're being drained."

"就是他干的？"

"是。"

"那我过来。我带东西。你等我。" The line went dead.

Yue Lin was looking at him. "Rocky. Your friend from Sham Shui Po."

"My brother from Sham Shui Po." Wang put the phone down. The compass was still spinning. "He's been investigating Sterling on his own. He found a warehouse in Oakland. Thirty children. Being drained."

"He went alone? Into a warehouse full of kidnapped children and CIA-trained security?"

"He's not a tactician. He's not a fighter. He's just — loyal. Stupidly loyal. He'll walk into anything if he thinks it'll help me." Wang looked at her, and she saw it — the flicker of warmth he got when talking about people he loved. "You're going to like him. Eventually."

"He sounds like a liability."

"He's the most reliable person I know." Wang stood up. "He'll be here in fourteen hours. In the meantime — we need to see the vault. The records. Everything Eleanor's father left behind."

"And the warehouse? The thirty children?"

"David will handle the warehouse. Interpol. FBI. The full operation. But we can't move until we have Sterling's records. If we raid the warehouse without the evidence — the children get returned to their parents. Sterling closes the warehouse and moves the operation somewhere else. No charges. No justice. We need the vault first. Then the children."

"And Rocky?"

"Rocky can help with the vault. He's been breaking into places since he was twelve years old. He's not a fighter. But he can open anything." Wang looked at the window. The fog. The bridge. The city that was vibrating with anxiety since 1937. "He's also the only person in the world who makes me laugh when I want to cry. And right now — I might need that."

Yue Lin looked at him — the man who wore the same black shirt he'd been wearing when she met him, the same compass in his pocket, the same quiet certainty in the way he stood. The man she'd married. The man who'd saved hundreds of people. The man who'd just called his brother from another life to come help him save thirty children from a billionaire with his father's techniques and his father's cruelty.

She crossed the room. Put her hand on his chest. "He sounds like a disaster."

"He is."

"A disaster with a heart."

"The biggest heart I've ever known." Wang covered her hand with his. "He'll make you want to kill him. Then he'll do something that makes you want to protect him for the rest of your life. He has that effect on people."

"Looking forward to it." She kissed him. "Fourteen hours. But first — take me to Chinatown. I want to see what Sterling's schools actually look like from the outside."

Chapter 2 , Grant Avenue

The oldest Chinatown in America smelled like roast duck and diesel and the particular salt-damp of a city built on a bay that didn't want it. Grant Avenue at 5 PM: the lamps were coming on, red paper lanterns strung between Victorian fire escapes, the characters on the signs a mix of Cantonese and Mandarin and Toisanese that hadn't been spoken anywhere else on earth since the 1850s.

Yue Lin walked with her hands in her jacket pockets and her eyes doing what they'd been trained to do. Count exits. Read body language. Find the pattern. Wang walked beside her, the compass out, the needle turning slow circles.

"It's pointing at the buildings," she said.

"The whole street. The entire block. Every building here was built before 1906. The earthquake burned the immigration records. Half the people here became someone else overnight. New names. New birth dates. New fates." He stopped in front of a brick building with a faded sign: SING FAT COMPANY, EST. 1887. "Imagine what that does to the feng shui. Thousands of people suddenly living under charts that weren't theirs. The energy of that — it doesn't disappear. It soaks into the walls."

"And someone like Sterling Cross can tap into it."

"Someone like Sterling Cross can build a machine to extract it." Wang put the compass away. "When Eleanor said her brother was 'franchising' — she wasn't talking about the curriculum. She was talking about the real estate. Every school is built on a site where something bad happened. The vault on Montgomery Street. The warehouse in Oakland. They're not random. They're chosen."

She stopped in front of a building that was newer than the others , 1970s, maybe, the architecture bland and institutional. A sign over the door: CROSS ACADEMY , BAY CAMPUS. After-school programs. Enrichment. Unlocking potential.

"That's one of them," she said.

Wang stepped closer. Put his hand on the wall. The compass in his pocket began to hum.

"Thirty-seven children," he said. "Inside right now. I can feel them. Their Water is —" He paused. "It's not being drained. Not yet. But it's being — primed. Like a pump. They're doing exercises. Breathing exercises. 'Energy alignment.' Every inhale loosens their Water from their charts. Every exhale pushes it a little further away from them. They think they're doing meditation. They're being prepared for extraction."

"How long until someone drains them?"

"Days. Weeks. Sterling won't move until he's sure the technique is calibrated. That's what the vault is for. Maria is the test subject. The children are the —" He couldn't finish.

"The product," Yue Lin said. Her voice was flat.

"The customers. Sterling sells the Water to wealthy clients. Executives. Politicians. Anyone who feels tired and doesn't know why. He charges them for 'energy therapy.' They feel better. The children feel worse. And Sterling gets richer and stronger." Wang pulled his hand off the wall. "We need to destroy this. Not just stop it. Destroy it. Every school. Every machine. Every record. So no one can ever build it again."

She looked at him. There it was again — that expression he got when he was about to do something impossible. "That's not saving people. "That's not saving people. That's ,"

"That's what the lineage should have done sixty years ago. When the first corrupted techniques were created. Instead of burying them. Instead of hiding them." He turned away from the school. "My teacher used to say that the worst thing you can do with dangerous knowledge is suppress it. Suppression doesn't kill it. Suppression lets it grow in the dark. Someone always finds it. Someone always decides they're strong enough to use it. What you should do — what the lineage should have done — is destroy it. Permanently. So no one ever has to fight it again."

"Is that even possible?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out." He started walking. Down Grant Avenue. Past the lanterns and the fire escapes and the hundred and fifty years of people pretending to be someone they weren't. "Eleanor said her father had records going back thirty years. If I can trace every technique he developed back to its source — I can figure out how to undo them. Not just counter them. Undo them. So the technique itself doesn't exist anymore."

"That sounds impossible."

"Most things I do sound impossible. Then I do them anyway." A corner of his mouth twitched. "You've seen me do it."

"I've seen you do it." She caught up to him. Walked beside him. "That school back there. Thirty-seven children. We're not waiting for Sterling. We're getting them out."

"We can't. Not yet. We need the vault records first. Proof. Evidence. If we raid the school without the vault, Sterling moves the children somewhere else and we never find them."

"So we find them. Then we get the vault."

"Then we get the vault." He took her hand. The compass was still humming. Northwest. Toward her. Toward Montgomery Street. Toward whatever was waiting in the dark.

Chapter 3 , Rush Hour

They walked the perimeter of the Cross Academy headquarters at exactly 5:47 PM, when the Financial District was emptying out and the commuters were flooding toward BART and the ferries and the bridges. Maximum chaos. Maximum cover. Yue Lin counted cameras. Three on the Montgomery Street entrance. Two on the alley. One on the roof. The building had been a bank , banks always overdid security.

"Twelve cameras total," she said. They were in the coffee shop again, the same terrible coffee, the same view of the granite facade. "But they're old. Pre-2010. No facial recognition. No AI. Just recording to a server in the basement. If Eleanor can get us access to the server room —"

"She can. She's been inside the building every day for three months. Sterling lets her come and go. He thinks she's harmless." Wang set down his tea. He'd found a Chinese bakery on Stockton Street that made actual tea. The cup was still warm. "She's not harmless. She's been planning this for three years. Since the day she found out what her father did to her."

YL looked at the building. Twelve stories. A hundred years of bad energy. "What was she like? Before."

"Quiet. Eleanor was always the quiet one. Julian loved Sterling because Sterling was ambitious. Eleanor was just — there. The daughter who did her homework and made her bed and never asked questions. Julian drained her for nine years without her knowing. She thought she was depressed. She thought she was lazy. She thought she was broken." Wang's voice was soft. "When I restored her chart — when she realized what had been done to her — she didn't cry. She didn't scream. She said: 'I knew something was wrong. I just thought it was me.'"

"That's the worst part. Not the draining. The thinking it's your fault."

"That's what every victim thinks. The children in the warehouse. Maria in the vault. They all think they're just — tired. Lazy. Not trying hard enough. And the whole time, someone is stealing their will to live." He looked at the compass. The needle was still pointing at the vault. "She's going to testify against her brother. In open court. She's going to tell everyone what he did. What their father did. She's going to destroy her family name. And she's going to do it without hesitating."

"Because someone has to."

"Because she's been waiting her whole life for someone to believe her." He stood up. "The security shift changes at midnight. That gives us six hours. I want to go back to the hotel. Eat something. Rest. Then we come back here and we don't leave until Maria is out of that vault."

Chapter 4 , The Walk

At 11:47 PM, they walked past the Cross Academy building one more time. The fog had thickened again, muffling the streetlights, turning the Financial District into a maze of shadows and echoes. The Granite Lady , that's what the old bank had been called when it was built in 1917 , loomed above them, twelve stories of stone and bad intentions.

Yue Lin was in full tactical kit. Black cargo pants. Black long-sleeve shirt. The gun holstered at her hip. The knife strapped to her thigh. Her hair in a tight ponytail. Her face expressionless. She was doing the thing she always did before an operation , emptying herself. No fear. No anticipation. Just the mission. Just the objective. Get in. Get the woman. Get the records. Get out.

Wang was beside her, the compass in his hand, the needle steady now. Not spinning. Not warning. Just , pointing. At the basement. At the vault. At whatever was waiting.

"Third," he said.

"What?"

"The third time I've done this. Walked into a building where someone wanted to kill me. The first was the warehouse in Kwun Tong. The second was the Macau casino. This is the third." He put the compass in his pocket. "I'm getting better at it."

"Better at walking into danger?"

"Better at not being afraid." He looked at her — at the steady hands, the squared shoulders, the woman who'd taught him — not how to fight, but how to walk into a room where someone wanted to kill you and keep walking. "You taught me that. Fear is useful. Fear tells you where the danger is. But fear doesn't get to decide what you do about it."

She looked at the building. The granite. The darkened windows. "Fear is a weapon. If you're scared , the enemy knows where to hit you. If you're not scared ," She paused. "If you're not scared, they don't know what to do with you. They've built their whole plan around you being afraid. When you're not , their plan falls apart."

"Is that what happened? With Sterling? In the vault?"

"With Sterling. With Grace. With every enemy I've ever faced." She checked her watch. 11:58. Two minutes until the shift change. "They all expected me to be afraid. When I wasn't — they didn't know how to fight me. Fear is a weapon. And I stopped carrying it a long time ago."

"How?"

She was quiet for a moment. The fog muffled everything. Then: "My first kill. SDU. I was twenty-three. A hostage situation in Tsim Sha Tsui. A man with a knife and a pregnant woman and a dead husband on the floor. I had the shot. I took it. He died. She lived. And afterward , I sat in the stairwell for two hours and I couldn't stop shaking. My sergeant found me. He said: 'You're going to feel this every time. If you stop feeling it , quit. Because that means you've stopped being human.'" She looked at Wang. "I still feel it. Every time. I just don't let it stop me."

"Does it get easier?"

"No. You just get better at carrying it." She checked her watch again. Midnight. "Let's go."

They walked across Montgomery Street. Toward the granite facade. Toward the vault. Toward the woman who'd been drained for six months and was still alive because Sterling Cross needed her to be.

Somewhere in the building, the security shift was changing. The night team was arriving. The day team was leaving. Fifteen minutes of overlap. Fifteen minutes of confusion. Their window.

Chapter 5

The Cross Academy headquarters was a converted bank on Montgomery Street, twelve stories of granite and greed, the kind of building that had been built with railroad money and maintained with tech money and had never, in a hundred years, housed anything good. The vault was in the basement. The vault was where Julian Cross had kept his records. The vault was where Sterling Cross was keeping his children.

"Not children," Yue Lin said. They were in a coffee shop across the street. She was reading the building schematics on her laptop. The black tactical shirt. The ponytail. The gun at her hip. She'd dressed for reconnaissance. "He doesn't keep children in the vault. He keeps their charts. The children are in the classrooms. Seven schools. Seven locations. The vault is just data."

"Data is worse than children. Data spreads." Wang set down his coffee. It was terrible. American coffee. He'd ordered tea but the barista had looked at him like he'd asked for yak milk. "If we destroy the vault, we destroy the evidence. Sterling walks free. If we take the vault intact — every chart, every name, every technique Julian ever developed — we can prove what he's doing. To the FBI. To the school boards. To every parent who ever enrolled a child in a Cross Academy."

"We need to get inside. See what's in the vault before we call David."

"Tonight."

She looked up from the laptop. "Tonight. The security team changes shifts at midnight. Eleanor said there's a window. Fifteen minutes. Between the night team arriving and the day team leaving. Overlap. Confusion. People not sure who's supposed to be where."

"That's not a window. That's a gap."

"That's what I said. Window. Gap. Same thing." She closed the laptop. "We go in at 12:07. You, me, and —" She paused. "Rocky. If he's here."

"He'll be here."

"He's on a plane from Hong Kong. He lands at 10 PM. That gives him two hours to get through customs, get to the hotel, and get ready for a break-in."

"He doesn't need two hours. He needs twenty minutes and a cup of Hong Kong milk tea. Which he won't find here. So he'll be angry. Angry Rocky works fast."

She looked at him. "You really trust him. After all these years."

"I haven't seen him in six years. He sends me a roast goose every month. I don't know where he gets them. He just — sends them. To the office. With a note. 'Eat. You're too thin.' Every month. For six years." Wang looked at the Greyhound terminal across the street. "He's not reliable in the way you're reliable. He won't follow a plan. He won't take orders. He'll probably do something that makes you want to shoot him. But when I need him — he's there. He's always been there. Since we were twelve years old and the temple kids were beating me up for reading books instead of playing football. He walked into five of them with a plastic chair. He lost. Badly. But he walked in."

"A plastic chair."

"He said he didn't have time to find a weapon. There was a chair. He improvised." Wang's mouth quirked. "You're going to hate him. And then you're going to love him. It's what he does."

"We'll see." She stood up. "We have eight hours until he lands. I want to walk the perimeter. See the building up close. Count the exits. Count the cameras. Do my job."

"And I'll do mine." Wang paid for the terrible coffee. They walked out onto Montgomery Street. The fog was rolling in again, muffling the city, making the streetlights look like ghosts. Somewhere above them, in an office on the twelfth floor, Sterling Cross was probably watching. Waiting. He'd been expecting them since Eleanor sent the letter. He'd had weeks to prepare.

The question was , what had he prepared?

Wang put his hand on the compass. The needle was pulling toward the vault. Below the street. Below the granite. Below the bank that had been built with railroad money and was now draining the life force of children.

Something was down there. Something that had been waiting. Not just records. Not just charts. Something alive.

"Yue Lin."

She stopped. The ponytail swung. The gun at her hip caught the streetlight. "What."

"There's something in the vault. I can feel it. It's not just data. It's — someone. Someone's chart is active. Someone's being drained. Right now. In the vault."

She looked at the building. The granite facade. The darkened windows. The fog rolling in. "A child."

"Or an adult. A test subject. Someone Sterling is using to calibrate the technique. The way Stephen used the four women from FortuneCloud. Calibrating. Testing. Making sure it works before he deploys it at scale."

"Then we don't wait for Rocky. We go in tonight. Get the person out. Get the data. Get out."

"It's a trap. Sterling knows we're here. He knows we'll try the vault. He's probably —" Wang stopped. The compass needle twitched. Not toward the vault. Toward the street. Toward something approaching. Fast. "Car. Black SUV. Two blocks."

She didn't look. "How many?"

"Four. Armed. Private security. Sterling's people. They know we're here."

"They're not here to talk."

"No."

She drew her gun. The motion was so smooth it was almost invisible. "Alley. Behind the coffee shop. Now."

They moved. Through the alley. Over a fence. Down a flight of stairs that led to a parking garage. Behind them: footsteps. Barked orders. The sound of a car engine. The SUV had followed them into the alley.

Yue Lin stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Her breathing was steady. Her heart rate was elevated but controlled. The tactical mind was working.

"Four men. Armed. They'll split up. Two from the stairs. Two from the elevator. We take the stairs first. Fast. Quiet. Then the elevator."

"You want to fight four private security contractors in a parking garage."

"I want to fight four private security contractors in a parking garage before Rocky gets here. So he doesn't walk into them." She looked at Wang. "You said he's not a fighter."

"He's not."

"Then cover your compass. And stay behind me."

The footsteps were closer now. The SUV had stopped at the top of the stairs. Doors opening. Voices. "They went down. Cut them off at the bottom."

Yue Lin moved. The gun was in her hand. The knife was on her thigh. The ponytail swung behind her. She was , beautiful. Not in the way of the first time he'd seen her. In the way of a woman who was about to do something terrible to four men and was completely, utterly calm about it.

Wang covered his compass. Stayed behind her. And thought: Rocky was going to love her.

If they survived the next five minutes.

Chapter 6

The first man came down the stairs expecting to find a fortune teller and his wife. What he found was her elbow driving into his throat before his foot hit the last step. He crumpled. No sound. Just the wet gasp of a trachea trying to remember how to work.

She caught him before he hit the concrete. Lowered him quietly. The gun was in her other hand. The second man was three steps behind, his weapon , a Taser, not a gun, Sterling wanted them alive , raised and ready. She kicked the Taser out of his hand. The crack of his wrist breaking was louder than he was. He screamed. She put him down with a strike to the temple. He stopped screaming.

Two down. Two to go. The elevator was dinging. Ground floor.

She moved to the side of the elevator door. Wang was behind a concrete pillar, the compass in his pocket, his face unreadable. He'd seen her fight before. He never got used to it. She could tell by the way his jaw tightened. Not fear. Not disapproval. Just , the weight of watching someone you loved do something violent and knowing she was good at it.

The elevator doors opened. Two men. Both armed. Both expecting to find a fortune teller and his wife standing in the open, waiting to be captured. What they found was an empty garage and the faint click of a gun being cocked behind them.

"Drop your weapons."

They dropped them. She zip-tied them to a support beam. Then she walked back to the stairs, checked the first two men , still unconscious, still breathing , and zip-tied them too. Four men. Three minutes. No casualties.

"You could have killed them," Wang said.

"I could have."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because you were watching." She holstered the gun. "And because Sterling wanted us alive. That's interesting. He could have sent men to kill us. He sent men to capture us. He wants to talk. Or he wants to use us. Either way — he's not afraid of us. He's curious."

"That's worse than afraid." Wang stepped out from behind the pillar. "Afraid people make mistakes. Curious people make plans."

"Then let's not give him time to plan." She pulled out her phone. Called David. Gave him the location of the four security contractors. Told him about the vault. The person being drained. The thirty children in Oakland. "We need FBI. Tonight. The warehouse. The schools. Everything."

"I'll make the calls. But Sterling Cross has connections. Political connections. If we move too fast, without evidence, his lawyers will bury us."

"Then we get evidence tonight." She hung up. Looked at Wang. "The vault. We go now. Before he knows his men failed."

"It's still a trap."

"Everything is a trap. We walk into traps. It's what we do." She started toward the stairwell. "Rocky lands in six hours. By the time he gets here, we either have the evidence and he's helping us get it out — or we're in trouble and he's walking into it. Either way, he's not going in first. I am."

Wang caught her arm. The compass callus. The steady hand. "You're protecting someone you've never met."

"I'm protecting someone you love." She looked at him. "That's the same thing."

They walked up the stairs. Out of the parking garage. Into the fog. Behind them, four men were zip-tied to a support beam, waiting for the FBI. Ahead of them: a vault. A person being drained. A billionaire who thought he could continue his father's work without consequences.

And somewhere over the Pacific, a man named Rocky was on a plane, eating peanuts, probably complaining about the coffee, and getting ready to walk into whatever they were walking into.

She'd never met him. But she already understood why Wang had called him.

Some people you didn't need to meet. You just needed to know they'd come.

Chapter 7 , What Julian Kept

The vault was cold and the smell of fear was everywhere. Maria was on the metal chair, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow. Yue Lin was unstrapping the IV. Eleanor was at the server rack, her fingers frozen over the keypad. But Wang had stopped moving.

"There's something else," he said. "A second energy signature. Not a person. A technique. Active. Waiting."

He crossed to the southwest corner. The filing cabinet there was different from the others. Older. Locked with a physical key, not a code. The compass in his hand was screaming.

"Eleanor. What's in this cabinet?"

"I don't know. It was locked when I was a child. It's always been locked. My father said it was — old case files. Nothing important."

Wang put his hand on the cabinet. The scream became a vibration he could feel in his teeth. "It's not case files."

He pulled a pin from his pocket , a trick Rocky had taught him when they were fourteen , and worked the lock. It clicked. The door swung open.

Inside: a single red book. Older than the ones in the other cabinets. Hand-stitched. The pages were yellow with age. On the cover, in brushstrokes that made Wang's blood go cold: THE WATER DRAIN , TECHNIQUE AND APPLICATIONS. And beneath it, a name that shouldn't have been there: Master Liu, 1958.

Liu. The founder of the lineage. The man who'd written down every legitimate technique Wang had ever learned. The man who'd supposedly destroyed all records of corrupted practice.

He hadn't destroyed them. He'd studied them. Catalogued them. Kept them.

"Julian didn't invent the draining techniques," Wang said. His voice was barely a whisper. "He found them. Liu's forbidden archives. The techniques the founder himself locked away. Julian didn't build the machine from scratch. He just — plugged it in."

He opened the book. The first page was a chart. A bazi chart. And beneath it, in Liu's own brush: Subject A. Male, age 7. Water drained over 14 days. Full extraction achieved. Subject expired.

Liu hadn't just studied the techniques. He'd tested them. On a child. In 1958.

Everything Wang knew about his lineage was wrong.

Chapter 8

Yue Lin finished unstrapping the IV. Maria's pulse was barely there. The woman weighed nothing , six months of drainage had left her lighter than a child. In the corner, Wang was still standing in front of the open cabinet,

"There are still guards —"

Yue Lin looked at him. "I took down four of them in three minutes. How many are left?"

"I don't know. But Sterling will have called more. After the parking garage —"

A voice came from the ceiling. Not from the speakers. From somewhere else. A hidden intercom. Calm. Pleasant. The voice of a man who'd been waiting for this moment.

"Master Wang. I was wondering when you'd get here."

Sterling Cross.

"I've been watching you since you landed," the voice said. "The coffee shop. The parking garage. The alley behind the Greyhound terminal. My security team is not as incompetent as you think. I told them to let you through. I wanted you to see the vault. I wanted you to see Maria. I wanted you to understand what I'm building."

"You're building a machine that tortures people."

"I'm building a machine that extracts value from wasted potential. Maria was an addict. A dropout. A woman who'd given up on her life. I gave her purpose. Her Water powers seven schools. Three thousand children receive the benefits of her sacrifice every day. They're healthier. Smarter. More focused. Because one woman is giving them what she wasn't using anyway."

"You're killing her."

"I'm using her. There's a difference. And when she dies — I'll find another one. There are millions of people in this country who aren't using their Water. Addicts. Homeless. Prisoners. People whose lives don't matter. I can give them meaning. I can make them useful." The voice paused. "Or — you can join me. Your technique. The Metal Heart. The restoration method. I've studied it. I know what you can do. You can restore Maria after I've drained her. You can keep her alive indefinitely. You can make my system sustainable. No one has to die. Everyone benefits."

"You want me to become your — maintenance worker."

"I want you to become my partner. The feng shui. The technique. The lineage. You have what my father never had. What I'll never have. You have the soul." The voice was almost gentle now. "Join me. And we can drain the world of everything that's holding it back. The weak. The useless. The wasted potential. We can make humanity better. Stronger. More focused. All it costs is a few people who weren't contributing anyway."

Wang looked at Maria. The matted hair. The shallow breathing. The IV drip. The six months of stolen Water. The life that was almost gone.

Then he looked at the ceiling. At the speaker. At the man who'd been waiting for him.

"No."

"No?"

"You asked me to join you. My answer is no." Wang picked up his compass. The needle was spinning. Fast. Counterclockwise. Danger. Not for him. For Sterling. "And I'm going to stop you. Not because I'm a hero. Not because I'm the true heir. Because no one — no one — gets to decide that someone else's life doesn't matter. Not my uncle. Not Stephen. Not Julian Cross. And not you."

The speaker was silent for a long moment. Then: "I was hoping you'd say yes. I really was. But I prepared for no." A click. A hum. The server in the ceiling began to spin faster. The cables vibrated. The walls of the vault , the metal walls, the southwest-facing walls, the walls designed to amplify drainage , began to hum with the same low, steady vibration.

"I can drain the entire vault," Sterling said. "Everyone inside it. You. Your wife. My sister. Maria. Four people. All at once. I've never tried it on this scale. But I'm willing to learn." Another click. "Last chance. Join me. Or die."

Wang looked at Yue Lin. The black tactical shirt. The ponytail. The gun at her hip. The woman who'd walked into his office seven months ago and made his compass stop pointing north.

Her hand found his. "Whatever you choose. I'm with you."

"I know." He looked at Eleanor. "The server. In the ceiling. Can you shut it down?"

"My father taught me the override. But he changed the code before he died. I don't know —"

"Try."

Eleanor ran to the server rack. Her fingers flew across the keypad. The hum grew louder. The walls vibrated. Maria's breathing grew shallower. Whatever Sterling was doing , it was accelerating the drain.

Wang knelt beside Maria. Pulled out a sheet of red paper. His brush. His ink. "I'm going to counter the drain. It will take me about three minutes. Yue Lin , if Sterling's men come through that door ,"

"They won't." She was already at the vault entrance. The gun was out. The ponytail was tight. "Work."

He worked. The first layer. The second. The Metal Heart technique , reversed. Instead of giving Fire, he was building a wall of Fire around Maria's chart. Fire evaporated Water. If Sterling's technique was trying to drain her Water , Fire would block it. At least temporarily.

The hum grew louder. The walls shook. Eleanor was still typing. Yue Lin was at the door. And somewhere above them, on the twelfth floor, a billionaire who'd learned everything from his father except his father's fear was waiting to see if his machine worked.

It wouldn't.

Wang wouldn't let it.

Chapter 9

They got Maria to the hospital at 3:17 AM. Eleanor rode in the back, holding Maria's hand, talking to her in a low voice — the voice of a woman who'd spent her whole life trying to undo what her family had done and was finally, actually doing it. The ER doctors took over. Maria was stable. Her chart was holding. The wall of Fire would protect her until Wang could do a full restoration.

They checked into a hotel three blocks from the hospital. The kind of hotel where you didn't ask questions and the clerk didn't ask for ID. Yue Lin locked the door. Took off the tactical shirt. The cargo pants. The knife strap. Piece by piece. She was bruised — a long purple mark across her ribs where one of Sterling's guards had gotten lucky with a baton. Her hair was coming loose from the ponytail. Her hands were still steady.

Wang stood by the window. The compass was on the nightstand. The needle was pointing at her. It always pointed at her.

"You're staring," she said.

"You fought seven men in a vault."

"Seven men who'd never faced a Flying Tiger before. They were slow. Undertrained." She pulled the elastic out of her hair. It fell past her shoulders. "Also I was angry."

"At Sterling."

"At Sterling. At his father. At the whole —" She gestured. "The whole thing. Sixty years of people draining children and nobody stopping them. I was angry. I'm still angry." She crossed to him. Her bare feet on the thin carpet. Her hands on his chest. "But I'm also —" She stopped. Found the word. "Alive. I'm alive. You're alive. Maria's alive. Thirty children in a warehouse are going to be alive tomorrow because we're going to get them out." She looked up at him. "I want to feel alive. Right now. Before the next thing. Before Rocky gets here and we have to be the brain and the muscle and whatever else. I want to just be — us."

He kissed her. Not soft. Not gentle. She didn't want soft. She wanted to feel something that wasn't violence. His hands found her hips. Her spine. The bruise on her ribs — he was careful with it, his fingers tracing the edge without pressing. She pulled his shirt over his head. The six-pack she'd traced her fingers over a hundred times. The compass callus on his thumb. The steady hands that had built a wall of Fire around a dying woman's chart.

"Tell me you love me," she said.

"I love you."

"Tell me again."

"I love you. I've loved you since the moment you walked into my office and asked about my broken lock. I'll love you until —"

She kissed him. Harder. Stopped the words. She didn't need words. She needed this. Him. The weight of him. The heat of him. The way his mouth found her throat and his hands found the places that made her breath catch.

He lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist. Her back against the wall. The thin hotel wall. She didn't care who heard. Let them hear. She'd fought seven men tonight and won. She'd carried a dying woman out of a vault. She'd earned this.

He moved inside her. Slow at first. Then faster. Her head fell back against the wall. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. The compass on the nightstand was humming — not danger, not warning, just — her. The way it always did. The way it always would.

"Yue Lin."

"Don't stop."

"I won't."

He didn't. He took her apart piece by piece — the way he'd undressed her, the way he'd read her chart the first time, the way he did everything. Carefully. Completely. Without rushing. When she came, she said his name like it was the only word in any language that mattered. When he came, he buried his face in her hair and said hers like a prayer.

Afterward, they lay on the bed. The sheets were scratchy. The pillow was flat. Outside, the first light of dawn was touching the Bay. The compass was still humming. Northwest. Toward her.

"Rocky lands in two hours," she said.

"I know."

"Do you think he'll actually walk into the building with a duffel bag and no weapon?"

"Yes."

"And you're not worried."

"No." Wang kissed her forehead. "He's the luckiest person I've ever met. And he's been waiting thirty years for me to call. He's not going to let anything happen to us." He paused. "Also you fought seven men tonight. I think between the two of you, we're covered."

She almost smiled — a real one, not the almost kind. "Sleep. Two hours. Then we meet your brother."

Chapter 10 — The Flight

They came in waves. Three men, then four, then a group of six who'd been stationed at the Montgomery Street entrance and were now flooding down the stairs toward the vault. Sterling wasn't being subtle anymore. He'd decided to kill them.

She took the first wave at the vault door. The narrow entrance was an advantage , only one man could come through at a time. She put the first one down with a strike to the throat. The second one caught her elbow to his jaw. The third hesitated , she didn't. She drove her knee into his solar plexus and he folded like a cheap suit.

Behind her: Wang's brush moving steadily across red paper. Maria's breathing was stabilizing. Eleanor's fingers were still flying across the server keypad. The override code , whatever Julian Cross had changed before he died , was not cooperating.

"Eleanor. How long?"

"I don't know. The code is — he changed it to something personal. Something he thought no one would guess. I've tried my name. My mother's name. The date he opened the Academy. The date he was arrested. Nothing works."

"Keep trying." Yue Lin dragged the unconscious men away from the door. Second wave incoming. Footsteps on the stairs. Four this time. Armed. Tasers and batons. Sterling still wanted them alive — barely.

The first man through the door was six-foot-four and built like a linebacker. He was expecting a fortune teller's wife. What he got was a Flying Tiger operative who'd been waiting her whole career for someone to underestimate her.

She took his baton away from him before he finished his swing. Used it on his knee. He went down. The second man tried the Taser , she sidestepped, grabbed his wrist, and redirected the charge into the third man. The fourth man looked at his three fallen colleagues. Looked at her. Made the smartest decision of his career and put his hands up.

"Smart," she said. "Face the wall. Hands behind your back."

He complied. She zip-tied him. Seven men down. How many more?

Behind her: Wang's brush stopped. "Maria's chart is stabilized. The wall of Fire is holding. But she needs water. Actual water. Her body is severely dehydrated. If we don't get her to a hospital ,"

"Then we get her to a hospital." She checked the stairs. No more footsteps. For now. "Eleanor — the code."

"I can't —" Eleanor's voice cracked. "I don't know what he changed it to. My father — he loved me. In his way. But he loved his work more. He wouldn't have used my name. Or my mother's. He would have used —" She stopped. Her eyes widened. "His own name. He was arrogant. He believed he was untouchable. He would have used his own name."

She typed four characters. J-U-L-I-A-N.

The server stopped humming. The lights flickered. The cables in the ceiling went still. And somewhere on the twelfth floor, Sterling Cross was realizing that his father , even from the grave, even after everything , had built a back door into his own machine. A safety. A failsafe. A way to stop what he'd started.

Because Julian Cross, for all his cruelty, had been afraid of his own creation. And he'd made sure that someone , anyone , who knew his name could shut it down.

"Maria's vitals are stabilizing," Wang said. "The drain has stopped. But she needs medical attention. Now."

Yue Lin picked Maria up. The woman weighed nothing. Six months of being drained had left her barely a body. "Eleanor , the records. The filing cabinets. Can you ,"

"I'll stay. I'll protect them. David's team is on the way. FBI. They'll be here in ten minutes. Go. Get her to the hospital."

Yue Lin carried Maria up the stairs. Wang followed. The compass was still spinning. Not danger. Not anticipation. Something else. Relief. The relief of a technique that had worked. The relief of a life that had been saved.

They emerged onto Montgomery Street. The fog was thinner now. The first light of dawn was touching the Golden Gate Bridge. And standing in front of the Cross Academy building, a duffel bag at his feet, looking like he'd just walked off a fourteen-hour flight and hadn't slept in two days , was a man.

He was not tall. He was not muscular. He was wearing a rumpled jacket and jeans and a T-shirt that said "I paused my game to be here." His face was round and friendly and slightly confused. His eyes , behind a pair of cheap glasses , were scanning the building like he was trying to figure out which window to throw a rock through.

"阿风!" He ran toward Wang. Stopped. Saw Maria in Yue Lin's arms. Saw the bruises on Wang's face from the parking garage. Saw the gun at her hip. His expression shifted from confusion to concern to something else entirely — the face of a man who'd just realized his friends were in danger and he was about to do something very stupid about it.

"You said you had a problem. You didn't say you had a —" He gestured at the building, the unconscious guards, the woman in her arms. "You didn't say you had all this. I would have flown faster."

"Rocky. This is Yue Lin. My wife."

Rocky looked at her. The woman carrying a dying stranger. The woman with the gun and the bruises and the ponytail. The woman who'd just fought seven men in a vault and was still standing.

His face broke into a grin. "嫂子。" Then, in English: "You're real. I thought he made you up. Six years of roast goose and not one picture. I said to myself: '阿乐, he's lying. There's no woman. He's just sad and alone and he wants me to stop asking.' But here you are." He looked at Wang. "She's real. And she's ," He gestured at the unconscious guards, the gun, the woman in her arms. "She's terrifying."

"She is."

"Good." Rocky picked up his duffel bag. "Good. Let's go." He started toward the building.

Yue Lin stepped in front of him. "Where are you going."

"Inside. To help." He looked at her like this was obvious. "Your guy — my guy — called me. I'm here. Let's go."

"There are armed guards inside."

"I know. I saw the ones outside. The ones you —" He gestured at her. "Did that to. I'll be fine."

"You don't have a weapon."

"I have this." He held up his duffel bag. "Don't worry, 嫂子. I'm not going to fight anyone. I'm just going to carry things. And open things. And —" He looked at Wang. "What do you need me to open?"

"The vault is already open."

"Then I'll carry things." He looked at Maria. "You take her to the hospital. I'll help Eleanor with the records. She's Julian's daughter?"

"Yes."

"I read about Julian Cross. After Sterling first contacted me. I did — research." He said "research" the way other people said "fell down a rabbit hole on the internet at 3 AM." "He was a monster. His son is worse. You stop him. I'll carry things." He walked toward the door — then paused. "阿风."

"Yes."

"I'm glad you called. Six years. Too long."

"Too long." Wang's voice was rough. "Thank you for coming."

Rocky waved a hand. Didn't turn around. "You're my brother. Don't thank me. Just , don't wait six years next time."

He disappeared into the building.

Yue Lin looked at Wang. "He doesn't have a weapon. He doesn't have training. He just walked into a building full of armed guards with a duffel bag and a T-shirt that says 'I paused my game to be here.'"

"Yes."

"And you're not worried."

"No." Wang watched the door swing shut behind his friend. "Because he's the luckiest person I've ever met. His bazi chart is the worst I've ever read. He should have died twelve times by now. He just — doesn't. Something protects him. I've never been able to figure out what."

"His heart."

Wang looked at her. "What?"

"His heart. His loyalty. The thing that made him get on a plane with no plan and no weapon and no idea what he was walking into." She shifted Maria's weight in her arms. "That's what protects him. The universe doesn't kill people like that. It needs them."

She carried Maria toward the car.

Behind her, in the Cross Academy building, Rocky was walking through the front door with nothing but a duffel bag and the absolute certainty that his brother needed him.

She'd known him for four minutes. She already understood why Wang had called him.

Chapter 11 , The Flight

Somewhere over the Pacific, at 37,000 feet, a man named Rocky was trying to explain to the flight attendant why he needed more peanuts.

"Not for me," he said. "For the mission. I'm going to San Francisco. There's children. In a warehouse. A lot of them. And my brother — he's not my real brother, but he is — he called me. He said 'I need you.' He's never said that. Not once. In thirty years."

The flight attendant stared at him.

"I'm not crazy," he said. "I'm just — nervous. I talk when I'm nervous. I talk when I'm not nervous. I talk all the time. It's a condition."

"Sir. The peanuts are complimentary. You can have as many as you want."

"I know. But I wanted you to understand why I'm eating them so fast." He opened the packet. Ate three at once. "What's the fastest you've ever flown to San Francisco?"

"Fourteen hours is standard, sir."

"That's too long. There are children in a warehouse. Every hour I'm on this plane —" He stopped. Stared at the peanuts. "You know what's funny? I've been waiting thirty years for him to call. Not for a roast goose order. Not to ask how the shop is. To call and say 'I need you.' And now he has. And I'm on a plane. And I have no idea what I'm walking into."

The flight attendant , her name tag said Michelle , looked at him for a long moment. Then she brought him another packet of peanuts. And a cup of tea. Actual tea. Not the American kind.

"You're going to help your brother," she said. "That's more than most people do."

Rocky looked at the tea. Then at her. "You're very kind. What's your name?"

"Michelle."

"Michelle. If I die in San Francisco — which, according to my brother, I should have done twelve times already — I want you to know that this is the best tea I've ever had on an airplane."

Michelle almost smiled. "Try to stay alive, sir."

"I always do. It's my only skill." He lifted the tea. "Besides talking too much."

She walked away. Rocky looked out the window. The ocean was dark. Somewhere ahead of him , San Francisco. A warehouse. Thirty children. A billionaire who was stealing life force. A woman named Yue Lin who was apparently terrifying. And his brother , his brother who'd been alone for twenty years and was now not alone.

He ate another peanut. Thought about what Wang's mother had told him thirty years ago. You have a hard life, but you have heart. Heart is harder than fate.

He still didn't know what that meant. But he was about to find out.

Chapter 12

UCSF Medical Center. 3 AM. Maria was in a private room on the fourth floor, IV fluids restoring what six months of drainage had taken. Eleanor was in the waiting room, drinking terrible coffee from a vending machine. Rocky was in the cafeteria, eating a sandwich he'd somehow convinced the night staff to make for him. And Yue Lin was standing by the window, watching the fog roll over the Golden Gate, her arms crossed, her jaw tight.

"You're angry," Wang said.

"I'm not angry. I'm processing." She didn't turn around. "Sterling offered you a partnership. 'Drain the world of wasted potential.' And you said no. Without hesitating."

"You expected me to hesitate?"

"I expected you to consider it. For at least half a second. The way you considered Stephen's offer. The way you considered Mei-Lin's offer. The way you always —" She turned around. The black tactical shirt. The ponytail now loose. The eyes that had been watching him for seven months. "The way you always try to find the good in people. Sterling has no good. And you saw it instantly. You didn't try to save him."

"He's not Stephen. Stephen was broken. Sterling is — empty. There's nothing to save. No hidden Fire. No buried compassion. Just a machine that learned cruelty from his father and ambition from Silicon Valley. Two things that should never have met." Wang stood up from the plastic chair. His back ached. He'd been sitting for two hours, writing charts for the children Sterling had drained. Thirty-two so far. More to come. "I can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. I learned that with the Correction. I'm learning."

"You're learning." Her lips curved — just barely. "That's character development."

"That's exhaustion. I've been awake for thirty hours." He crossed to her. Put his hands on her waist. The compass in his pocket hummed — northwest, toward her, the way it always did. "Rocky is in the cafeteria. He's been there for an hour. He's made friends with the night cook. Apparently they're exchanging recipes."

"He walked into a hospital cafeteria at 3 AM and made friends with the cook."

"He does that. He walks into rooms and people feed him. I've never understood it. He says it's because he has 'an honest face.' I think it's because he looks hungry and people feel bad for him."

"He doesn't look hungry. He looks like he hasn't slept in two days."

"Same thing, with him." Wang kissed her forehead. "Go talk to him. He's been wanting to meet you properly. He was too nervous at the building. He'll be more himself in the cafeteria."

"What do I say to him?"

"You don't have to say anything. He'll talk enough for both of you." Wang let go of her waist. "I need to finish the charts. David is calling in an hour. The Oakland warehouse. Thirty children. We need a plan."

She nodded. Walked to the door. Paused. "Wang. The way you said no to Sterling. Instantly. Without doubt. That was ," She searched for the word.

"Stupid?"

"Hot."

She walked out.

Wang stared at the door for a long moment. Then he picked up his brush and went back to the charts.

The cafeteria was empty except for Rocky and a man in a hairnet who was wiping down the grill. Rocky had somehow acquired two cups of tea , actual tea, not the American kind , and was blowing on his to cool it.

"嫂子！" He stood up when he saw her. Nearly knocked over his tea. "Sit, sit. The cook made extra. It's not as good as Hong Kong but —" He shrugged. "It's hot. It's tea. What more do you want."

She sat down across from him. Picked up the tea. Drank it. Didn't flinch even though it was scalding. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He sat back down. "So. You're the one. The woman who made him happy."

"You can tell he's happy?"

"I can tell he's — not alone. For twenty years he was alone. I sent him roast goose every month for six years because I was afraid he'd starve to death in that office and no one would find him for weeks. And then six months ago he called me and his voice was different. I said: 'What happened.' He said: 'I met someone.' I said: 'Did she try to kill you.' He said: 'Not yet.' And I knew. That was it. She was the one." Rocky grinned. "He didn't tell me you were a Flying Tiger. He left that part out."

"He leaves a lot of things out."

"He always has. Since we were twelve. He'd come to school with a black eye and I'd say 'Who did this' and he'd say 'It doesn't matter.' Every time. 'It doesn't matter.'" Rocky shook his head. "That's him. Carries everything. Says nothing."

"You're different."

"I talk too much. Everyone says. My mother. My teachers. Every boss I ever had. 'Lok, you talk too much.' But someone has to. He doesn't. You don't. So — I talk." He took a sip of tea. "You fought seven men tonight. In a vault."

"You counted."

"Eleanor told me. She's in the waiting room. She said you fought seven men and you didn't even look tired." He set down his tea. "I'm not a fighter. I can't do what you do. But I can carry things. I can open things. I can —" He paused. "I can be there. When he needs someone. I've been there since we were twelve. I'll be there until I'm dead. Which, according to your husband, should have happened twelve times by now."

"He said your bazi chart is the worst he's ever read."

"He told you that?" Rocky laughed. A real laugh. Loud. Unguarded. "He's been telling me that since he learned to read charts. 'Rocky, your chart is a disaster. You should be dead. Why aren't you dead.' I tell him: 'I'm too annoying. Death doesn't want me.'" He picked up his tea again. "You know what I think?"

"What."

"I think the chart doesn't matter. I think what matters is — you show up. Every time. You show up for your people. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be strong. You just have to be there. And I've been there. For thirty years. I'll be there for thirty more." He looked at her. The cheap glasses. The rumpled jacket. The T-shirt with the gaming joke. "I know I'm not — I'm not like you two. You're the real deal. The Flying Tiger and the true heir. I'm just a guy who sells antiques and talks too much. But I'm here. And I'm not leaving."

Yue Lin looked at him for a long moment. The round face. The honest eyes. The man who'd flown fourteen hours because his brother needed him. Who'd walked into a building full of armed guards with nothing but a duffel bag.

"You're not just a guy who sells antiques," she said. "You're the heart. Every team needs one. Wang is the brain. I'm the muscle. You're the heart."

Rocky stared at her. His eyes , behind the cheap glasses , were wet. "You just met me."

"I've known a lot of people. Most of them — when things get hard — they leave. You got on a plane. That's enough." She stood up. "Finish your tea. We have a warehouse to plan."

Chapter 13

The warehouse was on the Oakland waterfront, in a district of rusted shipping containers and abandoned canneries that smelled like salt and decay and the particular despair of places where things went to be forgotten. Thirty children. Ages six to fourteen. All enrolled in Sterling Cross's after-school "enrichment program." All being slowly drained.

David had coordinated the raid. FBI. Child Protective Services. Three ambulances waiting two blocks away. The plan was simple: breach, secure, extract. She'd done this a hundred times in SDU. But she'd never done it with a fortune teller and an antique dealer.

"The children are in the main hall," Wang said. His compass was out. The needle was pulling toward the warehouse like something was reeling it in. "I can feel them. Thirty-two distinct energy signatures. Two adults. One of them is Sterling. The other — I don't know. Someone with training. Someone who knows how to amplify the drain."

"The mechanic," Yue Lin said. "Sterling said he was a mechanic, not an artist. Someone else is running the machine."

"Rocky." Wang turned to his friend. "You stay at the perimeter. When the FBI gives the signal —"

"I know. Stay back. Don't get in the way." Rocky adjusted his duffel bag. "I'm not going to fight anyone. I'm just going to — be here. In case you need someone to carry something."

"In case we need someone to be lucky," Wang said.

"That too." Rocky grinned. But it was a tighter grin than before. The grin of a man who knew he was about to walk into something dangerous and was doing it anyway. "Go. I'll be right behind you. Not too close. Not too far. The perfect distance."

"What's the perfect distance?" Yue Lin asked.

"Close enough to help. Far enough to run." He shrugged. "I haven't figured out the exact measurement yet."

One corner of her mouth lifted. Then she faded. Then she turned to the warehouse and stopped smiling entirely.

The breach was textbook. FBI through the front. She went through the side , a rusted fire door that she kicked open with one strike. Wang followed. The compass was spinning so fast it was humming. The drain was active. The children were being drained. Right now. This second.

The main hall was the size of a basketball court. It had been converted into a classroom , thirty small desks arranged in neat rows. On each desk: a tablet. On each tablet: a Cross Method "energy alignment" exercise. And on a raised platform at the front of the room: Sterling Cross.

He was younger than his sister. Forty-seven. Fit. Expensive clothes. The kind of face that had been handsome once and was now just hard. He was standing beside a machine. Not a server , something else. Something that looked like a cross between an MRI and an altar. Cables ran from it to the ceiling. The same cables that had been in the vault. The same cables that had been draining Maria.

And beside the machine, her hand on the controls: a woman. Elderly. Chinese. Her face was familiar. It took Yue Lin three seconds to place it.

Mei-Lin.

No. Not Mei-Lin. But someone like her. Someone with the same ancient calm. The same patient cruelty. The same eyes that had watched the lineage for decades and found it wanting.

"You're not Mei-Lin," Wang said. His voice was very quiet. "But you know her."

"I trained her. Sixty-six years ago. Before she went to the first master. Before she buried her Fire. She was my best student." The old woman smiled. It was the same smile Mei-Lin had given them at the wedding. "My name is not important. What's important is that Sterling has hired me to run his machine. And I've been doing it very well."

"The children. You're draining them."

"I'm extracting their potential. For redistribution. Sterling pays me. The children — they'll recover. Eventually. Most of them." She looked at the thirty desks. The thirty tablets. The thirty children who were sitting in their chairs, eyes glazed, bodies still, Water slowly seeping out of them. "They won't remember any of this. They'll just feel tired. For the rest of their lives. They'll never know why."

Yue Lin drew her gun. "Step away from the machine."

"I don't think I will." The old woman touched a button. The hum in the ceiling grew louder. The children stirred — a collective flinch. Whatever she'd just done, it was accelerating the drain. "If you shoot me, the machine will continue without me. Sterling designed it to be autonomous. I'm just here to make sure it runs smoothly."

"Then I'll shoot the machine."

"You can't. The machine is in the ceiling. In the cables. In the tablets. In the children. It's everywhere. It's a network. The only way to stop it —" She smiled. That terrible smile. "Is to go back to the vault. And shut down the main server. Which your friend Eleanor already did. Congratulations. The vault is offline. But this warehouse — this warehouse runs on a separate server. A backup. And I have the only key."

Wang stepped forward. The compass was spinning so fast it was singing. "You're not doing this for money."

"No. I'm doing it because I can. Because the lineage spent sixty-six years suppressing its power. Mei-Lin was weak. The first master was weak. You —" She looked at Wang. "You're the weakest of all. You have all that power and you use it to heal. To restore. To save. You could be a god. Instead you're a — repairman. Fixing what other people break. Never breaking anything yourself."

"Breaking things is easy. Fixing them is hard."

"It's boring." She pressed another button. The hum grew louder. One of the children — a girl, maybe eight years old — slumped forward onto her desk. "That one's Water just collapsed. She'll need a hospital. If you leave now, you might save her. If you stay —" She shrugged. "Your choice."

Yue Lin moved. Not toward the old woman. Toward the girl. She lifted her from the desk , the child weighed nothing, the same as Maria, six months of drainage in a body that had never been given a chance to grow. "I'm taking her out. Now."

"Take her. One child saved. Twenty-nine to go." The old woman looked at Wang. "You can't save them all. You never could. That's the lesson the lineage never learned. You can't save everyone."

"Watch me."

Wang knelt in the center of the room. Pulled out his brush. His ink. A stack of red papers. He began to write , not one chart, but thirty. One for each child. The Metal Heart technique. Reversed. Building walls of Fire around thirty Water charts simultaneously.

"You can't," the old woman said. Her smile flickered. "Thirty charts. At once. Even the first master couldn't —"

"I'm not the first master." Wang's brush moved faster. His hand was steady. The compass was humming so loud it was vibrating. "I'm the true heir. And I've been learning for seven months. From her." He looked at Yue Lin. "Get the children out. I'll hold the drain."

She carried the first girl out. Came back for the second. The third. The fourth. By the seventh, Rocky had appeared in the doorway , ignoring every instruction to stay back , and was carrying children too. His duffel bag was on the floor. His arms were full. His face was wet.

"Don't cry," Yue Lin said, passing him another child.

"I'm not crying. I'm leaking. It's a medical condition." He took the child. A boy. Ten years old. Barely breathing. "Hey, little guy. You're okay. You're going to be okay. My friend — the one with the brush — he's going to fix you. He fixes everyone. It's what he does."

The old woman was still at the machine. Still pressing buttons. But the hum was fading. Wang's technique was working , thirty walls of Fire, thirty charts protected, thirty children whose Water would not be drained today. His hands were shaking. His face was pale. But his brush kept moving.

And then the FBI came through the front door.

The old woman looked at the agents. At Wang. At the children being carried out. At her machine , her beautiful machine , slowly starving for lack of Water. She pressed one final button. Not to accelerate the drain. To destroy the evidence. The server in the ceiling sparked. Smoked. Died.

"You've won," she said. "For now. But there are other warehouses. Other schools. Other children. Sterling has been franchising. You stopped one location. You can't stop them all."

"I can try." Wang's brush stopped. Thirty charts. Done. He stood up. His legs were unsteady. Yue Lin caught his arm. "And I have help."

The old woman was handcuffed. Led away. Sterling , who had stood motionless throughout, watching his machine die, watching his empire collapse , was arrested by the FBI. He said nothing. His face was blank. The face of a man who'd built a machine to extract meaning from other people because he had none of his own.

Rocky was still carrying children. His arms were full. His face was still wet. "I'm going to need a lot of tea after this."

"I'll make it," Wang said.

"Your tea is terrible."

"I know." Wang let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "I learned from you."

Outside, the sun was rising over the Oakland docks. Thirty children were being loaded into ambulances. Thirty charts had been restored. Thirty futures had been given back. And somewhere on Montgomery Street, in a vault that had once belonged to Julian Cross, Eleanor was packing up her father's records. Preparing to testify against her brother. Preparing to spend the rest of her life undoing what her family had done.

Yue Lin stood at the warehouse door. Her arms ached. Her back ached. Her heart , the heart she'd locked up for twenty-eight years , was full. She looked at Wang. The black shirt. The messy hair. The compass in his pocket. The man who'd just protected thirty children with a brush and a stack of red paper.

"You said you couldn't save everyone," she said.

"I said I could try. There's a difference." He took her hand. "Sterling had a network. The old woman said there are other warehouses. Other schools. We stopped this one. But there will be more."

"Then we stop them too. One at a time." She looked at the rising sun. The bay. The Golden Gate Bridge appearing through the fog. "Rocky. You're coming with us."

"I'm coming with you?" Rocky looked up from the child he was carrying. "To — where? The other warehouses?"

"All of them. Every city. Every school. Every child." She looked at him. "You said you'd be here until you're dead. Did you mean it?"

Rocky stared at her. The cheap glasses. The rumpled jacket. The T-shirt with the gaming joke. The face of a man who'd just discovered that his life was about to change.

"嫂子," he said. "I meant every word."

Chapter 14 , The Aftermath

The FBI set up a triage center in the parking lot of a shuttered cannery two blocks from the warehouse. Ambulances. Social workers. A woman from Child Protective Services who looked like she'd been awake for three days. Thirty children in foil blankets, blinking in the morning sun, their Water slowly returning.

Wang was at the edge of the lot, sitting on a crate of something that had expired in 1998. His hands were still shaking. Thirty charts at once. The Metal Heart technique reversed. He'd built walls of Fire around thirty children simultaneously and he hadn't known if it would work until the first child opened her eyes and asked for her mother.

He was exhausted. The kind of exhausted that went past sleep into something deeper. Soul-tired. The way he'd felt after restoring Eleanor's chart. The way he'd felt after David's. Every time he used the technique at scale, it took something from him. Something that came back , eventually , but slowly. Painfully.

Rocky sat down beside him. Didn't say anything. Just sat there. The duffel bag on the ground. The gaming T-shirt now smeared with something that might have been chocolate or might have been blood. His face was calm. Not the calm of someone who'd just carried seventeen children out of a warehouse. The calm of someone who'd finally found the thing he was supposed to do.

"三十个，" Rocky said. "Thirty kids. All of them are going to be okay. The doctors said."

"I know."

"And the woman in the vault. Maria. She's going to recover. Eleanor said she opened her eyes this morning."

"I know."

"So why do you look like someone just told you your compass is broken?"

Wang looked at his hands. The shaking was slowing down. "Because I almost couldn't do it. Thirty charts at once. I've never done more than one. The technique , it's not supposed to work at scale. Liu wrote that in the margin of his notes. 'The Metal Heart cannot protect more than one at a time.' He was wrong. Or I'm stronger than he was. Or ," He paused. "Or Yue Lin's Fire is what made it possible. She was giving me her energy the whole time. Without her, I would have failed."

"She's strong."

"She's —" Wang looked across the lot. Yue Lin was talking to an FBI agent, her arms crossed, her voice calm. The black tactical shirt. The ponytail. The gun at her hip. She'd carried child after child out of the warehouse. She'd fought seven men in a vault. She'd driven through the night and walked into a trap and never once — not once — had she looked afraid. "She's the strongest person I've ever met. And I'm terrified of losing her."

"You won't."

"You don't know that."

"I know you. I know her. I know —" Rocky paused. Looked at the sky. The sun was fully up now. The fog was gone. "I know that the chart is wrong. You said it yourself. Water and Fire destroy each other. But they haven't. They've made each other stronger. Every fight. Every case. Every time you thought you were going to lose her — you didn't. The chart is wrong, 阿风. Not just mine. Yours too. Your chart says you should be alone. It says Water and Fire can't coexist. But here you are. Married. In America. Fighting billionaires and saving children. With her beside you. With me —" He gestured at himself. "With me carrying things. And opening things. And making tea. And crying in public."

Wang looked at him. The round face. The cheap glasses. The thirty years of showing up. "You're not just carrying things."

"I know. I'm the heart. 嫂子 said so. I still don't know what it means but I like it." Rocky stood up. "Finish your tea. We have seven schools to raid tonight."

Wang looked down. There was a cup of tea beside him. He didn't remember Rocky putting it there. "You made tea. In a parking lot. At 6 AM."

"I have a thermos. I bought it at the airport. It's not very good. But it's hot." Rocky shrugged. "I'm useful. I told you."

Wang drank the tea. It was terrible. The best tea he'd ever had.

Chapter 15 , Maria

UCSF Medical Center, 9 AM. Maria Reyes opened her eyes.

The first thing she saw was a woman in a black shirt sitting in a plastic chair by the window, arms crossed, ponytail tight, looking like she'd been there for hours. The second thing she saw was the IV in her arm. The third thing was the feeling , the strange, unfamiliar feeling of wanting to be alive.

"Where am I," she said. Her voice was a croak.

"Hospital. San Francisco." The woman didn't move from the chair. "You've been unconscious for two days. You were drained for six months. Wang restored your chart. Your Water is coming back. You're going to be fine."

Maria stared at the ceiling. Six months. She'd been in that vault for six months. The metal chair. The IV. The hum of the server. The slow, terrible draining of everything that made her want to live. She'd stopped hoping anyone would come. She'd stopped hoping for anything.

"Who are you?"

"Yue Lin." The woman stood up. Crossed to the bed. Up close, Maria could see the bruises on her arms. The calluses on her knuckles. The particular stillness of someone who'd seen violence and wasn't afraid of it. "I'm the one who carried you out of the vault."

"You carried me."

"You weigh nothing. Six months of drainage will do that." Yue Lin poured a cup of water from the bedside pitcher. Handed it to her. "Drink. Slowly."

Maria drank. The water was cold and clean and it tasted like , like being alive. Like wanting to be alive. She started to cry.

"It's okay," Yue Lin said. Her voice wasn't soft. It wasn't gentle. It was just — steady. "Cry. You've been holding it in for six months. Let it out."

Maria cried. For her mother, who'd died two years ago and never knew what happened to her daughter. For the life she'd lost , the job, the apartment, the boyfriend who'd stopped visiting after the first month. For the six months of darkness and the slow, terrible certainty that no one was coming.

When she stopped, Yue Lin was still there. Still steady. Still watching.

"Why did you come?" Maria asked. "You don't know me."

"Wang. My husband. He felt you. From the street. Before we even entered the building. He said there was someone in the vault. Someone alive. Someone being drained." Yue Lin paused. "He's never wrong about things like that."

"A fortune teller felt me from the street."

"A feng shui master. The true heir of a sixty-year lineage. The only person in the world who can do what he does." Yue Lin's mouth tugged at the corner. "And he's never wrong."

Maria looked at her hands. The IV. The hospital bracelet. The sunlight coming through the window , actual sunlight, not the cold fluorescent glow of the vault. "What happens now?"

"Now you recover. The FBI has questions. Sterling Cross is in custody. His sister Eleanor is testifying against him. The records from the vault — your chart, the charts of every person Julian and Sterling ever drained — they're evidence. You'll need to give a statement. Eventually."

"Will I have to see him? Sterling?"

"No. He's in federal custody. He's not getting out." Yue Lin stood up. "There's a social worker coming this afternoon. She'll help you with housing. Medical care. Whatever you need. Eleanor has set up a fund for the victims. You won't be alone."

Maria looked at the window. The sunlight. The city outside , San Francisco, the city she'd come to ten years ago with a boyfriend and a dream and a life that had slowly been stolen from her. "I thought no one would come. For six months. I thought I was going to die in that chair."

"You didn't." Yue Lin walked to the door. Paused. "Maria. You survived six months of continuous drainage. Most people don't survive six days. Your Water should have collapsed. Your chart should have broken. But it didn't. Something in you kept fighting. Even when you couldn't feel it. Even when you'd given up." She looked back at the bed. "That's not luck. That's strength. Don't forget that."

She walked out.

Maria stared at the door for a long time. Then she looked at the sunlight. The city. The life she'd been given back. And for the first time in six months , she wanted to live.

Chapter 16 , The Raids

David Tsang hadn't slept in forty-one hours. His desk at Interpol London was covered in coffee cups and satellite photos and the personnel files of seventeen FBI agents he'd never met. The operation was the largest coordination between Interpol, FBI, and local law enforcement since the human trafficking ring in Barcelona three years ago.

Seven schools. Seven wellness centers. Seven draining operations active simultaneously. And a thirty-minute window to hit all of them before Sterling Cross could trigger the failsafe.

"The failsafe," David said into the phone. He was on a conference call with the FBI field office in San Francisco, the Child Protective Services regional director, and a woman from the Department of Justice who kept asking questions he'd already answered. "Julian Cross built a self-destruct into every machine. If the main server in the vault goes offline for more than six hours without a maintenance code, every active collector initiates a discharge. All the stored Water gets released at once into the nearest living subjects."

"Meaning the children," the DOJ woman said.

"Meaning the children. A full discharge would flood their charts with Water that isn't theirs. Their bodies would reject it. Best case — they get violently sick. Worst case —" He didn't finish the sentence. "We have a thirty-minute window. The vault server went offline three hours ago when Eleanor Cross shut it down. We have until 6 AM local time before the failsafe activates. Every school must be cleared before then."

"Our teams are in position," the FBI agent said. "But we need Wang on site for at least three of them. The machines are too complex — our people can't shut them down without understanding the technique."

"Wang can't be in three places at once. He's at the Oakland warehouse. He just restored thirty charts simultaneously and he can barely stand." David rubbed his eyes. "Send your tech teams in. Tell them to look for the power cables in the ceiling. Follow them to the server rack. Unplug everything. Don't press any buttons. Don't try to shut anything down through the interface. Just cut the power. The machines can't discharge without electricity."

"That'll destroy the evidence."

"The evidence is in the children. In their charts. In the records at the vault. We don't need the machines intact. We need the children alive." David looked at the clock. 4:47 AM. Thirteen minutes until the window closed. "Cut the power. Extract the children. Get them to hospitals. I don't care about the evidence."

The line went quiet. Then: "Copy that. Cutting power at all seven locations. ETA twelve minutes."

David put the phone down. Stared at the satellite photos. Seven schools. Seven machines. His best friend was on the ground in Oakland with a Flying Tiger and an antique dealer. His former partner , Yue Lin, the woman he'd loved for eight years and lost to a fortune teller , was out there carrying children out of a warehouse. And he was in London, coordinating a raid he couldn't physically be at because someone had to hold the operation together.

He'd spent eight years in SDU. He'd been shot, stabbed, blown up, and thrown through a window. He'd never felt more helpless than he did right now.

His phone buzzed. Wang. A text: All 30 children safe. Sterling arrested. Dr. Wei in custody. Maria stable. Rocky cried.

David almost laughed. Almost. He typed back: Told you he'd cry.

Wang: I know. Cutting power at all 7 schools now. You did it, David. You saved them.

David stared at the message. Then at the clock. 4:58 AM.

Two minutes. He'd know in two minutes if the raids worked.

One minute.

His phone lit up. FBI: School 1 cleared. 12 children safe. Then: School 2 cleared. 8 children safe. Then another, and another, and another. All seven schools. All seven wellness centers. Forty-one children in total. All alive. All safe. All with their Water , what was left of it , returning to their charts.

David put his head in his hands. And for the first time in forty-one hours , he breathed.

The hotel room was quiet. Rocky was in the adjoining room, passed out on the bed, still in his clothes, still clutching his duffel bag like someone might steal it. He'd carried seventeen children out of the warehouse. Seventeen. And then he'd sat in the ambulance with the last one , the ten-year-old boy , and held his hand until the doctors said he was stable. Then he'd walked into the hotel, said "I need to lie down for approximately three days," and collapsed.

Yue Lin was at the window. The fog had returned, thicker than before, muffling the city. She'd taken off the tactical shirt. She was wearing his , the black one with the frayed collar. Her hair was down. Her feet were bare. She looked exhausted. She looked beautiful.

"Thirty children," she said. "All stable. All recovering. The doctors say their Water levels will return to normal within a week."

"The old woman. Sterling's mechanic. What was her name?"

"She wouldn't give it. David is running her prints through Interpol. But she said she trained Mei-Lin. Sixty-six years ago. That makes her —"

"Older than Mei-Lin. Older than the first master, maybe. Someone from before the lineage. Someone who was there when the techniques were first being developed. Someone who —" Wang stopped. Sat on the edge of the bed. "She wasn't lying about the other warehouses. Sterling had seven schools. Each school had a 'wellness center.' Each wellness center was a front for a draining operation. If the FBI raids them all tonight —"

"They are." Yue Lin turned from the window. "David called. Seven raids. Simultaneous. FBI, local police, Child Protective Services. They'll hit all of them before dawn."

"Good." Wang looked at his hands. They were still shaking. Thirty charts at once. He'd never done that before. He wasn't sure he could do it again. "The old woman said she trained Mei-Lin. Mei-Lin was the weak one. She said the lineage spent sixty-six years suppressing its power. She wasn't just talking about the first master's techniques. She was talking about — something else. Something older. Before the lineage. Before Liu. Before anyone wrote down what was allowed and what wasn't."

"Another immortal."

"Or something worse." Wang looked at the compass. The needle was still now. But it was trembling. The way it trembled when something was coming. Something big. "Rocky said he was in. For all of it. Every city. Every school. Every child."

"He meant it."

"I know. He always means it. That's the problem. He'll walk into anything. He doesn't have training. He doesn't have techniques. All he has is —"

"His heart. You said that already." She crossed the room. Sat beside him on the bed. Her hand found his. "He's not a liability. He's an asset. He carried seventeen children out of a warehouse. He held a boy's hand in an ambulance. He made friends with a hospital cook at 3 AM. He's —" She paused. "He's what the team needs. You and I — we're both too serious. Too focused. Too —"

"Damaged."

"I was going to say 'guarded.' But yes. Damaged. Both of us. He's not damaged. He's — whole. In a way we're not. He just — feels things. And says them. And does them. Without thinking. Without protecting himself." She looked at Wang. "That's not weakness. That's what kept you alive for twenty years. A friend who sent you roast goose every month because he was afraid you'd starve."

"He sent it because he was afraid I'd forget to eat. I used to forget. For days. When I was reading charts. He'd show up at my door with a bag of food and say '你瘦了。食饭。' And I'd say '我在忙' and he'd say '我等你。' And he'd sit in my office for an hour. Just — sitting. Not talking. Just being there." Wang's voice was rough. "I didn't realize until years later. He wasn't there because he was worried I'd starve. He was there because he knew I was alone. And he didn't want me to be."

She kissed his cheek. "He's your family."

"He's my brother. Not by blood. By — choice. By thirty years of showing up." Wang looked at the door to the adjoining room. "He's going to get himself killed. Walking into things he doesn't understand. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to protect him. The way he spent thirty years trying to protect me."

"That's what family does." She pulled him down onto the bed. The compass on the nightstand hummed. Northwest. Toward her.

But she didn't let him sleep. Not yet.

She swung a leg over his hips. Straddled him. The black shirt — his shirt — fell open at the collar. Her hair was down. The bruises from the vault were dark on her arms. She looked exhausted and fierce and completely, utterly alive.

"You protected thirty children tonight," she said, her voice low. "You took on Sterling Cross and his machine and a woman who's been draining people for decades. And you won." She leaned down. Her mouth close to his. "Let me take care of you now."

Her hand slid under his shirt. Found the six-pack. The compass callus on his thumb. The steady heartbeat. She unbuttoned him slowly — one button, two, three — her fingers tracing the lines of his chest, his ribs, the places that made his breath catch.

He reached for her. She caught his wrists. Pinned them above his head. "I said let me."

His eyes went dark. "Yue Lin."

"Quiet." She kissed his throat. His collarbone. The hollow of his chest where the Metal Heart technique lived. His breath was coming faster now. She could feel him hard beneath her, pressing against the thin fabric of his pants. She didn't hurry. She took her time — her mouth on his skin, her hips rolling slow against him, the compass humming its steady note.

When she finally pulled his pants down and took him inside her, he made a sound — low, rough, barely a word — that made her pulse spike. She moved above him. Slow. Deliberate. Her hands braced on his chest. His hands found her hips. The black shirt — still on her — rode up her thighs.

"You're shaking," she said.

"Thirty charts. I've never —" He swallowed. "I was so tired I could barely stand. And now —"

"And now you're not tired anymore."

"No." His hands tightened on her hips. "Faster."

She went faster. The headboard tapped the wall. The compass hummed. Through the wall — Rocky's snoring, steady and oblivious. She didn't care. She rode him until he broke — his back arching, his hands gripping her hard enough to bruise, her name on his lips like a prayer. Then she let herself follow — the release washing through her, her head falling back, her own cry muffled against her palm.

She collapsed onto his chest. Their hearts hammered together. The compass was still humming. Northwest. Toward her.

"Now sleep," she whispered.

He didn't answer. He was already gone — eyes closed, breathing slowing, his hand still curled around her hip. She stayed where she was, her head on his chest, listening to his heart. Through the wall, Rocky snored on.

She'd fought seven men tonight. She'd carried children out of a warehouse. She'd given her Fire to hold a wall around thirty charts. And now she was lying on top of a fortune teller who'd just protected thirty children with a brush and a stack of red paper.

Not a bad night's work.

He closed his eyes. The compass was still trembling. Something was coming. The old woman. The other warehouses. The older techniques. The ones from before the lineage. The ones that had been buried for , how long? A century? Two? Longer?

Not tonight. Tonight , her. The way it always was. The way it always would be.

She opened her eyes. "Wang."

"Hm."

"The old woman said there are more. More warehouses. More schools. More drainers. Sterling was just one branch."

"I know."

"Then tomorrow —" She lifted her head. Looked at him. "Tomorrow we don't rest. We find them. All of them. Every child. Every machine. Every person who thinks they can steal someone's will to live and get away with it."

He looked at her. The steady gaze. The set jaw. The woman who'd carried seven children out of a warehouse and then made love to him like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth.

"Together," he said.

"Together." She put her head back on his chest. "Now sleep. Tomorrow we hunt."

Chapter 17

Morning came grey and cold through the hotel window. The fog had lifted just enough to reveal the bridge. It was still there. Still channeling Water and Metal in a configuration that made his teacher roll over in his grave. Still beautiful. Still wrong.

Rocky was in the lobby, eating pancakes with a fork in one hand and chopsticks in the other. He'd brought his own chopsticks. From Hong Kong. In his duffel bag. "You never know," he said when Wang asked. "American forks. Too blunt. Can't pick up rice properly."

"They're pancakes. You don't pick up pancakes with chopsticks."

"You don't. I do." He demonstrated. It worked. Barely. "See? Adaptable. That's me."

Yue Lin was at the front desk, checking out. The bruises on her arms had faded overnight. She moved like someone who'd slept eight hours instead of four. The black tank top was back. The ponytail was tight. She was ready for whatever came next.

David called as they were loading the car. The FBI raids had been successful. All seven schools. All seven wellness centers. Forty-one children recovered. Sterling Cross was in federal custody. Eleanor was cooperating fully. The old woman , she'd given her name. Dr. Wei. A former professor of Chinese metaphysics at a university that didn't exist anymore. She'd been teaching corrupted techniques for longer than anyone could verify. Her students had spread across the world. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.

"She's the source," David said. "Not Sterling. Not Julian Cross. Her. She's been teaching people how to drain for decades. She trained Julian. She trained others. She's the reason the corrupted techniques exist."

"So stopping her doesn't stop the network," Wang said.

"No. It just exposes how big the network is. I've got Interpol analysts tracing her former students. There are —" A pause. "There are a lot of them. All over the world. All using variations of the same technique. All draining people for profit or power or just — because they can. And every one of them has heard of you. The true heir. The one who can restore what they've drained. They're going to come after you, Wang. Not to kill you. To use you. The same way Sterling tried to use you. You're a tool to them. A way to make their draining sustainable."

"Then we go after them first." Yue Lin's voice was flat. Commander voice. She'd been listening on speaker. "You said there are a lot of them. Give us the list. We'll work through it. One at a time."

"You'll need resources. FBI. Interpol. Local police. You can't do this alone."

"We won't be alone." She looked at Rocky. He was still eating pancakes with chopsticks. Still wearing the gaming T-shirt. Still looking like he'd walked out of a fourteen-hour flight and hadn't slept in two days. "We have a team."

David was quiet. Then: "The iron triangle."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just — something my wife said. She's been reading about Chinese history. She said the best teams are always three. The brain. The muscle. The heart. She said you three reminded her of something. I didn't know what she meant until now." He paused. "I'll send the list. Start with the closest. A woman in Vancouver. Former student of Dr. Wei. Running a wellness retreat that's actually a draining operation. Twelve clients. All elderly. All being slowly drained of their Water so she can stay young."

"How young?"

"She's eighty-seven. She looks forty."

Wang looked at the compass. The needle was pointing northwest. Not toward San Francisco anymore. Further north. Toward Canada. Toward Vancouver. Toward the next battle.

"Send the files. We'll leave today."

"Wang." David's voice was different now. Softer. "Be careful. These people — they're not like Sterling. They're not like Stephen. They've been doing this for decades. They know what they are. They don't want to be saved."

"I know. But I'm going to try anyway."

"I know you will." David almost laughed. Almost. "Good luck."

The line went dead.

Chapter 18 , The Flying Tiger

Yue Lin took the phone from her ear. Vancouver. An eighty-seven-year-old woman who looked forty. Twelve elderly clients. Another draining operation. Another battle. She'd been fighting for twenty years , first in SDU, then beside Wang , and the battles never stopped. They just changed faces. Changed cities. Changed the name of the technique being used.

She walked to the window. The fog was thin now, the bridge visible in the distance. She thought about the first time she'd held a gun. She was nineteen. The SDU recruiter had come to her university and given a presentation about "serving Hong Kong" and "protecting the innocent" and she'd signed up before he finished speaking. Not because she believed in service. Because she was angry. Angry at her father for drinking himself to death. Angry at her mother for dying when she was twelve. Angry at the world for being a place where people hurt each other and nobody stopped them.

She'd learn to stop them. She'd learn to be the person who walked into a room and ended the violence. Not with words. Words were for politicians. She used her body. Her hands. Her gun. She'd spent eight years being the sharpest weapon in Hong Kong's arsenal. And when she left , when the politics and the corruption and the death of her partner finally broke something inside her , she'd walked into a fortune teller's office on Temple Street and found a man who didn't want her to be a weapon. He wanted her to be , herself. Whoever that was.

She'd been trying to figure it out ever since.

"Vancouver," she said. Wang was beside her. The compass was in his pocket. "I've never been to Canada."

"It's cold. The food is terrible. The feng shui is —" He paused. "Actually, the feng shui is excellent. Mountains. Water. Forests. The energy flows naturally."

"You've never been there either."

"I've read about it. I read about everything." He glanced at her. "Every new place we go — I read about it first. The history. The geography. The energy. So when we get there, I know what we're walking into."

"That's very anxious."

"That's very prepared." He took her hand. "We'll go together. You, me, and Rocky. The iron triangle."

She almost smiled. "He's going to drive you crazy."

"He's been driving me crazy for thirty years. I'm used to it."

"Good. You need someone to drive you crazy. You're too still. Too serious. Too much in your own head." She squeezed his hand. "He drives you crazy like a brother. I drive you crazy like a wife. Two different kinds of crazy. Both necessary."

He looked at her. The black eyes. The almost-smile. "I love you."

"I know." She picked up her bag. "Let's go. We have an eighty-seven-year-old to arrest."

They drove north on Highway 101. The Golden Gate Bridge disappeared behind them. The fog lifted. The sky turned blue. California stretched ahead , vineyards and hills and the particular golden light that made everything look like a photograph.

Rocky was in the back seat, asleep again. He'd brought his duffel bag. He'd brought his chopsticks. He'd brought nothing else. When Yue Lin asked if he needed to go back to Hong Kong , to pack, to close his shop, to settle his affairs , he'd looked at her like she was insane.

"我冇嘢要执。我嘅嘢就系我。" He'd tapped his chest. "My things are me. Everything else — it's just stuff. Stuff can be replaced. You two can't." Then he'd gotten in the car and fallen asleep.

Wang drove. Yue Lin navigated. The compass on the dashboard pointed north. Toward Vancouver. Toward an eighty-seven-year-old woman who looked forty. Toward twelve elderly clients who were being drained of their Water.

Toward the next battle. The next chart that needed restoring. The next person who needed saving.

"Wang."

"Yes."

"Rocky called us 'the iron triangle.' He said he read about it in a comic book when he was a kid. Three heroes. Different powers. Fighting together."

"That's not a comic book. That's us."

She almost smiled. "I know." She looked out the window. The California hills. The golden light. The road stretching ahead. "I've never been to Canada."

"It's cold. The food is terrible. The feng shui is —" He paused. "Actually, the feng shui is excellent. Mountains. Water. Forests. The energy flows naturally. It's one of the best-aligned countries in the world."

"You've never been there either."

"I've read about it. I read about everything." He glanced at her. The ponytail. The black tank top. The woman who'd walked into his office seven months ago and made his compass stop pointing north. "Every new place we go — I read about it first. The history. The geography. The energy. So when we get there, I know what we're walking into."

"That's very thorough."

"That's very anxious. I like to be prepared."

She put her hand on his knee. "You're prepared. You've been preparing your whole life. The lineage. The techniques. The students. Now you have a team. A real team. Not just me. Rocky too." She looked at the back seat. Rocky snored. "He's going to drive you crazy."

"He already has. For thirty years."

"Good. You need someone to drive you crazy. You're too — still. Too serious. Too much in your own head."

"That's what you're for."

"I drive you crazy in a different way." She squeezed his knee. "He drives you crazy like a brother. I drive you crazy like a wife. Two different kinds of crazy. Both necessary."

He looked at her. The black eyes. The almost-smile. The woman he'd married. The woman he'd follow anywhere , Vancouver, London, Barcelona, the end of the world. "I love you."

"I know." She settled back in her seat. "Now drive. We have an eighty-seven-year-old to arrest."

Behind them, Rocky snored.

The compass pointed north.

And the iron triangle , the brain, the muscle, the heart , drove toward the next battle.

Together.

But somewhere behind them, in a federal holding cell, Dr. Wei was smiling at the wall. She'd been waiting sixty years for someone to stop being afraid. Now she'd found them. And the real war was just beginning.

Chapter 19

They stopped for the night at a motel outside Redding, halfway between San Francisco and the Oregon border. The neon sign said "Shasta Inn" and the office smelled like cigarettes and the clerk didn't ask questions. She'd stayed in a hundred places like this during her SDU years. They all felt the same. Temporary. Anonymous. A place to sleep before the next mission.

But this one was different. Because Wang was beside her, the compass on the nightstand, the needle still pulling north toward Vancouver. And Rocky was in the room next door, arguing with the vending machine about the price of Cheetos.

"Two dollars! For a bag of air with orange dust on it! This is robbery. This is criminal. I'm going to call the police. I'm going to —" A pause. A thump. Then: "Fine. Two dollars. But I'm not happy about it."

She let it go. Wang was at the window, looking at the mountains. The stars were out. The air was cold and clean and smelled like pine trees. So different from Hong Kong. Everything was different from Hong Kong.

"You're thinking about home," she said.

"I'm thinking about the office. The broken lock. The compass on the nightstand. The —" He paused. "The red bra on the bathroom door."

"Which one? There are five now."

"The black one. The first one. The one you hung there the night you moved in." He turned from the window. The black eyes. The messy hair. The man she'd married. "We've been gone for four days. It feels like four weeks."

"Home will still be there when we get back."

"I know. But I've never been away from it for this long. In twenty years. The office was — is — the only place I've ever lived. The only home I've ever had. Until you." He crossed to her. His hands found her waist. "Now home is wherever you are. Which sounds romantic. But I still miss the compass."

"You have a travel compass."

"It's not the same. The travel compass points north. The office compass points at you. There's a difference."

She kissed him. Soft. The vending machine argument continued through the wall. Rocky had apparently found an ally , someone else in the motel was now also complaining about the Cheetos. She could hear two voices now. One American. One Chinese. United in snack-related outrage.

"Rocky is making friends," she said against Wang's mouth.

"Rocky always makes friends. It's his only skill."

"It's not his only skill. He carried seventeen children out of a warehouse."

"He'll tell that story for the rest of his life. Every time we're in a bar. Every time we meet someone new. 'Did I tell you about the time I carried seventeen children out of a warehouse?' And I'll say 'Yes, Rocky, you told them. You told everyone. Multiple times.' And he'll say 'Good. Because it's the best thing I ever did.'" Wang kissed her forehead. "He's been waiting his whole life to do something that mattered. He just didn't know it."

"And now he knows."

"And now he's never going to stop. He's going to follow us to Vancouver. To London. To Barcelona. To every city on David's list. And every time — he's going to do something brave and stupid and he'll tell the story for the rest of his life."

She looked at the wall. The muffled argument. The two voices now laughing. "He's happy."

"He's useful. Same thing, with him."

She pulled Wang toward the bed. The motel sheets were scratchy. The pillow was flat. The neon sign outside flickered through the thin curtains. It was the least romantic place she'd ever been. It was perfect.

"Make love to me," she said. Not a question.

"Here?"

"Here. Now. While Rocky is arguing with a vending machine two rooms away. While the FBI is raiding Sterling's schools. While the old woman is in federal custody. Everything outside this room is chaos. I want —" She paused. "I want something that isn't chaos."

He undressed her slowly. The black tactical shirt. The cargo pants. The knife strap on her thigh. Piece by piece. His hands moved over her body with the same precision he used for charts , reading, learning, finding the places that made her breath catch. The scratchy sheets. The flat pillow. The flickering neon. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was the weight of him, the heat of him, the way his mouth found her throat and his hands found her hips and his voice , low, rough, barely a whisper , said her name like it was the only word in any language.

"Yue Lin."

"Wang."

"I love you."

"I know." She pulled him closer. "Show me."

He showed her. Hours. He took hours. The motel bed held. The neon flickered. Through the wall, Rocky's voice rose in triumph , he'd apparently gotten his Cheetos, or maybe a refund, or maybe just the last word. She didn't care. The only thing she cared about was this. Him. Them. The iron triangle, sleeping in separate rooms, driving north in the morning, ready for whatever came next.

Afterward, she lay across his chest. His six-pack rose and fell under her cheek. His hand was in her hair. The compass on the nightstand hummed , northwest, toward her, the way it always did.

"Rocky will ask what we were doing," she said.

"I'll tell him we were reading charts."

"He won't believe that."

"No. But he'll pretend to. That's what brothers do." Wang kissed the top of her head. "Sleep. Vancouver tomorrow."

"Vancouver tomorrow." She closed her eyes.

Through the wall, Rocky was now humming. Some old Cantopop song from the eighties. Off-key. Loud. Completely un-self-conscious. She fell asleep to the sound of it. A brother. A husband. A compass pointing north. The iron triangle. A team.

She'd never had a team before. She was starting to understand why Wang had spent thirty years refusing to let this one go.

Chapter 20 , Thirty Years

Wang woke before dawn. Yue Lin was still asleep, her head on his chest, her hand curled against his ribs. The compass on the nightstand was still. Outside, the motel sign flickered. The Shasta Inn. He'd never been to northern California before. He'd never been to America before this week. His whole life , forty-two years , had been contained in a few square kilometers of Hong Kong. Temple Street. the office. The temple where his teacher had taught him. The hospital where his mother had died. The school where he'd met Rocky when they were twelve.

He thought about that day. The first day of secondary school. He was the scholarship kid , poor, skinny, a face full of acne and a head full of techniques he'd been learning since he was old enough to hold a brush. The temple kids didn't like him. They thought he was weird. He was weird. He could read their charts without asking and he sometimes forgot that other children couldn't.

They cornered him behind the gymnasium. Five of them. The biggest one , a boy named Cheung who would later become a triad enforcer and die at twenty-three , had him by the collar. "算命佬，" he said. Fortune teller. "Read my chart. Tell me when I die."

"Twenty-three," Wang said. He didn't mean to say it. It just came out.

Cheung hit him. Hard. In the face. Wang went down. The other four moved in. And then , a plastic chair. A boy he'd never met before, a round-faced kid with glasses too big for his face, swinging a plastic chair at five boys who were all bigger than him. Screaming. Not words. Just noise. A battle cry that sounded more like a chicken than a warrior.

The five boys turned on him. They hit him harder than they'd hit Wang. When it was over, the round-faced kid was on the ground, his glasses broken, his nose bleeding, his lip split. He looked at Wang and said: "你冇事嘛？" Are you okay?

Wang stared at him. "You just fought five boys with a plastic chair."

"It was the only thing I could find." The kid wiped his nose with his sleeve. "I'm Rocky. Well. My real name is 乐少. But everyone calls me Rocky. Because I keep getting up. Even when I shouldn't." He grinned. The grin was bloody and ridiculous and Wang had never seen anything like it. "You're the fortune teller. The one who can read charts. Can you read mine?"

Wang looked at him. The broken glasses. The bleeding nose. The ridiculous grin. "Your chart is a disaster. You should be dead twelve times."

"Is that bad?"

"It's the worst chart I've ever seen."

Rocky laughed. A real laugh. Loud. Unguarded. "Good. I like being the worst. It means I can only get better." He held out his hand. Wang took it. And for the next thirty years , through his mother's death, through his teacher's death, through twenty years of solitude in an office above Temple Street , Rocky was there. Sending roast goose. Sitting quietly. Showing up.

Wang looked at the woman sleeping on his chest. Seven months ago he was alone. Now he had a wife. A brother. A team. The iron triangle. A compass that pointed at her. A friend who'd flown fourteen hours because he said "I need you." A purpose that stretched across a continent.

He closed his eyes. The compass hummed. Northwest.

He slept — but not deeply. His dreams were full of children's charts and Liu's forbidden archives and the cold, patient smile of Dr. Wei. Somewhere in New York, a spiral staircase was counting down to December 14th. Somewhere in Los Angeles, a gate was waiting to be sealed. And somewhere in the dark, a woman named Wong Siu-lan — missing since 1975 — was still alive. Still waiting. Still building.

The iron triangle was driving north. But the network was driving too. And it had a fifty-year head start.

Chapter 21

They called him the heart. He wasn't sure what that meant. He wasn't brave. He wasn't smart. He wasn't strong. He sold antiques for a living and talked too much and the woman who saved his life thirty years ago , Wang's mother, before she died , had told him: "你命硬，但你有心。心比命硬。" You have a hard life, but you have heart. Heart is harder than fate.

He'd never forgotten that. He didn't understand it. But he never forgot it.

Now he was in a motel in northern California, eating Cheetos he'd paid too much for, trying to figure out what a man with no training and no techniques and no business being here was supposed to do on a mission to stop an immortal network of fate-draining assassins.

The answer, he decided, was: be useful. In whatever way presented itself. Even if that way was just being there.

He'd been there for Wang for thirty years. He'd been there when Wang's mother died. When Wang's teacher died. When Wang locked himself in an office above Temple Street and spent twenty years alone, reading charts, drinking tea, refusing to let anyone close. He'd sent roast goose every month for six years because he knew Wang forgot to eat. He'd sat in that office for hours , not talking, just being there , because he knew Wang was lonely and didn't know how to say it.

And now Wang had a wife. A real one. A Flying Tiger who could fight seven men in a vault and carry dying women to ambulances and look at Wang like he was the only solid thing in a world that kept trying to crumble.

Rocky liked her. He liked her a lot. Not in the way that got you killed by a jealous husband. In the way that made you think: Finally. Finally someone who deserves him.

He finished his Cheetos. Wiped his fingers on his jeans. Looked at the ceiling. Somewhere above him, in the room next door, Wang and Yue Lin were , doing whatever married people did. He didn't think about it. He just thought: Good. He's happy. He's not alone. I can stop worrying now. Then he thought: No I can't. I'll never stop worrying. That's the job. That's always been the job.

His phone buzzed. A text from Eleanor. She was still in San Francisco, still packing up her father's records, still preparing to testify against her brother. The message was short: Thank you. For carrying the children. For being there. For everything.

He typed back: Thank you for shutting down the server. You saved us all. Your father would be , He stopped. What would Julian Cross be? Proud? Horrified? He didn't know. He deleted the sentence. Typed: You're brave. Don't forget that.

Eleanor replied: You're kind. Don't forget that.

He stared at the screen for a long moment. Kind. No one had ever called him kind before. Loud, yes. Annoying, frequently. A disaster, often. But kind , that was new. He liked it. He decided he'd try to earn it.

Tomorrow: Vancouver. An eighty-seven-year-old woman who looked forty. Twelve elderly clients being drained. And him , a guy who sold antiques and talked too much , walking into it with nothing but a duffel bag and a thirty-year habit of showing up.

He put his phone down. Closed his eyes. And fell asleep to the sound of his brother's compass humming through the motel wall.

The heart. He still didn't know what it meant. But he was starting to figure it out.

Chapter 22

They turned the car around at the Oregon border. Yue Lin got a call from David , Eleanor needed them back in San Francisco. The FBI had questions. Sterling's lawyers were already filing motions. The evidence from the vault , Julian Cross's records, thousands of charts, decades of documentation , needed expert testimony. Someone who could explain to a federal judge what "Water drainage" meant. Someone who could read a bazi chart in open court and show the jury exactly how a child's life had been stolen.

"You're the only one who can do this," David said. "The only one with the credentials. The only one the court will accept as an expert witness."

"Vancouver can wait."

"Vancouver will have to wait. The doctor up there — the eighty-seven-year-old who looks forty — she's not going anywhere. The twelve elderly clients are stable. They're being monitored. The FBI is building a case. But San Francisco is now. Sterling Cross is being arraigned tomorrow. If you're not there to explain what he did — he might walk."

Wang looked at Yue Lin. She nodded. He turned the car around.

The federal courthouse on Golden Gate Avenue was a monument to the particular American belief that justice could be poured into concrete and made permanent. Wang stood outside it, the compass in his pocket, the needle pointing at the building's southwest corner. Bad feng shui. The entrance faced the wrong direction. The marble was cold. The energy was stagnant. But inside , inside, something was happening that mattered.

Eleanor met them at the steps. She was wearing a suit. Her hair was pulled back. She looked older than she had in the vault. More tired. But also , more certain. The face of a woman who'd spent her whole life running from her family's legacy and was finally, finally turning to face it.

"They're going to ask you about my father," she said. "About what he did. About what Sterling did. They're going to ask you to explain something that most people don't believe is real. And you're going to have to make them believe it."

"That's what I do." Wang looked at her. "Are you ready? To testify against your brother?"

"I've been ready my whole life. I just didn't know it." She looked at the courthouse. The columns. The marble. The flag. "My father used to bring me here. When I was a child. He said: 'This is where justice lives.' He was lying. He was draining children in his basement while he told me about justice. But today —" She straightened her jacket. "Today justice is going to mean something different."

She walked inside. Wang followed. Yue Lin and Rocky stayed on the steps , Rocky because he said courtrooms made him nervous, Yue Lin because she didn't want to leave him alone.

The courtroom was wood-paneled and silent. Sterling was at the defendant's table, his lawyer beside him. He looked smaller than he had in the vault. The expensive suit hung loose on his frame. Whatever power he'd been draining from the children , it was gone now. His chart, Wang could see without needing to look, was collapsing. The Water he'd stolen was returning to its sources. Without it, he was just a man. Ordinary. Empty. Afraid.

The judge asked Wang to explain, in terms the court could understand, what the Cross Method curriculum actually did. Wang stood at the witness stand. The compass was in his pocket. The needle was steady.

"Your Honor. The Cross Method is not a wellness practice. It is a technique for extracting the Water element from a person's bazi chart. Water governs the will to live. When you drain someone's Water — they don't die. Not immediately. They just — stop wanting to live. They get tired. Depressed. Anxious. They lose their energy. Their focus. Their joy. It looks like burnout. It looks like chronic fatigue. It looks like a hundred things that modern medicine can't explain. But it's not any of those things. It's theft. Theft of the element that makes human beings want to be alive."

The courtroom was silent. Sterling's lawyer objected. Overruled. The judge leaned forward.

"And the children at the Cross Academy? What was being stolen from them?"

"Their futures. Their potential. Their capacity for happiness. Sterling Cross was draining thirty-two children at the Oakland warehouse alone. Across seven schools — hundreds more. Each of those children would have grown up tired. Depressed. Unable to focus. Unable to connect. They would have lived diminished lives. And Sterling would have grown stronger. Healthier. More successful. He was trading their futures for his own."

"What about the woman in the vault? Maria Reyes?"

"She was the prototype. Six months of continuous drainage. When we found her, she had hours to live. She survived because we stopped the machine. But she will need years of recovery. Her Water will regenerate — slowly. She will never be the person she was before Sterling took her."

The judge was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Mr. Wang. You're telling this court that Sterling Cross was literally stealing the life force of children."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"And you can prove this?"

"I can show you the charts. Every child. Every date. Every technique used. Julian Cross kept records for thirty years. His son kept records for three. Together — they document the systematic draining of hundreds of people. Most of them children. Most of them never knew what was happening to them." Wang set the red book on the witness stand. The book his teacher had left him. The book of restored fates. "This is my own record. Every person whose chart I have restored. Every person Sterling's father drained. Every person Sterling drained. You asked for proof, Your Honor. This is it."

The judge looked at the red book. At the charts. At the decades of evidence. Then she looked at Sterling Cross.

"Mr. Cross. Do you have anything to say?"

Sterling stood. His face was blank. The emptiness that Wang had seen in the vault , the absence of a soul , was all that was left. "I was only trying to improve human potential," he said. His voice was flat. Mechanical. "The children would have recovered. Eventually. Most of them. It was a calculated risk."

The courtroom erupted. The judge banged her gavel. Sterling's lawyer put his head in his hands. And somewhere in the back of the room, Eleanor Cross , Julian's daughter, Sterling's sister, the woman who'd spent her whole life trying to undo what her family had done , closed her eyes and wept.

Not from grief. From relief.

Her brother would not walk. Her father's legacy would not continue. The records would be preserved. The children would be compensated. And the truth , the truth that she'd been carrying alone for forty-three years , was finally, in open court, spoken aloud.

Wang stepped down from the witness stand. Walked past the defendant's table. Sterling didn't look at him. The compass hummed. Northwest. Toward the door. Toward Yue Lin. Toward whatever came next.

Outside, on the courthouse steps, Yue Lin was waiting. Rocky was beside her, holding two cups of tea , actual tea, he'd found a Chinese bakery three blocks away , and wearing his gaming T-shirt under a borrowed blazer that was two sizes too big.

"How did it go?" Yue Lin asked.

"He's not walking."

"Good." She handed him a cup of tea. "David called. Vancouver is still waiting. The eighty-seven-year-old has been notified that we're coming. She says she's been expecting us."

"Of course she has. They all expect us." Wang drank the tea. It was terrible. Rocky had let it steep too long. "Rocky. This tea is terrible."

"I know. I made it myself. You're welcome." Rocky grinned. "So. Vancouver?"

"Vancouver."

"Let's go." He started toward the car. Then paused. "嫂子. I have a question."

"What."

"When we get to Canada — do they have Cheetos there? Because I'm not paying two dollars again. That was robbery."

Yue Lin looked at him. The cheap glasses. The borrowed blazer. The gaming T-shirt. The man who'd carried seventeen children out of a warehouse and was now worried about the price of Cheetos in Canada.

"I don't know," she said. "But I'm sure you'll find out."

"I will. I'm very resourceful." He got in the car.

Wang took Yue Lin's hand. The compass pointed north. Toward Vancouver. Toward the next battle. Toward the rest of their lives.

Then the compass twitched. Not north. East.

Wang looked down at it. The needle was flickering — north, then east, then north again. Like it couldn't decide.

"What?" Yue Lin said.

"Nothing. Probably nothing." He put the compass in his pocket. But his jaw was tight. Because the compass had never done that before. Not once. In twenty years.

And east — east was New York.

"Let's go," he said.

Chapter 23 , Eleanor

They found her in the courthouse library, alone, sitting at a long oak table with her father's red book open in front of her. The book Wang had found in the vault. Liu's forbidden archives. The proof that the lineage founder himself had tested draining techniques on a child in 1958.

Eleanor looked up when they came in. Her eyes were dry now. She'd done her crying in the courtroom.

"I've been reading this," she said. "All night. Liu wasn't just documenting techniques. He was documenting — failures. Every entry where the subject died. Every entry where the technique didn't work. He was trying to figure out how to make draining safe. Sustainable. He thought if he could perfect the method — he could use it for good. Extract sickness. Extract pain. Extract trauma." She touched the page. "He killed fourteen children before he stopped. Before he realized the technique could never be made safe. That's when he locked everything away. That's when he founded the lineage — not to spread the techniques, but to bury them."

Wang sat down across from her. The compass was still. "And Julian found the burial site."

"Julian found a rough translation of Liu's notes in a secondhand bookstore in London. 1982. He was twenty-four years old. He spent the next thirty years tracking down the originals. The locked cabinet in the vault — that was his prize. His life's work." Eleanor closed the book. "There's more. Liu didn't just document his own experiments. He documented his contemporaries. Other masters who were also working on draining techniques. One of them — a woman — survived him. She took his research and expanded it. She trained students. One of those students was —" She stopped.

"Dr. Wei," Wang said.

"Dr. Wei was the third generation. Liu was the first. A woman named —" Eleanor checked her notes. "A woman named Wong Siu-lan was the second. Wei's teacher. She disappeared in 1975. No death record. No trace. But her students — she had dozens — spread across the world. One of them went to New York."

Wang's compass twitched. "New York."

"Mott Street. A building called the Spiral Gate. It was originally a textile factory — Tan Manufacturing, 1974. Tan was one of Wong Siu-lan's students. He built a collector inside the building's central staircase. A machine that's been draining the tenants for fifty years. Seven people have died on those stairs. One per year. December 14th. Same day. Same hour."

"December 14th is in three weeks," Yue Lin said.

"Yes." Eleanor looked at Wang. "David's tracing the rest of the network. Dr. Wei's students. Tan's former employees. They're all connected. Every city. Every machine. Every person being drained. It's a web that's been spreading for sixty years." She pushed the book across the table. "Take it. You'll need it. Every name. Every location. Every technique. Liu documented everything."

Wang took the book. It was heavier than it looked. "What will you do?"

"Testify. Against Sterling. Against every former employee the FBI can identify. I'll spend the rest of my life in courtrooms if I have to." She straightened her jacket. "My father spent thirty years draining people. I'm going to spend the next thirty undoing it. It's the only way I can —" She paused. "It's the only way I can forgive myself. For not knowing. For not stopping him sooner."

"You were a child."

"I was a child who knew something was wrong and didn't say anything because I thought it was my fault." She looked at him. The tired face. The steady eyes. "You told me once — during the restoration — that the hardest thing to heal is the thing you never let yourself feel. I never let myself feel angry. At my father. At Sterling. At myself. I let it all turn into — emptiness. That was my mistake." She stood up. "I'm angry now. I think I'm going to be angry for the rest of my life. And I think that's okay. Anger is better than emptiness."

Wang stood. The compass hummed. Northwest. Toward Yue Lin. Toward Vancouver. Toward the next battle. "Anger is fuel. Just don't let it burn you."

"I won't." She shook his hand. Then Yue Lin's. Then Rocky's — who had been standing in the doorway, silent for once, his eyes wet. "Rocky. You carried seventeen children out of a warehouse. You held a boy's hand in an ambulance. You sent roast goose to a lonely man for six years. You're not just the heart. You're the conscience. Don't forget that."

Rocky stared at her. Opened his mouth. Closed it.

"For once," Yue Lin said, "he's speechless."

"He's not speechless. He's leaking." Wang let the joke land. "It's a medical condition."

Eleanor hugged Rocky. He hugged her back. Hard. Then she walked out of the library. Into the courthouse. Into the rest of her life.

The iron triangle stood in the quiet. The red book on the table. The compass humming. Somewhere in New York , a spiral staircase. Seven bodies. A machine that had been running for fifty years.

"December 14th," Wang said. "We have three weeks."

"Then we finish Vancouver fast." Yue Lin picked up the book. "And we're in New York by the tenth."

Chapter 24 , The Last Night

They checked into a different hotel. Not the one on Nob Hill , that one was too visible now, too exposed, the front desk clerk had probably sold their information to three different tabloids by now. This one was smaller. A boutique place in North Beach, above an Italian bakery, the kind of hotel where you checked in under a fake name and the clerk didn't ask why you were paying in cash.

Rocky had his own room. Wang and Yue Lin had theirs. The compass on the nightstand was still. The fog outside the window was thin. The Golden Gate was a ghost in the distance, barely visible, already fading into memory.

She was standing at the window in his shirt. The black one. The frayed collar. Her hair was down. Her feet were bare. Tomorrow they would drive north. Tomorrow Vancouver. Tomorrow the next battle. But tonight , tonight was theirs.

"You've been quiet," she said. "Since the courtroom."

"I've been thinking."

"About Liu."

"About Liu. About Dr. Wei. About the fourteen children Liu killed before he realized what he was doing." He crossed to her. Put his hands on her waist. "For my whole life, I believed the lineage was pure. That the techniques I learned were passed down from masters who only wanted to heal. That my teacher was part of an unbroken chain of goodness stretching back sixty years. And now —" He paused. "Now I know the founder was a man who killed children. The lineage was built on graves."

"The lineage was built on remorse. Liu stopped. He locked the techniques away. He spent the rest of his life teaching people how to heal." She turned to face him. Her hands on his chest. "You're not Liu. You're not Dr. Wei. You're not any of them. You're the man who said no to Sterling Cross without hesitating. You're the man who refused to drain anyone — even to prove a point. Even to save yourself." She looked up at him. "You're the true heir. Not because you inherited the techniques. Because you chose what to do with them."

He kissed her. Soft at first. Then deeper. The compass hummed. Northwest. Toward her. The way it always did.

"I love you," he said.

"I know." She pulled him toward the bed. "Now stop brooding and make love to me. We have an eighty-seven-year-old to arrest tomorrow."

He undressed her. The black shirt. The bare feet. The hair falling loose around her shoulders. She was , after seven months, after everything , still the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Not because of the way she looked. Because of the way she looked at him. Like he was the only solid thing in a world that kept trying to crumble.

He kissed her throat. Her collarbone. The scar on her shoulder from the bullet she'd taken in Tsim Sha Tsui. The compass on the nightstand hummed its steady note. Outside, the fog was thinning. The city was sleeping. And in a hotel room in North Beach, a fortune teller and a Flying Tiger made love like it was the last night on earth.

Afterward, she lay across his chest. His hand in her hair. The compass still humming. Outside , the first light of dawn touching the bay.

"Seven months," she said.

"Seven months."

"When I walked into your office, I thought I'd be there for ten minutes. Ask about the broken lock. Leave. Never see you again."

"And now?"

"Now I can't imagine a day without you." She lifted her head. Looked at him. The black eyes. The steady gaze. "I spent twenty-eight years alone. I was good at it. I thought I preferred it. Then you gave me a reason to stay." She kissed his chest. "Don't ever make me leave."

"Never."

"Promise me."

"I promise." He pulled her closer. "You're stuck with me. For the rest of your life. For the rest of my life. For all the lives my teacher said I lived before this one."

"That's a lot of lives."

"I'll find you in every single one." He kissed her forehead. "Sleep. Vancouver tomorrow. New York after that. Every city on David's list. Every child that needs saving." He closed his eyes. "I'll find you in every life. I promise."

She fell asleep to the sound of his heart. The compass pointing northwest. Toward her. Toward tomorrow. Toward the rest of everything.

Chapter 25 , The Empty Man

The FBI holding facility was in an unmarked building south of Market Street. Sterling Cross had been there for three days. His lawyer had filed seven motions. His PR team had issued a statement calling the arrest a "misunderstanding rooted in cultural bias against innovative wellness practices." His face was on every news channel in the Bay Area.

Wang walked into the interrogation room alone. The compass was in his pocket. The needle was steady. No danger here. Just , emptiness.

Sterling looked up when Wang sat down. The expensive suit had been replaced with an orange jumpsuit. The handsome face had collapsed. Without the Water he'd been draining, he was just a man. A tired, ordinary man whose soul had been hollow since before he learned to steal from children.

"You came," Sterling said. His voice was flat. "I didn't think you would."

"I wanted to see you. One last time."

"To gloat."

"To understand." Wang set the compass on the table. The needle didn't move. "Your father drained you. From age eight. You were one of his victims. Eleanor told me. She said you were the first one he tested the technique on — before he refined it. Before he learned to make it subtle. You were the prototype."

Sterling's face didn't change. "He wanted to make me stronger. He thought if he drained other children's Water into me , I would become exceptional. A genius. A leader. Instead ," He looked at his hands. "Instead he drained me. Slowly. For nine years. Until there was nothing left. No ambition. No joy. No fear. No love. Just , emptiness. He didn't mean to. He was still learning. I was his first mistake."

"And then you learned to drain others. To fill the emptiness."

"I thought if I took enough — from enough people — I would feel something. Anything." Sterling looked up. For the first time, there was something in his eyes. Not remorse. Not even regret. Just — exhaustion. "It didn't work. No matter how much I took. The emptiness was still there. Bigger than before. Hungrier."

Wang was quiet for a moment. The compass was still. "Your sister forgave you."

"Eleanor forgives everyone. That's her weakness."

"It's her strength." Wang stood up. "You'll be in prison for the rest of your life. The children will recover. Maria will recover. The records will be preserved. Your father's techniques — Liu's archives — they'll be studied by the lineage. Understood. Countered. And eventually — destroyed. So no one can ever use them again."

"You think destroying the techniques will stop people like me." Sterling almost smiled. It was the worst thing Wang had ever seen. "People like me don't need techniques. We just need emptiness. And the world is full of emptiness, Master Wang. You can't destroy that."

"I can try." Wang picked up his compass. "Goodbye, Sterling."

"Goodbye." Sterling looked at the table. "When you find Dr. Wei's other students — when you find the rest of the network — tell them I said hello. Tell them the emptiness won. In the end. It always wins."

Wang walked out. The door closed behind him. The compass hummed , northwest, toward Yue Lin, toward life, toward everything Sterling had never understood. Emptiness wasn't winning. It had never been winning. It just felt that way when you were inside it.

Chapter 26 , The Source

Yue Lin was waiting in the hallway outside the interrogation room. Beside her: David, who'd flown in from London that morning. "Dr. Wei is in the next room," David said. "She's been asking for you."

"Me?" Yue Lin said.

"Specifically you. She said —" David checked his notes. "She said 'the woman with the gun. The one who carried the children. I want to talk to her.'"

Yue Lin looked at Wang. He nodded. She walked into the room.

Dr. Wei was handcuffed to a metal table. She was ancient , older than Mei-Lin, older than anyone who should still be alive. But her eyes were bright and sharp and completely, utterly calm. The eyes of someone who'd seen a hundred years of history and regretted none of it.

"You," Dr. Wei said. "The Flying Tiger. The one who carries children out of warehouses. The one who gives her Fire to the fortune teller. I've been waiting to meet you."

"You trained Mei-Lin. You trained Julian Cross. You trained dozens of others." Yue Lin sat down across from her. "Why?"

"Because I could. Because the techniques existed and someone was going to use them. Better me — someone who understood them — than some fool who'd drain himself to death on the first attempt." Dr. Wei leaned forward. "You think I'm evil. You think I spent sixty years spreading corruption. You're wrong. I spent sixty years studying. Testing. Refining. The draining techniques are not inherently destructive. They're just — methods. Tools. What you do with them determines whether they're good or evil. And I — I did nothing. I just taught. What my students did was their choice."

"You taught Julian Cross."

"I taught Julian how to drain safely. He chose to drain children. I didn't tell him to. I didn't stop him. I just — provided the knowledge." She smiled. It was the same smile Mei-Lin had given them at the wedding. "You think that makes me complicit. Maybe it does. But the knowledge was going to spread regardless. Someone was going to learn the techniques. I made sure the people who learned them knew the risks."

"Julian drained his own daughter. For nine years."

"I know. I told him it was a mistake. He didn't listen." Dr. Wei looked at her hands. The wrinkles. The age spots. "I've outlived everyone I ever taught. Mei-Lin. Julian. Chan. The forty-seven students whose names are on David's list. They're all dead. I'm still here. Want to know why?"

Yue Lin didn't answer.

"Because I never drained anyone." Dr. Wei laughed — a dry, ancient sound. "Sixty years of teaching draining techniques. And I never used them. Not once. I was too afraid. Afraid of the emptiness Sterling talked about. Afraid of becoming like Julian. Afraid of — what I might become if I took just one person's Water. So I didn't. I suppressed it. Like the lineage suppressed its power. Like Mei-Lin suppressed her Fire. Suppression. Always suppression. Never action." She looked at Yue Lin. "You're not a suppressor. You're a doer. You see a child in danger — you carry them out. You see a man with a knife — you shoot him. You don't spend sixty years thinking about what you might become. You just — act."

"That's not a compliment."

"It's an observation. You're the opposite of me. The opposite of the lineage. The opposite of everyone who spent their lives hiding from their own power." Dr. Wei leaned back. "When you find the other students — and you will — remember that. They're all suppressors. They're all afraid. They drain because they're terrified of being empty. Of being ordinary. Of being nothing. Use that. Use their fear. It's the only weakness they have."

Yue Lin stood up. "You're going to prison. For the rest of your life."

"I'm ninety-seven years old. I'll be dead before the trial." Dr. Wei smiled again. "But thank you. For carrying the children. For being the one who acts. It's good to know — at the end — that someone in this lineage finally stopped being afraid."

Yue Lin walked out. Wang was waiting. David was waiting. Rocky was waiting , he'd somehow acquired a cup of tea from the FBI break room.

"What did she say?" Wang asked.

"She said the other students are all afraid. That fear is their weakness." Yue Lin looked at him. "She said she never drained anyone. In sixty years. She was too afraid of what she might become."

"And you believed her?"

"I believed that she believed it. Whether it's true —" She shrugged. "We'll find out. In New York. In Los Angeles. In Chicago. In every city on David's list."

Wang took her hand. "Seattle. New Orleans. Every city with a Chinatown and a drainer and a machine that needs stopping."

"The work doesn't end," Rocky said. He was drinking his tea. "It just changes cities."

"Yes."

"I'm okay with that." He grinned. "Let's go."

But Yue Lin was still looking at the door behind which Dr. Wei sat. Ninety-seven years old. Sixty years of teaching. And she'd never once drained anyone. She'd been too afraid. Of what she might become.

The other students wouldn't be afraid. The other students would fight.

And somewhere — in New York, in Los Angeles, in Chicago — they were waiting.

Chapter 27 , The Elder

Before they left San Francisco, Wang wanted to do one more thing.

He went back to Grant Avenue. Alone. Yue Lin and Rocky were loading the car, checking the route to Vancouver, making sure they had enough tea and Cheetos and ammunition. Wang walked through the oldest Chinatown in America one last time.

He stopped at a shop he'd noticed on their first walk , a tiny herbal medicine store squeezed between a dim sum restaurant and a souvenir shop. The sign said CHEN FAMILY APOTHECARY, EST. 1908. The window was dusty. The door was open.

Inside: shelves of dried herbs. Jars of roots and powders. An old man sitting behind a wooden counter, reading a newspaper in Cantonese. He looked up when Wang walked in. His face was lined and ancient and his eyes , black, like Wang's, like every master in the lineage , were sharp.

"You're the one," the old man said in Cantonese. "The fortune teller from Hong Kong. The true heir. I've been expecting you."

Wang wasn't surprised anymore. People in Chinatowns always seemed to be expecting him. "How did you know?"

"My grandmother. She was a student of Wong Siu-lan. One of the first. Before Wong disappeared in 1975. Before Dr. Wei. Before Julian Cross. Before all of it." The old man set down his newspaper. "My grandmother left me a letter. She said: 'One day, a man will come. He'll carry a compass that doesn't lie. He'll have black eyes and a sad face and the weight of a sixty-year lineage on his shoulders. Tell him what I told you.'"

"What did she tell you?"

The old man looked at him. "She said: 'The techniques were never meant to be suppressed. They were meant to be understood. Liu locked them away because he was afraid , not of the techniques, but of himself. Of what he'd done with them. The fear poisoned the lineage. Every master after Liu was afraid. Every student learned in fear. Fear breeds more fear. It's a cycle. The only way to break it is to stop being afraid.'" He paused. "She said you would be the one. The true heir. Not because you inherited the techniques. Because you chose what to do with them. Because you're the first master in sixty years who isn't afraid."

Wang looked at the compass. The needle was steady. "I am afraid. Every day."

"Good. Fear is useful. Fear tells you where the danger is. What matters is that you act anyway." The old man stood up. He was shorter than Wang. Thinner. Older. But his back was straight. "My grandmother left something for you. In case you ever came." He reached under the counter. Pulled out a wooden box. Old. Hand-carved. "She said to give this to the true heir. She said it contains everything she knew about Wong Siu-lan. About the second generation. About where the techniques spread after Liu's death. It's not a map. It's more like — a genealogy. A family tree of corruption."

Wang opened the box. Inside: a stack of papers. Hand-written. Faded. A hundred names. A hundred locations. All connected. All tracing back to one source , Liu's forbidden archives, and the woman who'd spread them across the world.

"Wong Siu-lan," Wang said. "Dr. Wei's teacher. The one who disappeared in 1975."

"My grandmother believed she didn't disappear. She went underground. She's still alive. Somewhere. Someone has been protecting her. Someone has been continuing her work." The old man looked at Wang. "The network you're fighting — it's not random. It's organized. There's a plan. Someone has been building this for sixty years. And they're not done yet."

Wang closed the box. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just stop them." The old man sat back down. Picked up his newspaper. "And take care of your wife. She's the only reason you're still alive."

Wang didn't answer. Just lifted his chin.

He walked out of the apothecary. Into the San Francisco morning.

Chapter 28 , The Letter

Before they left the city, Yue Lin had one more stop to make.

She'd gotten the address from Eleanor , a small apartment in the Richmond District, two blocks from Golden Gate Park. Maria Reyes had been discharged from the hospital that morning. The social worker had found her a place. Temporary housing. Something with windows. Something that wasn't a vault.

Yue Lin knocked. Maria opened the door. She was wearing jeans and a sweater and her hair was clean and she looked , fragile. But alive. Her eyes were clear and her hands weren't shaking and there was color in her cheeks.

"You," Maria said. "I thought you'd left."

"We're leaving now. Vancouver. I wanted to —" Yue Lin paused. She wasn't good at this. Goodbyes. Emotions. Feeling things out loud. "I wanted to see how you were."

"I'm okay. The doctors said my Water levels are almost normal. A few more weeks and I'll be back to where I was before." She paused. "Except I won't be. Back to where I was. Where I was — wasn't very good. Even before Sterling. I was drifting. No direction. No purpose. Just — existing."

"And now?"

"Now I want to live. Not just exist. Live." She stepped back from the door. "Come in. I made tea."

Yue Lin walked in. The apartment was small but bright. Sunlight through the windows. A kettle on the stove. A stack of books on the table , Maria had been reading. Recovery, her chart said. Slow but steady. Water regenerating. Will to live returning.

"I've been thinking," Maria said, pouring two cups. "About what you said. In the hospital. 'Something in you kept fighting. Even when you'd given up.' I didn't believe you at first. I thought — I survived because you saved me. Because Wang restored my chart. I didn't do anything."

"You survived six months of continuous drainage. The restoration only worked because there was something left to restore."

"That's what Eleanor said. She visited me. Yesterday. She said —" Maria sat down. Her hands were wrapped around the tea cup. "She said her father drained her for nine years. And she survived because something inside her refused to die. She said the same thing about me."

"Eleanor is usually right."

"She said something else. She said — 'The people who hurt us don't get to decide who we become. We decide.'" Maria looked up. "I've been deciding. All morning. What I want to become. I don't know yet. But I know I don't want to be a victim anymore. I want to be — someone who helps. Someone who stops people like Sterling. Not with guns. Not with charts. With — I don't know. Law. Advocacy. Something."

Yue Lin drank her tea. It was terrible. She didn't say so. "The FBI needs witnesses. Eleanor is testifying. You could too."

"I will. I already told the social worker. I want to testify. I want to look Sterling in the eye and tell him —" She stopped. Swallowed. "Tell him he didn't break me. Six months in a metal chair and he didn't break me. You carried me out. Wang restored my chart. And now I'm going to spend the rest of my life making sure no one else ends up in that chair."

Yue Lin set down her cup. Stood up. "Maria. You're going to be fine."

"I know." Maria smiled. It was tired. It was real. "Go save the rest of the world. I'll hold down San Francisco."

Yue Lin walked to the door. Paused. "The tea. It's terrible."

"I know. I never learned how to make it properly." Maria laughed. A real laugh. The first one in six months. "I'll work on that too."

Chapter 29 , The Road North

They loaded the car at sunrise. Rocky's duffel bag. Wang's brushes. Yue Lin's tactical kit. The compass on the dashboard, needle steady, pointing north.

Rocky climbed into the back seat, already unwrapping something he'd bought at a bakery on Stockton Street. "Char siu bao. The American kind. They put sugar in the dough. It's wrong. But it's also ," He took a bite. "It's also not bad. I'm confused."

"You're always confused," Wang said.

"I'm adaptable. Different thing." He took another bite. "So. Vancouver. Twelve hours. Maybe less if we don't stop. Do we have a plan?"

"We have a name. A location. An eighty-seven-year-old woman who looks forty. Twelve elderly clients at a wellness retreat. All being slowly drained." Wang started the engine. "We'll figure out the rest when we get there."

"That's not a plan. That's — what do you call it. Improvisation."

"That's what we always do."

"I know. I've been here for four days and I've already learned that." Rocky settled back. "I like it. Improvisation. It suits me. I'm very good at making things up as I go along."

"You've been doing it your whole life," Wang said.

"Yes. And look at me. Still alive. Twelve times over." Rocky grinned. "Let's go improvise in Canada."

They drove north on Highway 101. The Golden Gate Bridge appeared through the fog ahead of them. Red towers. Grey water. The particular terrible feng shui that had been vibrating with anxiety since 1937.

Yue Lin looked out the window. The bay. The hills. The city they'd saved without anyone knowing it. Thirty children in a warehouse. A woman in a vault. Seven schools shut down. A billionaire in federal custody. A sixty-year network exposed. And three people , a fortune teller, a Flying Tiger, and an antique dealer , driving north toward the next battle.

"Wang."

"Yes."

"When we get to Vancouver. When we find the eighty-seven-year-old. What if she's like Sterling — empty, unreachable, nothing to save?"

"Then we stop her. The same way we stopped Sterling."

"And if she's like Stephen — broken, redeemable, someone who made terrible choices but can still change?"

"Then we try to save her. The same way we tried to save Stephen."

"And if we can't tell the difference?"

He was quiet for a moment. The bridge was ahead of them. The compass hummed. "Then we do what we always do. We walk in. We read the room. We make the call." He glanced at her. "Together."

"Together," Rocky echoed from the back seat. "The iron triangle. Brain. Muscle. Heart. Whatever you want to call it." He was already half-asleep, the char siu bao wrapper on his chest. "I'm the heart. I'm keeping that title. Forever."

Yue Lin looked at Wang. Almost smiled. "He's going to be insufferable about this."

"He's been insufferable for thirty years. I'm used to it."

She put her hand on his knee. The compass pointed north. Toward Vancouver. Toward the rest of their lives.

And somewhere ahead , in New York, in Los Angeles, in Chicago, in Seattle, in New Orleans , the network was waiting. Dr. Wei's students. Wong Siu-lan's disciples. Tan's former employees. Machines that had been draining for decades. Gates that needed sealing. Charts that needed restoring. People who needed saving.

The work didn't end. It just changed cities.

Together.

At the first rest stop north of the bridge, Rocky went to find a bathroom and Wang opened the wooden box. Chen's grandmother's papers. A hundred years of names. Wong Siu-lan's genealogy of corruption.

The top page was a chart. Hand-drawn. Faded. A building on Mott Street, New York City. The Spiral Gate. Tenants: 200. Drainer: Tan Manufacturing, est. 1974. Status: ACTIVE. Below it, in tiny brushstrokes: Seven deaths confirmed. Pattern: annual. Next projected: December 14.

December 14 was three weeks away.

"What is that?" Yue Lin was beside him. She'd gotten coffee from a vending machine. American coffee. Terrible.

"A map. Of every machine still active. Every drainer still operating." He turned the page. Los Angeles. Chicago. Seattle. New Orleans. Dozens more. All connected. All tracing back to Wong Siu-lan — a woman who'd disappeared in 1975 and was, according to Chen's grandmother, still alive. "Someone has been protecting her. Expanding her network. For fifty years."

"Who?"

"The same person who taught Dr. Wei. The same person who taught Julian Cross. The same person who's been building this since Liu died." Wang looked at the compass. The needle was steady. "I don't know their name. But I know where they started. New York. The Spiral Gate was the first machine. Tan built it in 1974. Every other machine — every school, every warehouse, every wellness retreat — was modeled on it. If we can understand how the Spiral Gate works — we can understand how to stop all of them."

"Then New York first. After Vancouver."

"After Vancouver." He closed the box. "Three weeks. We save the elderly clients. We stop the eighty-seven-year-old. And then we're on a plane to New York."

Rocky came back from the bathroom. "The vending machine here has Cheetos. One dollar. Much better than the motel." He held up a bag. "America is improving."

They got back in the car. The compass pointed north.

Chapter 30 , The Bridge

The Golden Gate. The fog was lifting. The water below was grey and cold and full of currents that had been flowing since before the city existed. Wang stood at the railing, the compass in his hand. The needle pointed north. Vancouver first. Then New York. Then every city on David's list.

Behind him: Yue Lin and Rocky on a bench. Rocky was eating a breakfast burrito he'd somehow acquired at 6 AM. Yue Lin was looking at the bridge. The red towers. The cables. The morning light catching the metal.

"The feng shui is still terrible," Wang said.

"It's a bridge," Yue Lin said. "It doesn't need feng shui."

"Everything needs feng shui." He turned around. Rocky had finished his burrito and was staring at the bridge with the expression of a man about to say something either profound or ridiculous. "What."

"阿风," Rocky said. "I've been thinking."

"That's new."

"This is a big country. A lot of cities. And every city — there's someone like Sterling. Someone who learned the wrong techniques. Someone who's draining people. No one can see it. Except you." He looked at Wang. "This is what you're going to do for the rest of your life. Go from city to city. Find the drainers. Restore the charts. Save the people."

"Yes."

"And you're going to need help. You have her — the muscle, the Flying Tiger. You have me — the heart. I still don't know what that means. But I like it." He walked to the railing. Stood beside Wang. "Thirty years. I've been following you for thirty years. And now there's three of us. Brain. Muscle. Heart. The iron triangle."

"The iron triangle," Yue Lin said.

Rocky turned back to the bridge. "So. Vancouver first. Then New York. Then Los Angeles. Then Chicago. Then Seattle. Then New Orleans. Then ," He stopped. "That's a lot of cities."

"Six. For now." Wang looked at the compass. "After that — London. Barcelona. Tokyo. Everywhere the network has spread. Everywhere there's a drainer who thinks no one is coming for them."

Rocky was quiet. The sun was rising over the bay. The bridge was turning gold. "I've been waiting my whole life," he said. "For something that mattered. Then you called. 'I need you. San Francisco.' And I got on a plane." His eyes were wet. "I'm not going back to Hong Kong. I'm staying. For all of it. Every city. Every mission. Every chart that needs restoring."

"That chart was wrong," Wang said.

"What?"

"Your bazi chart. The one that said you should have died twelve times. It was wrong. Because your heart overrides your chart. Every time. The chart says death. Your heart says — show up. And the heart wins."

Rocky stared at him. The tears were flowing. "You're making me cry. On a bridge. In America. This is very embarrassing."

"It's 6 AM. No one is watching."

"I'm watching. I'm embarrassed." He wiped his eyes. "Let's go. Vancouver. The eighty-seven-year-old who looks forty. I want to see this."

Yue Lin came up beside Wang. "You made him cry."

"He made himself cry. I just told him the truth."

"The truth about his chart?"

"The truth about his heart." Wang took her hand. The compass hummed. Northwest. Toward her. "Let's go."

They walked to the car. Rocky was already in the back seat, still muttering about American breakfast burritos. The sun was fully up. The bridge was gold. The city was waking up. And three people , a fortune teller, a Flying Tiger, and an antique dealer who talked too much , drove north.

Toward Vancouver. Toward the next battle. Toward whatever came next. The fog was lifting. The water below was grey and cold and full of currents that had been flowing since before the city existed. Wang stood at the railing, the compass in his hand. The needle was pointing north. Toward Vancouver. Toward the next battle.

Behind him: Yue Lin and Rocky, sitting on a bench. Rocky was eating a breakfast burrito he'd somehow acquired at 6 AM. Yue Lin was looking at the bridge. The red towers. The cables. The morning light catching the metal.

"The feng shui is still terrible," Wang said.

"It's a bridge," Yue Lin said. "It doesn't need feng shui."

"Everything needs feng shui. This bridge channels Water and Metal in a configuration that generates anxiety. Every person who crosses it gets a micro-dose of elemental warfare. It's been happening since 1937."

"Is that why everyone in San Francisco is anxious?"

"No. That's the rent prices." He turned around. Rocky had finished his burrito and was now staring at the bridge with an expression that Wang recognized. The expression of a man who was about to say something either profound or ridiculous. Sometimes both.

"阿风," Rocky said.

"Yes."

"I've been thinking."

"That's new."

"Very funny. I've been thinking —" He gestured at the bridge. At the bay. At the city behind them. "This is a big country. A lot of cities. A lot of people. And every city — there's someone like Sterling. Someone who learned the wrong techniques. Someone who's draining people. And no one knows. No one can see it. Except you." He looked at Wang. "This is what you're going to do for the rest of your life, isn't it. Go from city to city. Find the drainers. Restore the charts. Save the people."

"Yes."

"That's a lot of cities."

"I know."

"And you're going to need help." Rocky stood up. The burrito wrapper fell to the ground. He didn't notice. "You have her." He nodded at Yue Lin. "The muscle. The brain. The Flying Tiger. You have me. The — what did you call me?"

"The heart."

"Yes. That. The heart." He grinned. "You have the heart. I'm the heart. I don't know what that means but I like it." He walked to the railing. Stood beside Wang. Looked at the bridge. "Thirty years. I've been following you for thirty years. To your office. To the temple. To the hospital when your mother died. To the funeral when your teacher died. I've been there for all of it. And now —" He looked at Yue Lin. "Now there's three of us. A team. A real one."

"The iron triangle," Yue Lin said.

"Yes. That. The iron triangle." Rocky turned back to the bridge. "So. Vancouver first. Then what?"

"Then the rest of David's list. Former students of Dr. Wei. All over the world. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Every one of them draining people. Every one of them — stoppable."

"And after that?"

"After that — we keep going. There will always be more. More corrupted techniques. More people who learned the wrong lessons. More children whose charts are being drained. The work doesn't end. It just changes cities."

Rocky was quiet for a long moment. The sun was rising over the bay. The bridge was turning gold. The fog was almost gone. "I've been waiting my whole life," he said. "For something that mattered. Something I could do. I didn't know what it was. I thought maybe I'd never find it. And then you called. At 4 AM. Hong Kong time. 'I need you. San Francisco.' And I got on a plane. I didn't know why. I just knew , you needed me. You'd never said that before. In thirty years. You'd never said 'I need you.'" He looked at Wang. His eyes were wet. The cheap glasses. The gaming T-shirt. The borrowed blazer. "I'm not going back to Hong Kong. I'm staying. With you two. For all of it. Every city. Every mission. Every chart that needs restoring. I don't have training. I don't have techniques. But I have , I can be there. In the background. Carrying things. Opening things. Driving. Making tea. Whatever you need. I'm there. Until I die. Which ," He grinned. "According to you, should have happened twelve times by now."

"That chart was wrong."

"What?"

"Your bazi chart. The one that said you should have died twelve times. It was wrong. Not because I misread it. Because —" Wang paused. "Because your heart overrides your chart. Every time. The chart says death. Your heart says — show up. And the heart wins. Every single time."

Rocky stared at him. The tears were flowing now. "You're making me cry. In public. On a bridge. In America. This is very embarrassing."

"It's 6 AM. No one is watching."

"I'm watching. I'm embarrassed." He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "Let's go. Vancouver. The eighty-seven-year-old who looks forty. I want to see this."

"Rocky."

"What."

"Thank you. For thirty years. For the roast goose. For sitting in my office when I couldn't talk. For getting on a plane. For everything."

Rocky didn't answer. He just put his hand on Wang's shoulder. Squeezed once. Let go. Then he walked toward the car, still wiping his eyes, muttering about the cold and the wind and how American breakfast burritos were not as good as Hong Kong dim sum.

Yue Lin came up beside Wang. "You made him cry."

"He made himself cry. I just told him the truth."

"The truth about his chart?"

"The truth about his heart." Wang took her hand. The compass hummed. Northwest. Toward her. Toward Vancouver. Toward the rest of their lives. "Let's go."

They walked to the car. Rocky was already in the back seat, still muttering. The sun was fully up now. The Golden Gate Bridge was gold. The city was waking up. And three people , a fortune teller, a Flying Tiger, and an antique dealer who talked too much , drove north.

Toward Canada.

Toward the next battle.

Toward whatever came next.

Together.

THE END

Want More?

The Iron Triangle returns in Book 2: THE SPIRAL GATE.

New York City. Mott Street. A building where seven people have died on the same staircase , one per year, on the same day, at the same hour. The police call it an architectural flaw. Wang calls it a collector. Someone built a machine inside the walls in 1974. Someone who worked for Tan Manufacturing. Someone who's still alive , and still draining.

Rocky's duffel bag is packed. Yue Lin's gun is loaded. The compass is already spinning toward Manhattan.

Turn the page for a sneak peek.

CHAPTER ONE , THE SPIRAL GATE

The super's name was Liu Kwok-wing, and he was dead on his kitchen floor with his eyes open and a bazi chart pinned to his chest.

Yue Lin stood in the doorway of apartment 4B and counted the exits. Old habit. One window. One door. No fire escape. The building was a walk-up on Mott Street , six floors, red brick, built in 1893 back when Chinatown smelled like opium and fish guts and the particular despair of men who'd crossed an ocean to dig for gold and found only other men's laundry to wash.

"Seven years," Wang said. He was kneeling beside the body, the compass steady in his hand. "Seven deaths. Same staircase. Same hour. December 14th, every year since 2019."

"Today's December 14th."

"Yes." He looked up. The black eyes. The set jaw. "And there are two hundred tenants in this building. If the collector activates tonight —"

The compass needle swung. Fast. Toward the stairwell. Toward the spiral that rose six stories through the center of the building like a spine made of iron and old wood.

Toward whatever was waiting at the top.

THE SPIRAL GATE , coming July 2026.

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