Uncle Ren set the tray down.
The sound it made was wrong. Not loud, it was barely audible above the ambient hiss of incense, but wrong in the way a footstep is wrong when the floor beneath it is hollow. A flatness. An absence of resonance that had no structural explanation.
Lin Yue noted it without reacting.
The old steward straightened. His hands returned to their customary position at his sides, folded loosely at the wrist. The tray held what he had carried in: paper money, two shallow bowls, the length of white cloth folded into thirds, and a small brush with a bamboo handle, stiff-bristled, the kind used for sweeping fine ash.
Lin Yue had not seen the brush before.
"The second night requires a fuller observance," Uncle Ren said. His voice had always been dry. Tonight it was something else. The way a space sounds when the air has been deliberately removed. "You will perform the advanced rites in sequence. Deviation will complicate the departure of the departed."
