The hall went still.
The weeping cut off mid-sob. The incense smoke froze in place, suspended in grey-white coils like a painting someone had stopped halfway through. Every oil lamp dimmed at once—not flickering, not dying, just less, as if something in the room had quietly decided that less light was appropriate for what was about to happen.
Sun Mei's foot was on the ash.
She knew it immediately. She didn't move and didn't pull back either. Just stood there with the brush clutched in her hand, staring down at the perfect grey powder displaced beneath her sole, her breathing suddenly very loud in a room that had swallowed every other sound.
"...Oh," she said.
It was the smallest sound. The sound of someone who had just understood something too late.
Then the cold hit.
