The faceless head did not move again.
It simply held there, tilted toward the gate at that same unnatural angle, and the silence stretching out from it felt less like an absence of sound and more like something actively pressing down on the courtyard, thick enough to feel against the skin.
"Nobody move," Lin Yue said quietly. "Nobody speak either, if you can help it."
"Like anyone's in a rush to say anything," Luo Ming muttered, though even his voice had dropped to something barely above breath.
Behind the lead effigy, the rest of the procession came into clearer view as the last traces of predawn gray gave way to something paler, though no less oppressive. Dozens of them, stretching back down the narrow street until the shapes blurred into the mist still clinging to the ground. White paper lanterns hung from poles carried at even intervals, and every single one of them swayed—gently, rhythmically, the exact motion a lantern made in a breeze.
There was no breeze.
