Chapter 701: Lessons in Bowing

Dawn crept gray through the great hall windows of Silverwood Keep, finding Hajin slumped on a bench with no sleep. Cessy pressed a steaming teacup into his hands, her red nails clicking sharply against the thin porcelain like tiny warnings.

"If you laugh down there, you will start a funeral," she said, holding his gaze over the rim.

"I laugh at everything, it’s a gift," he said, sipping the tea and grinning over the rim like a boy caught stealing.

"At funerals, only at funerals, and only after the widow laughs first."

’She’s dead serious, that scares me more than the mirror did.’

The whole household sat along the long table in nightclothes and armor, glaring at their teacups like enemies. Aria’s blue shimmer hung over a stack of laminated cards on the tabletop, flickering with such unconcealed pride.

"Rule one," Cessy said, tapping the wood with one claw, "you never say thank you."

"Why not?" Hajin asked, genuinely baffled.

"Thank you admits a debt, you say you have been tolerated instead."

"You have been tolerated," he tried, grinning across the table at Loccy, "that sounds like a threat."

"It is the highest compliment the Underworld knows, Hajin."

Vella propped her chin on one fist, studying him over her cup with a slow, lazy smile.

"Tolerated, darling, I have tolerated you since the first week and never once mentioned it."

"Auntie Ring, that is the sweetest thing you have ever said to me," he said, pressing a hand to his chest.

"It is the most truthful thing I own, the sweetness costs extra."

He raised his cup at her, "Then I will tolerate you right back, with enormous enthusiasm."

"Do not say that to a host, he will assume it is a proposal."

Loccy raised her hand like a student in a schoolroom, a half-eaten bun clutched in the other.

"What do I say if somebody gives me cake?"

"You say, may your death be late and your hospitality early," Cessy answered.

She turned enormous shining eyes on Hajin, who repeated the blessing slowly, clumsily, one hand over his heart. She burst into tears at once, sobbing into her sleeve, then flung both long arms around his neck.

"That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me!"

"Pfft, I’m not sure it’s supposed to be nice, Bun," he wheezed, patting her back.

Cessy rolled her eyes and moved down the list, her claw sliding slowly along the laminated card. Rule three was to bow lower to the people you hated, hiding sharper knives beneath deeper bows.

"And rule four, you never turn your back on a doorway, not ever."

"Any doorway?" Ferra asked, frowning.

"Any doorway, even a closet, a privy, or a very small cupboard."

Didi sat apart at the end of the bench, a blanket around her shoulders, her cup untouched and frosting over. Every few seconds her gaze drifted toward the tall windows, where something warm was still speaking too quietly to hear.

"Didi, you do not bow at all," Cessy said, nudging a plate of toast toward her, "they will be bowing to you."

"I bow to nobody," Didi said, "I merely decline to kneel in public."

"Then do it beautifully, that is all the Underworld asks."

Lucan leaned in the doorway in his black suit, arms folded, voice flat as a tombstone, "Rule seven, never accept tea from a chancellor who has no face."

"Why would a chancellor not have a face?" Loccy asked, frowning.

"The face is the first thing they give away," he said, "the rest follows."

Across the hall, Eirwen stood before the antler coat rack with her scroll unrolled, bowing at precisely the correct angle. She read aloud in a ringing formal voice, offering the Alder Court’s third forest as dowry with joint burial rights.

"Madam Fiancee, that’s a coat rack," Hajin called, trying not to choke on his tea.

"It was listening," Eirwen said with perfect dignity, not even turning her head.

Eirwen consulted her scroll, then bowed to the antlers again, a hair shallower than before, with great ceremony. She plainly decided that a coat rack outranked a viscount but not a duke of the Alder Court.

He wiped tea off his chin, "Madam Fiancee, where do I rank against a coat rack?"

"Below the hat stand, my betrothed," she said, "above the draft, which may enter a room unannounced."

"I rank below a draft, finally somebody’s put it in writing."

Hajin practised the three bows Cessy demanded, the host’s, the rival’s, the king’s, folding into a heap at the third. Ferra caught him by the belt before his face met the floorboards, muttering that honest smiths simply bowed far less.

"You went down like a sack of rice," she said, arms crossed.

Dangling from Ferra’s grip like laundry, he wheezed, "Rice has more dignity than this."

Vella set her cup down very slowly, her shoulders shaking, her hand pressed flat across her tight mouth. Rumi slid off the bench in a heap, wheezing, while Nari hid her burning face behind both hands.

’Everybody’s laughing, I’m going to be in so much trouble down there.’

Juna sat at the far end with her arms crossed, chin lifted, tail curled around her ankle. She looked at Cessy’s card with the narrowed eyes of someone being asked to swallow a stone.

"I’m not bowing below my chin for anybody with a pulse," she growled.

"Then you will insult every host in Kuroyomi before dessert," Cessy said, unmoved.

"Good, I like starting things."

Hajin set down his cup, strolled around the table, then stopped before her, beaming like a lunatic. He dropped into a bow so exact his eyes landed level with her chin, then held it.

"Then I’ll match you, Wolfie," he said.

"Good," Miri murmured into her tea, smiling, "you can be taught."

Juna stared down at the top of his head with her fangs showing, her face flushing a furious red. Her tail, treacherous and honest, began thumping against the bench so loudly that the whole table stopped to listen.

She snarled at her own tail, "Stop that, I mean it, stop that right now."

Still bowing, he kept his voice solemn, "It has a mind of its own, I would never judge."

"Hahaha, her tail is speaking louder than she is," Rumi cackled from the floor.

Cards slid around the table under Aria’s cyan light, dealt like a croupier at a tournament. Each card bore a bow diagram beside a short list of insults ranked by pure lethality.

"Memorise the diagrams before sunset, I have cross-referenced them against four thousand Underworld funerals," Aria said.

"How do you know four thousand funerals?" Miri asked, tilting her head.

"I read the Alder archives, they were very sad... I did not enjoy it much."

Ash grabbed his card with both claws, sniffed it once, and swallowed it whole with a loud gulp. He burped a tiny puff of cold mist, patted his belly, and beamed at the table in triumph.

"Dada, I read it," he announced.

"Good boy, that’s exactly how studying works."

Rumi and Nari practised synchronized bows in the corner, trading places so smoothly that nobody could tell them apart. Then Rumi bowed too deeply, blushed to the ear tips, and hid behind her sister while Nari smirked wickedly.

"You are blushing, Rumi," Nari purred, "should I fetch a doctor?"

"It is the dawn, it is very bright in here," Rumi mumbled into her sleeve.

"The dawn is the other direction, Left," Hajin said, pointing helpfully at the opposite window.

"I will bite you... politely."

"You flirt for a living, Rumi," Vella drawled, "and you cannot bow, this is the best morning of my life."

In the doorway, Nyra practised the bow with Halfmoon still clutched in both hands, sweeping the blade low. The glaive’s tip passed within a finger’s width of Rumi’s eye, then Ferra’s braid, then Hajin’s own ear.

"Kid, you’re supposed to put the blade down first," he said, ducking sharply.

"Then how do I bow with dignity?" Nyra asked, deadly serious.

"By not carrying a weapon bigger than the person you’re bowing to."

"That seems like a very bad rule," she said, but she leaned Halfmoon against the wall, wearing a faint smile.

Cessy clapped her hands once, a whip crack that stilled every voice in the hall.

"Enough games, we run the banquet drill," she announced, "I will be your host, you will be my guests."

She dragged a chair to the head of the table and crossed her legs, tail draped over the armrest. Every trace of warmth drained from her face, leaving a stranger who chose your funeral hymn before you arrived.

"Didi, you honour my poor house," she purred, holding out a cup, "kneel and receive it."

"I do not kneel, I have declined better hosts than you," Didi said, taking the cup in a gloved hand.

"Then stand beautifully, the tea will wait."

Didi stood with her chin high and the cup perfectly level, drinking like a judge delivering a sentence. Cessy’s mouth twitched, the ghost of a real smile breaking through the hostess mask for one brief heartbeat.

"Acceptable, you refuse like a queen," she murmured, then turned the mask back on. "Smith Ferra, you are offered my finest teapot, what do you say?"

Ferra held out both palms first, scarred and open, then turned the pot over to rap its belly. "Give me ten minutes and a hot fire, the lug is cracked," she said.

"In Kuroyomi, an open hand means a knife in the other one," Lucan said from the doorway.

"Back home it means you’ve got nothing to hide," Ferra grumbled, "a cracked lug just means somebody was cheap."

"You say it is a fine piece with a story, then you leave the story untold."

"Fine piece with a story," Ferra muttered into the spout, "terrible casting, honestly."

Miri sat with a small notebook open on her knee, pencil scratching away like a mouse in the wall. She raised her free hand politely, like a student with a very good question about the order of courses.

"Is the insult served before the soup or after, on the record?" she asked.

"Guests do not take notes at my table," the host said coldly.

"Then I shall take them beneath it," Miri said, scribbling on, "a lesson only counts if it can be reviewed."

"Before the soup, the soup is meant for survivors."

Rumi swept forward with her chin up and a smile like a drawn blade, "We came for the soup, gorgeous, we stayed for the host."

Nari tugged her sleeve with both hands, ears flat, "She means we are lost, we are very sorry about the pantry."

The host considered them a moment, "A flirt and a groveller, the only double act the Underworld respects."

Loccy stepped up with shining eyes before anyone could stop her, while the host slid cake across the table. She stared at it for one trembling second, then burst into tears, gripping the host’s hand in both hands.

"May your death be late and your hospitality early!" she sobbed, shaking it like a pump handle.

Cessy patted her back with the stiff care of a woman defusing a bomb, "Very good, little rabbit, but you must let go of the host before the cake is cold."

Vella rose, gliding down the table with one hand trailing along the wood, then perched on the host’s chair. She traced one finger along the chair back, an inch from Cessy’s neck, smiling like a woman choosing wine.

"Such a magnificent hostess, I could stay a whole winter if the wine stayed warm," she murmured.

The host’s tail twitched once, "You are flirting with your host to avoid an insult."

"It is called diplomacy, sweetheart, you simply have never seen it done properly."

"In Kuroyomi it is called a request to be poisoned."

"Then I shall bring my own cup," Vella sighed.

Juna watched from the bench with her lip curled and her ears pinned flat, tail lashing in slow circles.

"She does that on purpose," she muttered, "nobody smiles that much at a table without wanting something."

A purr drifted from the host’s chair, "You are welcome to join the next round, Juna."

"I’ll bite the table first."

"Bite it politely, Juna, there’s cake on it," he called across the room with a wicked smirk.

"Then the cake dies first," she growled, her tail thumping once against the bench.

"Vella, please don’t flirt with whoever owns the house," he begged, hiding his face behind his hands.

"Darling, I flirt with the host so that you never have to."

Lucan crossed behind Hajin and pressed two fingers between his shoulder blades, checking the line of his spine. His voice came out flat and precise, like a tailor reading a measurement aloud to a stubborn customer.

"Chin, shoulder, spine, in that order, Chainbearer, you bow like a man apologising to a staircase."

"I’m apologising to the staircase, it’s been very patient with me," he said, straightening with a grunt.

"Chainbearer, is my tea to your liking?" the stranger at the head of the table asked, in a voice smooth as oil.

"It’s the best tea I’ve ever had, thank y—"

"You admitted a debt," the host snapped, slamming a palm on the table, "you are my footman for three generations, your children will carry my umbrella."

"Tolerated, I meant tolerated, I swear it on my Chain arm!"

Cessy sagged back into her chair, shoulders shaking as the hostess mask finally fell away.

"Marginally less catastrophic than I feared," she admitted, "you may insult one court at a time."

Along the far wall, a crooked row of bags sat half packed, because nobody trusted the night enough to finish. Each bag announced its owner before anyone opened it, like a signature scrawled in rope, string, and plain old stubbornness.

Juna’s whole luggage was one rolled blanket, a whetstone and the smug look of someone who travelled light.

Loccy’s sack bulged with buns, each wrapped in cloth and labelled in careful, wobbling letters.

"Bun, what’s the emergency bun?" he asked, crouching beside it.

"The one you are not allowed to touch," Loccy said gravely, "there is also a bigger emergency."

Vella’s satchel clinked softly with a row of bottles she insisted were purely medicine for emergencies. Rumi and Nari shared one bag between them, trading it every ten steps in silent argument.

Hajin’s own bag held a spare shirt, a knotted rope, and one honey bun he guarded with his life.

Ash was feeding dried fish, honey buns and one suspicious brown lump into the pockets of Hajin’s gray coat.

"Buddy, those are my pockets," he said, catching the lump before it vanished.

"Dada’s pockets are for emergencies," Ash explained, "and I am the emergency."

Ferra’s roll of tools lay beside a tin of spare beads she flatly refused to explain. Eirwen brought three scroll cases, a folding pennant and one tiny ceremonial spoon for emergency treaties.

"Madam Fiancee, what’s the spoon for?" he asked, holding it up to the window.

"Tasting a contract before signing it, naturally," Eirwen said, plucking it back.

"I have also arranged the processional order," she added, unrolling a second scroll, "you enter fourth, behind the tea and ahead of the grudges."

"Who goes first?" he asked.

"The tea, it has seniority over all of us."

Aria’s cyan light hung over the cards pulsing in sharp irritation, flicking from one diagram to the next. Her glow pulled itself into a knot, the way it did when a mistake was not her own.

"Card nine says salt is an insult, card nineteen says refusing salt is a worse one," she said, "I am correcting the discrepancy."

"So who’s right, Aria?" he asked.

"Both, I suspect that is the entire point of the Underworld."

Hajin carried a plate of toast down the bench to Didi, who sat staring at the tall windows. He set the plate between them without a word, then sat just close enough that their sleeves touched.

"You’re doing the window thing again," he said.

"It does not speak now, it only hums, like a kettle left burning in another house," she said.

"What’s it humming?"

"My room is ready, that is all it ever says, gentle as a lie," she said, tugging the glove on her hand, "the worst part is that it does not feel like one."

He glanced across the hall at Nyra, straightening her sleeve beside the wall, then back at Didi. His voice dropped to something quiet and level, meant for nobody else in the whole noisy hall.

"Then we go down, we look it in the face, if it’s lying I’ll find its teeth."

"You cannot find the teeth of a voice, you simpleton."

"Watch me, I’m very stubborn, ask anyone."

Didi nibbled the corner of a toast triangle, saying nothing for one very long, slow, careful breath. Then she pressed her shoulder against his, barely, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead on the windows.

"Tell the others I was not frightened," she said.

"Frightened of what, you were sleepwalking professionally," he said, taking the kick to his shin as her reply.

Cessy caught Hajin’s sleeve as he passed, turned him by the shoulders, and reached up to straighten his collar. Her claws smoothed the cloth with careful, fussing tugs, like a worried fiancee sending her man off to war.

"You will wear the gray coat, not the green," she murmured, "the green looks like a farmer."

"I am a farmer, Cessy, close enough."

"You are a baron, a Chainbearer, my—" Cessy broke off, her fingers freezing on his collar.

Her face went scarlet from throat to ears, her hands snatched away as though the cloth burned. Hajin blinked, grinned very slowly, opened his mouth, then thought better of it with enormous, visible care.

"Your what?" Juna demanded loudly, ears swiveling toward them.

"My colleague," she said, with the stiff dignity of a woman marching toward her own gallows.

"Sure, my colleague," he said, tucking his collar straight, "I’ll wear the gray."

High on the keep’s wall, Hans’s old bell began to swing again, its rope jerking hard against the beam. Not one note rang out across the courtyard, the iron tongue striking over and over against nothing at all.

Everyone in the hall heard the silence arrive before they saw anything move.

A watchman on the battlements opened his mouth to scream, the silence rolling over the wall like a tide. It swallowed the scream whole, mid-breath, leaving him mouthing the last word into a sky gone eerily, utterly still.

"Aria, how fast is that coming?" Hajin said, already moving toward the doors.

"Faster than it did last night, it is eating the whole north wall," Aria replied.

The whole table stood at once, scraping benches, teacups rattling, laminated cards fluttering to the floor in the sudden hush. Hajin swept the Chain off his chair’s back, slinging it up over a shoulder as every face turned toward him.

"Pack," he said, shoving a chair aside, "we go now."

"And the etiquette lessons, Hajin, I have forty more pages of protocol?" Eirwen asked, clutching her scroll.

"Bow badly, all of you, I’ll apologise to the funeral later."