Book 3: Chapter 22: Floors and Levels

Yin Hu and crew had left the slums of YellowHearth City once the sun had started to threaten its downward assent.

Said sun had abandoned them two hours ago.

Yin Hu sat in his lounging chair within the courtyard, legs crossed, tea steaming at his elbow, and the Compendium closed on his lap. The recruitment ledgers Da Ruis had compiled sat in a neat stack on the table between them. Three hundred and forty-seven names. Ages six through fifty. Elements ranging from faint wisps of wood and water to a single boy of twelve who had produced a respectable fire pulse that made Da Ruis's quill pause for half a heartbeat before continuing.

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