The ground is wrong.

Too smooth. Too hard. My cloth shoes make no sound on it, stone that isn’t stone, flat as a threshing floor, stretching in every direction. I keep expecting to feel the give of packed earth, the familiar roughness of courtyard tiles. Nothing.

I follow the one called Jingsen. When he turns, I turn. When he slows, I slow. This much I know how to do. I have followed masters through markets, through temples, through rooms where I was not supposed to exist. Following, I can do.

But everything else makes zero sense. The metal beasts roar past on their black stone roads. I press closer to the buildings when they pass. Marcus flinches too, at least we share that.

Jingsen speaks and the sounds hit my ears and it’s frustrating, even more frustrating than when Marcus speaks. He’s almost speaking a language I understand, but not.

He’s pointing somewhere. Explaining something. I see the movement of his hands, the direction of his gaze. The meaning slides past, I can’t catch it.

I nod anyway. What else can I do?

Marcus, says something in “ratin”, I think that’s what Jingsen called it. It’s just noise to me. He gestures with his whole body, big movements, taking up space like he’s never been hit for it. Jingsen responds. More noise. They pass words back and forth.

I watch. I understand nothing.

The crowds here make no sound. Hundreds of people and no one is shouting or laughing, where in the world am I? Where I came from silence meant only one thing, that the master is angry, and that was always bad news for one of us. I don’t know who the master of this town is angry with.

We walk. I don’t know where. Jingsen knows. That has to be enough.

He speaks again, to me this time, slower. I catch something that sounds like follow. Or maybe place. Or maybe nothing at all.

Then Jingsen stops.

He looks up at a building so tall it reaches the very heavens. I stop at the base and look up, neck craning, this building is taller than anything I have seen before. Taller than any pagoda or watchtower.

I try to estimate. Ten levels? Twenty? The numbers fail me. I have never seen a building this tall that wasn’t a mountain, but then again, we are surrounded by those here. What is this place?

Jingsen doesn’t stop. He walks toward a wall of glass and the wall opens for him. Is this magic?

Marcus makes a sound low in his throat. Something between a prayer and a curse… but we follow…

Inside. The floor here is smoother than anything I’ve touched. My reflection moves beneath my fee, she’s a ghost-girl keeping pace, looking up at me with wide eyes. The walls are the same pale color as bones left in the sun. Light comes from the ceiling, from the walls, from places I can’t find. What is going on?

A man walks past us without looking. His eyes are on a glowing rectangle in his palm. Everyone here carries these rectangles. Everyone here ignores everyone else.

Jingsen stops at a wall marked with spirit writing. He touches one of them and it glows under his finger. This is magic! I’m terrified now, even more so than before. They are using magic! We’re all going to be cursed.