When the water receded on the seventh tide night, the lights in the beacon tower went out. Xie Zhengu descended the ladder and found his master, Ning Sanzhen, lying on his back beside the tower's base, a gash in his neck. His right hand still clutched the wick he hadn't managed to replace, while all five fingers gripped Xie's wrist and pressed a three-inch piece of bone hard into his palm. As the torchlight swung up, Old Shaoyu held a harpoon to Xie's neck and said that only he and Ning had been in the tower, Ning had a hole in his neck, and Xie's hands were covered in blood. Xie didn't back down. He crouched, lifted his master's head, opened the lantern housing, and brought the flame close to the wound. "It goes in two and a half inches, then angles up three degrees from below. The cut is narrow, with a clean edge. The lower edge is half a fraction longer than the upper. The killer used a left-handed sword, and was half a head shorter than Master. They had to reach up to strike, so the cut angles upward. The sword is a Tidepattern, two feet seven inches long, double-edged at the tip. The angle between the edges is fixed. The furnaces on Mirage Isle can't make one. The living can lie. Bones can't. If you don't believe me, come measure it yourself at dawn. If it's not two and a half inches, I'll put my head on the line."
He added, "Replacing the wick takes both hands. He was still holding it, so he died before reaching the lamp. There are no bloody footprints on the ladder, no marks from dragging a body, and no disturbed sand beneath the feet of whoever climbed up and down to kill him." Zhu Shisi murmured, "It wasn't human." Old Shaoyu immediately scolded him into silence, but then someone screamed from the cliff: A ship was coming.
