He told them the next morning at breakfast.
"In four days," Azrail said, watching them all around the low stone table with the Anima district's distinctive cold-mineral tea in cups that nobody except Xuanyin was drinking voluntarily, "the three moons of the lower realm are going to align. This happens every eighty years. The last occurrence was before any of you were born."
He'd chosen the timing carefully: after a night for the previous conversations to settle, early enough in the day for the information to sink in without immediate distractions from the city's bustle. The lodging's common room was quiet, the amber light filtering through narrow windows, casting long shadows across the rough stone floor. Huifen sat to his left, still adjusting her posture to fit the minor-clan disguise, her hands folded neatly but knuckles white from gripping the edge of the table earlier.
