Free Clockwork Samurai by Jeannie Lin Page B

near the docks. There was a blacksmith’s forge nearby and a busy stable house. Though the inhabitants were in constant transition with traders coming and going, a permanent settlement had grown up around the port. To these people, the Chinese quarter, or the
tōjin yashiki
, as the Japanese called it, was home. The rest of us were strangers.
    Chang-wei negotiated for rooms, and the only ones available were tucked in the back. They were small spaces stacked together with thin walls between them. Zhao and his crewmen took rooms in the north wing while Chang-wei and I occupied a separate apartment across the walkway.
    I surveyed our chamber, which didn’t take long. There was a bamboo mat laid down as bedding and a chamber pot for use at night. A screen separated out a private sleeping area.
    There was a time I would have blushed to be in such close, intimate quarters with Chang-wei, but this wasn’t our first adventure together.
    He thought nothing of it, either. Putting on a pair of spectacles, Chang-wei slipped a tiny book into his palm. It was how he kept notes, using a trick from his student days of using a needle to write impossibly small.
    â€œI imagine Captain Zhao’s petition will gather dust on an administrator’s desk,” he said, flipping through the pages. “But the Chinese quarter isn’t nearly as tightly controlled as the shogunate would have us believe.”
    â€œWhat if we get caught sneaking out?”
    He was absorbed in his notes. “Probably tried as smugglers.”
    I shuddered, thinking of how sharp those blades looked and how the Japanese favored beheading as punishment.
    â€œPerhaps there’s another way,” I suggested. “A safer one.”
    Chang-wei flipped through the pages. “I plan to send a message to a contact of your father’s by the name of”—he squinted to read the characters—“Sagara. He’s an aristocrat and a man of science. Reportedly supportive of an open exchange of ideas between our empires. He might make an effort to come meet us.”
    â€œHow do we reach him?”
    He consulted the notebook once more before snapping it shut. “Teahouse.”
    * * *
    Chang-wei bypassed several large and busy teahouses near the inn, instead searching out an establishment in a quieter part of the quarter, down behind a row of warehouses. On the other side of the lane, I had seen dockworkers transporting crates, but as soon as we disappeared into the far side of the lane, the area became quiet.
    â€œThere’s a proprietor by the name of Yelu with a modest teahouse in the warehouse section,” Chang-wei explained.
    â€œDo you think he’ll still be there a decade later?”
    â€œWe’ll soon find out.”
    We found the place. There was a lantern hung out front with a painted signboard with a fish on it. We entered through the thin curtain and found the main room empty of any customers. There were no hostesses or servers, either. Curiously, a set of dolls lined the walls of the room, each dressed in a differently colored kimono. Their faces were childlike, with pleasantly painted smiles. Each doll balanced an empty tray across its arms.
    Chang-wei and I exchanged glances before seating ourselves, and it took me a moment to find a comfortable positionon the floor. I had to shift this way and that and still didn’t feel as if I was doing it right.
    Tea came a moment later, but not from any human hand. A panel opened in the wall, and one of the dolls turned to receive a ceramic teapot onto its tray. The mechanical tea server then came toward us in tiny steps, stopping before our table.
    Chang-wei lifted the teapot himself, at which point the server bowed, gears whirring.
    â€œA windup toy.” My father’s colleagues from the Ministry had often given me such devices as gifts when I was a child. It was one of my fondest memories.
    â€œClockwork dolls,” Chang-wei