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I fell onto the roof, clay tiles digging into my back as I slid toward the ground.

Too late I noticed the rip in my knapsack.

Before I could catch it, my scroll tumbled out, rolling down the slope of the roof in the opposite direction.

Panic ratcheted in my chest.

But thank Amana, my scroll caught against an eave.

It lay ten paces from me, completely unraveled, edges flapping.

“Sons of the Wind,” I cursed.

Inch by inch, suddenly mindful of every breeze and draft, I crawled toward my dragon.

Its inky eyes watched me, silently judging.

I glared back.

“You’d better be worth all this trouble. Now, don’t move. Don’t even think about it.”

I was on my knees, not daring to even breathe as I stretched my arm out, reaching with my fingers before the parchment blew away.

There!

I pinched the corner.

I nearly rocked back with relief.

But as I raked my dragon toward me, a powerful gust of wind knocked me off balance—and carried my scroll into the sky.

“No!” I shouted as it flew away.

“Damn it!”

And that was how the prefects found me.

“Truyan Saigas,” they shouted from below.

“You are hereby charged with the criminal offense of reproducing sacred imperial art. Come down at once.”

I wasn’t listening.

My eyes were on the scroll.

It had shot up high above the trees and was cruising over the festival like a kite.

I had to get it back.

“Get down right now!” the head prefect cried.

“Or else we shall use forc—”

He didn’t get to finish his threat.

I leapt down, tackling him to the ground and cutting him off midsentence.

Before his colleagues could grab me, I shot up and ran.

The streets were packed, and I wove through the parades of people beating pots and hand-strung drums.

I needed to get lost in the commotion.

Needed to blend in.

I fumbled at my sash, quickly draped it over my blue hair.

From one of the merchant tents, I lifted a fan and flicked it open, pressing it against my face.

At every corner, children were setting off firecrackers.

“Thunderbolts of Saino,” they chanted.

“Protect us from evil!”

I whispered a quiet thanks to all the boisterous festivalgoers.

Soon I couldn’t even hear the prefects shouting for me.

But I knew better than to get smug.

Don’t look back, I told myself.

Keep moving.

Nine Hells of Tamra, what godforsaken spirit had possessed my scroll?

At least it was making for the hills, the opposite direction as the prefects.

I scrambled after it, almost getting run over by a carriage in my haste.

Maybe there was such a thing as the luck of the dragons.

At the last moment, I vaulted onto the back step of the carriage, clinging to the gilded ledge as it trundled up.

By now I’d lost my pursuers.

Then again, what fool would ride straight toward the Fengming Hills, where the governor himself lived?

Here, every house was walled off, each a private compound marked by towering willows, with patrols circling every corner.

Anyone would tell me I was doomed.

But I happened to be an optimist.

The carriage trotted up the peak, only a turn away from Oyang Street.

The winds were still here, and bless the Sages, my scroll was finally making its descent.

It wended down with the grace of a swan, skimming the tops of the willow trees toward one of the manors.

Fall in a tree, I prayed through clenched teeth.

Don’t pass the walls.

As though it heard me, the scroll landed on a thick bough with a gentle sigh.

Yes!

I thought, hopping off the carriage onto the road.

I ran as fast as I could, my hair whisking my back as I cut toward the tree.

I’d climbed the first branch when the spirits of misfortune decided to possess the scroll one last time.

To my horror, it tumbled off the bough and dove past the wall.

Straight onto the manor’s property.

I wanted to scream.

Honestly, this day couldn’t get any worse.

I ducked under the leaves, darting a quick glance behind me—but the manor was quiet, not a guard in sight.

Every Oyang property had patrols.

So why, today, in the middle of the afternoon, was this one deserted?

Apprehension knotted in my gut.

“Just hurry up, Tru,” I mumbled to myself.

I climbed higher, advancing up the tree until I could see into the garden on the other side of the wall.

If someone had told me the grounds below belonged to the emperor himself, I would’ve believed it.

The garden was resplendent, an oasis from Gangsun’s jumble of sweat and spices.

Each shrub was meticulously cared for without a single dry patch, the flowers—azaleas and magnolias and others I couldn’t name—bloomed bright and healthy, and a cerulean pond was framed by sloping pathways and multiple arched footbridges.

Among all this natural beauty lay my scroll, nestled in a thorny bed of the ugliest roses I’d ever seen.

The only thing separating us was this damned wall.

It wouldn’t be a pretty fall, with all those prickly vines, but I didn’t hesitate.

Fortune finds those who leap, I thought, bracing myself.

Then I jumped.

My elbows scraped against the wall, and sharp thorns grazed my ankles and back.

But by some miracle, I landed on my feet.

I swept a leaf off my trousers and waded through a thicket of black roses poking at my skin.

The flowers were like inkblots, dark and shapeless, their stems covered in big, fat thorns.

Thorns, it turned out, that had cut into my scroll.

I couldn’t believe it.

After everything—fighting off Puhkan, running across half of Gangsun, and eluding the prefects—my scroll was ripped, torn right through the center of my dragon.

So much for selling it.

I plucked up my scroll and angrily snapped off an offending flower.

Now how was I going to get forty-eight thousand jens?

How was I going to save Fal?

As soon as I looked up, I had my answer.

Across the garden was a compound of blue-tiled houses overlooking yet another long and limpid pond.

Sunlight gilded their curved roofs, and my desperate imagination pinioned precious rubies and emeralds onto the geometric lattices of each window.

My morale was instantly boosted.

Get inside and steal something, I instructed myself.

Jewels, silks, gold, and jade.

That ring with the nine pearls.

The ring was in my future.

Was I meant to steal it here—in this manor?

Yes, I thought, as I wound my damaged scroll to a close.

I picked up my feet and started treading out of the flower beds.

First I’d have to get out of this garden.

The fastest way was across a gallery of winding footpaths, but obviously I couldn’t take that.

Thankfully, there was the pond.

Framed by a forest of tall reeds, it led all the way to the main mansion.

I ducked into the reeds and made my move.

Every now and then, I darted a glance at the wooden pavilion overlooking the water, but I saw no one inside.

Still, I steered clear of it by keeping close to the banks.

Halfway to the mansion, a turtle emerged by my side, skimming the surface of the pond.

At first I ignored it.

Then, when it craned its neck out of the water to peer at me, I nearly fell back in astonishment.

The creature was enormous—the sort that swam with whales and lived for centuries.

And it didn’t look pleased to see me.

“My turtle doesn’t like trespassers,” growled a thick voice from behind.

“That makes two of us.”

My heart lurched in my chest.

I started to run, but a flash of lacquered wood shot out from behind me, hooking me by the arm.

I tottered along the edge of the pond, and for a fleeting second, I considered diving into the water.

“I would reconsider that escape plan if I were you,” the stranger warned.

“My turtle has orders to drown anyone she deems…unfriendly.”

The cuff around my arm turned out to be the handle of a dark red umbrella.

I wrenched at it, but the stranger’s hold was firm.

“I won’t warn you again.”

“You must not get very many guests,” I muttered.

“None,” he confirmed.

His shadow eclipsed me.

“Turn around.”

With a grimace, I obeyed.

In my periphery, I glimpsed a figure shrouded entirely in black, from the hem of his cloak to his sleeves, obsidian threads so finely woven they glittered under the light of the sun.

I raised my gaze—to a man in a demon mask.

Wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

Of all the manors to infiltrate, I’d picked this one.

I found my voice.

“Now, that is the most impressive-looking festival mask I’ve ever seen.”

I could hear his bewildered exhale, equal parts disdain and disbelief.

A tiny triumph, catching him off guard.

But his distraction didn’t last long.

He speared the end of his umbrella into the ground with such force that I jumped back.

“Why are you here?” he snarled.

“Speak the truth, or it’ll be the dust of your bones that nourishes this garden tonight. Starting with the roses you so dishonorably tried to steal.”

“I wasn’t stealing a rose,” I countered.

“I fell onto them.”

“While trespassing.”

“I wasn’t trespassing. The spirits of the Ghost Festival possessed my scroll.” I brandished it with a quick wave.

“That’s why it landed in your garden.”

“The spirits of the Ghost Festival possessed your scroll,” he repeated.

He leaned on his umbrella with a sneer.

“Does that explain why you were sneaking off into the mansion as well?”

My cheeks grew hot.

“I was looking for the exit.”

Even I didn’t believe me.

“You trampled my rosebushes,” he thundered.

“You dragged your filthy shoes across my shrubs and befouled the air with your presence. If you think you can trespass onto my property, destroy my roses, and simply walk free”—he drew tall, blocking me from the path—“you are mistaken, krill.”

“Krill?” I echoed.

“That’s what you’ll soon be, for stealing.”

First fertilizer, now food for his turtle.

This Demon Prince was delusional.

I shouldered past him, intent on leaving.

A mistake.

He sprang in front of me and emitted a beastly roar that boomed across the garden.

The earth shuddered, the pond went still.

Any other day, I might have had the sense to feel afraid, but not today.

Not today.

“If you’re going to kill me,” I said, “just do it already. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

His eyes pierced through the mask, startling me.

How hadn’t I noticed them?

They were mismatched, unlike any I’d seen before.

One as black as the rose in my hand—so liquid and dark I couldn’t make out his pupil.

The other yellow like the sulfur powder I’d ground to paint fire once.

The Demon Prince, he was called.

But his eyes weren’t those of a demon.

Not quite human either.

“You really have a death wish, don’t you?”

“No, I simply don’t understand why you care so much about a single rose. You have so many. And, to settle the matter, it was your flower that tore into my painting.” I raised my ruined scroll to view.

“If anything, you should be paying me. ”

“I assure you, that flower is worth far more than anything you might possess.”

“Are you out of your mind? It’s a flower.” I shook my scroll.

“This is an original masterpiece.”

“We shall see,” he said.

Too swiftly he plucked it from me, undoing the cord with ease.

My dragon scroll came unbound, his tail winding to the ground.

“You say my flower tore into your scroll?” said the Demon Prince.

“I see no disrepair.”

“Then you must be…” The words died on my lips.

He was right; the rip was no more.

Vanished, as if it’d never been.

He lifted the painting so it was level with his gaze.

Then, suddenly, his yellow eye glowed with vehemence.

“From where did you steal this?”

“I didn’t steal it.” I stood on my toes, reaching for the edges of my parchment.

“It’s mine.”

“Your life depends on the truth, krill.” The Demon Prince held the scroll higher.

“How did you come about this painting?”

“I drew it.”

“ You drew this.”

Again that mixture of disdain and disbelief.

“With ink and a brush,” I snapped.

“Is that so hard to believe?”

His attention didn’t waver from my painting.

“Countless artists have tried to paint dragons in their lifetimes, but it is impossible to capture their spirit without having seen one.”

“ No one’s seen a dragon.”

“Then either you have a very powerful imagination, or you have Sight.” He tipped his head down, studying me.

“Perhaps both.”

There was something unnerving about being stared at through a mask.

It was his eyes, I decided.

Bright and dark at once and utterly unfeeling.

For the life of me, I couldn’t place where I had seen them before.

“I will keep this,” he said, rolling up the scroll.

“And in return, I will permit you to leave this property.”

The nerve of this man.

I was tired, apparently smelly, and running out of hope.

But for Fal’s sake, I mustered some entrepreneurial spirit.

“If you like it, I’d be willing to part with it. Say, for fifty thousand jens.”

Was that a laugh I heard behind the mask?

Or a rude snort?

I couldn’t tell.

“Don’t press your luck, thief. Begone before I change my mind about letting you live.”

I wouldn’t budge.

“Fifty thousand jens.”

“The scratches on this page aren’t worth fifty let alone fifty thousand.”

“Then I’ll paint you another one. As many as you want. Right now.”

He leaned forward, smelling my desperation.

“Pray tell, what does an urchin like you need with such an inordinatesum?”

I considered lying, but there was no point.

“My mother owes a debt. I have to pay before midnight.”

“Thus you thought to steal from me.”

“Technically, I thought to steal from Governor Renhai.”

He canted his head.

“Then you’d have been caught, and short two hands by the morning. For naught, since Renhai has nothing worth stealing in his mansion.”

“So I made the better choice coming here?”

“That remains to be seen.”

I scowled, filled with loathing for this ogre of a man.

What did he want me to do?

Beg?

My dignity could hardly stomach the thought.

But for Fal and Nomi…

I fell to my knees, bowing as low as I could.

“My mother’s debt is owed to Madam Yargui,” I said.

“If I can’t pay, she will take my sisters. Please, if you have any jens to spare…it’ll save my family.”

I heard a sniff.

“Your personal matters are of no concern to me.”

He spun to leave.

“Wait!” I cried.

“I’ll do anything.”

Too late, I regretted my big mouth.

The Demon Prince halted in his step, his dark cloak billowing.

Up to this point, his every word had been a thorn in my side.

But now, when he made no growl, no snarl or thunderous roar, it was his silence that was torture, an agonizing counterpoint to the unrest raging inside me.

At last he spoke, “Take this. It should be enough to pay off your mother’s lenders.”

He tossed a ring, the throw so crisp I caught it without realizing.

I held it out on my palm, my knees buckling as I recognized what had come into my possession.

It was the ring from my vision, exactly as I’d drawn it: nine black pearls in a circlet around a giant white opal.

Even the smudge on the opal was there—a cloudy reddish spot in one corner.

At first I thought it was from the light, but it didn’t go away no matter how I angled the ring.

Strange, I thought.

With a frown, I looked back at the garden.

Whenever a vision manifested into reality, an uncontrollable tremble came over me, making my teeth chatter.

But in this moment, I felt nothing.

There were no larches here, I realized, and the hand I’d foreseen wearing the ring had been human.

It couldn’t be the Demon Prince’s.

So whose was it?

I tucked away my unease.

“This is worth fifty thousand jens? You are sure?”

“There is only one like it in the world. I assure you, it will cover your debts.”

His self-assurance annoyed me, but I didn’t argue.

I knew this ring was the key to saving Falina.

I slipped it over my thumb, the only finger it fit.

A moon gate had appeared in the middle of the garden—leading to a carriage parked along the road.

I could have sworn that neither had been there a moment ago.

“Shanizhun,” the Demon Prince said, “escort our guest to the carriage and take her home. See to it she doesn’t step on the moss.”

Shanizhun?

Who was he talking to?

I saw no one else with us in the garden.

But my heels suddenly went up, for an invisible something—or someone —carried me not quite gently through the moon gate, into the carriage.

The door shut me inside.

For a moment, I was stunned.

I was no stranger to magic, thanks to my visions, but I’d never seen anything like this: gates and carriages materializing out of thin air, invisible spirits flying me off my feet.

And the Demon Prince!

He couldn’t be human.

With the mask he wore, his fixation with those strange black flowers, even his hair!

During the course of our encounter, it had grown longer until it was past his shoulders.

His posture, too, had changed.

Earlier he had leaned heavily on his umbrella.

Now he no longer seemed to need it.

While I wondered about all this, one of the shutters inside the carriage lifted.

The Demon Prince stood outside, the wind still beating against his cloak.

“When my business in Gangsun is finished, I will call on you to fulfill your end of the bargain.”

“What will I owe you?” I asked warily.

“That, we shall discuss next we meet.” He gave an imperceptible nod.

“Until then, Truyan Saigas.”

The window shuttered once more, and the wheels started to turn.

As I leaned my head back against the carriage’s firm cushions, a chill coursed through my blood.

I never gave him my name.

It was nightfall when the carriage dropped me off a street away from home.

Never had I run as fast as when I bolted out into the fish market, taking two stairs at a time past the washroom we shared with three other families, the kitchen that always smelled like burnt rice, then home.

Lantern light flickered from underneath our door.

I wrapped my hand around the knob, my heart accelerating with every inch I pushed forward.

Inside, the room was dark.

Shadows chased the walls, and I could barely make out Mama’s huddled form, sitting on the bed.

I rushed to her.

“Mama,” I said softly.

“Tru!” she said, grabbing my hand once I appeared.

She held it so tight it hurt.

“Thank Amana, I was worried.”

“Where are Fal and Nomi?”

“Here,” replied Falina, coming out of the closet.

Nomi was there too, hands clenched behind her back.

I didn’t like how my sisters glanced at each other, their faces pale.

Then I saw him.

Seated at our wobbly kitchen table, eating peanuts and tossing the shells out the window into the alleyway.

Puhkan.

“You’re early,” he said.

“I take it you’re here to beg for more time?”

He wasn’t alone.

I marked two of his men standing in the corners, knives unsheathed.

My pulse doubled in my chest.

I twisted the ring from my thumb and held it out.

“Here.”

At the sight, Puhkan stood.

He’d expected me to return empty-handed.

“Impressive,” he said, admiring the ring.

Even in the dark, it glittered.

“Who’d you steal this from?”

I didn’t owe him an explanation.

“It’s worth what Madam Yargui asked for. Fifty thousand jens. Now leave us alone.”

Puhkan closed his fist over the ring.

“I happen to have a present for you too.”

He reached into his pocket and pinched forth a triangular piece of maroon-colored cloth.

I didn’t know what it was, but as he tossed it my way, I felt a wave of premonitory dread.

The cloth landed on my arm with a moist splat.

It was damp, and its dye smeared the pale fabric of my sleeve.

No, not dye.

Blood.

“I believe it belonged to a friend of yours,” said Puhkan.

He dipped his head in mock sympathy.

“My condolences.”

All of me went cold.

This cloth…

was Gaari’s eye patch!

Bile surged up to my throat, and I choked on my own breath.

“You…you—”

“Sank a knife into his back,” Puhkan finished for me.

“Threw him into the canal. A bunch of his friends too.”

I wanted to murder this man.

First for what he’d done to my mother, and now for killing my friend.

Fal gripped my arm before I did something rash.

It hurt to speak.

“Gaari had nothing to do with this.”

“He was hardly innocent.” Puhkan shrugged.

“A petty criminal, unworthy of the space he took up. A good lesson to you Saigas girls to learn some respect.”

My sisters gathered next to me, Nomi hiding behind Fal.

“Get out,” I said.

“We’re done.”

Puhkan fitted the ring over his finger.

“I don’t think so.”

His men lurched forward, and that was when I smelled the sulfur.

Nomi had shot up, and she hurled a string of burning red firecrackers over her head at Puhkan.

“May Saino strike you down!” she shouted.

Smoke exploded, and the firecrackers popped and thundered wildly across the room.

“Go!” Fal cried.

I grabbed Mama’s hand, and the four of us raced outside.

We didn’t get far.

Fal screamed first.

Then Nomi.

A beat later, a sack fell over my head, and all went dark.