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From memory, Anyu drew the design of the Kawashima Egg.

She remembered every detail, the straight lines, immaculate circles and triangles, and shadows and highlights.

She remembered showing the design to Isaac, their ride in the taxi, his devastating cries— I almost lost you —and his kisses.

The pencil slipped from her hands; tears welled in her eyes.

Suddenly, she was overwhelmed with grief that had lodged in her heart for these months.

“Don’t cry. They don’t like that,” the jeweler next to her, a man in his forties, whispered.

Anyu sniffed, dabbing her eyes on her sleeve.

“They’ll take you, if they see you cry, and you’ll be thrashed in the yard for everyone to see.” The jeweler didn’t stop working on his engraving, didn’t lift his head.

Thrashed.

“Keep drawing. Don’t let them see us talking.”

Anyu nodded, but she couldn’t focus, listening to her neighbor’s low voice, barely audible under the filing. The workshop operated under strict rules: signs of laziness would result in a penalty of ten lashes; complaints, ten lashes; stealing, a beheading.

“How did you end up here?” her neighbor asked. “I recognize you. You’re the master jeweler of the House of Mandelburg, aren’t you?”

She nodded and explained her situation as briefly as she could, and her neighbor sighed.

His family name was Cai. His family owned a small business in Hong Kong, making jewelry for British and Portuguese officials’ wives.

He came here because he was promised a good salary and was contracted for two years.

But he had been confined in the workshop for two years and four months because he was unable to finish the eggs on time.

Then Mr. Cai told her about the other jewelers: the jeweler with a missing ear, Mr. Cai said, was abducted from Qingdao when the city was attacked by the Japanese, and the jeweler three benches down had lost his entire family and needed a job. They had been here for a year.

At noon, Kawashima came to the building. Clad in a full Japanese Imperial Army officer’s uniform and cap, a sheathed sword in hand, she paced the room, assessing every piece in the jewelers’ hands. Then she came before Anyu, her black eyes expressionless like a dark pond.

“You’ll have your egg soon,” Anyu said.

“I want to see it when you finish.”

“As you wish.”

After Kawashima left the building, Anyu asked to have a cigarette break.

Mr. Tanaka didn’t look pleased. “Five minutes. Outside the building.”

Anyu took a packet of cigarettes and a matchbox and walked out to the porch. Standing by a red pillar, she lit a cigarette and watched Kawashima ascend a moon-shaped bridge near a bamboo grove on the hill.

Each day was a repetition of the previous day.

Eat. Work. Sleep. Eat. Work. Sleep. The exercise was mandatory, the hours rigid, but the meals were nutritious, a bowl of cabbage soup and potatoes and peanuts and a chunk of meat or fish; occasionally, there were apples.

Outside their sleeping quarters, there was always a guard who kept a close watch.

Eight days after she arrived in the workshop, Anyu witnessed a brutal beating of an enameler accused of careless handling of gemstones and destroying gold wires. The poor enameler was lashed and left with a broken leg.

Then, on the last day of January, five weeks after she had begun to work in the workshop, she was walking to her room with Mr. Cai, when he whispered there was a visitor asking about her at the gate. The guard told the woman to leave, but she insisted on standing under the ginkgo tree.

A visitor? “Does Kawashima allow visitors?”

Mr. Cai shook his head. “No. But the visitor has an American passport. She showed it to the guard. If she were Chinese, she would have been beaten. The guard couldn’t drive her away.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s still by the ginkgo tree. You can see her from the window.”

Anyu raced to her room shared with the other jewelers and looked out the window.

Under the ginkgo tree was a sight she could never forget—Esther, wearing her long yellow cotton dress and a wide straw hat with a red silky band, fanning her face.

She paced, her legs rising and falling, a beautiful dance in the afternoon sun.

How did Esther know she was locked inside? Anyu wondered. Did the guard tell her? Oh, Esther. She was not angry with her anymore; she had forgiven her. Anyu felt her eyes moisten.

Esther! Esther! She wanted to shout, to get her attention, but she was too far. Desperate, Anyu took a copper basin and angled it in the sun. She turned it around and around, spinning the light into the air, until finally Esther stopped and turned in her direction.

Anyu waved her hands. And there, Esther, standing by the ginkgo, raised her hands as well. Anyu laughed. Esther saw her. She knew she was alive.

February arrived; on the last day of the month, Esther appeared under the ginkgo tree again.

She showed the guard a piece of card that must be a passport—her American passport—and was permitted to stay.

Then she stood under the ginkgo tree for a good twenty minutes, pacing, waving her hands, and then left.

From then on, a pattern was established. Esther came to see her at sundown on the last day of every month.

Eight months passed. Anyu didn’t find a chance to slip out of the workshop, nor was she able to see Kawashima. But she finished her Kawashima Egg, a brilliant egg inlaid with precious jadeite and diamonds, with the surprise inside, a samurai sword.

She asked to deliver it to Kawashima. “Would you mind? She told me to deliver it to her myself.”

“Did she?” Mr. Tanaka said, boxing it in a velvet jewelry box.

“She mentioned that when I arrived last year,” Anyu said. “I’m sure she has some questions. Or would you rather answer them on my behalf?”

“Fine. You can come along.”

She untied her apron, took off her gloves, and followed Mr. Tanaka out. Several jewelers, their faces wan, stared at her curiously, wondering what gave her the privilege of leaving her workbench.

It was near noon, and the sunlight filtered through the crown of the trees in full bloom.

Some pink blossoms unfolded their petals, a squirrel skittered along a trunk, and a cardinal stood on one leg at the tip of a twig, oblivious of a potential fall.

This sight of life, an escape from the hammer and soldering, filled her heart with optimism.

Mr. Tanaka was not heading toward the bamboo grove, she noticed. Instead, he crossed the bridge and turned to a building with a blue roof. The doors were shut; a guard waved him off, speaking Japanese.

“She’s seeing a guest,” Mr. Tanaka said. “We should come back another day.”

“Can we wait?”

“She doesn’t like to be disturbed.” Mr. Tanaka looked morose.

Anyu had no choice but to leave with Mr. Tanaka. “What’s this building?”

“Her showroom.”

Did Kawashima keep her Winter Egg there as a trophy?

As they crossed the bridge near the bamboo grove, she spotted a black Citroen parked on the gravel. She paused to stare. It was not a common car in Shanghai, and she only knew one man who owned one.

Later, Mr. Tanaka delivered the egg to Kawashima without Anyu. Her chance of confronting Kawashima slipped away.

For the next ten months, Anyu was ordered to craft the imperial Coronation Egg, a gift presented to Tsarina Alexandra by Tsar Nicholas II for their 1896 coronation.

Inside was a replica carriage perfectly engineered with turning wheels, a foldable step, and operable doors that would open and close.

After the completion, Anyu requested to deliver the egg personally to Kawashima but was denied.

Then she was informed the Kawashima Egg had broken, and she must make another one.

“Broken?” She couldn’t believe it. The egg was made of solid material and embellished with diamonds and other precious gemstones. Despite the poor conditions she had worked under, she knew her craftsmanship had been flawless. “I want to see Kawashima and ask her.”

“She’s not available,” Mr. Tanaka said.

There were six months left in her contract.

She had enough time to complete the egg, but her mood was gloomy.

She still hadn’t discovered her Winter Egg’s whereabouts or had the opportunity to see Kawashima.

And she missed Esther, who came monthly still but at such a distance, and she missed the shop and little Matthew; she missed Confucius. She missed them so much.

A few days later, Anyu fell ill. It had started with a minor burn on her hand when she lost hold of the blowtorch, and then the wound became infected, and for one month she lay in bed, shivering, running a high fever.

When her fever eventually broke, she returned to the workshop.

But the fumes and chemicals stung her eyes and gave her headaches; a dull pain in her chest tormented her.

She had trouble concentrating. When she heated pieces of thin sterling on a firebrick, the metal shriveled into a ball—she had simply stood there and forgot she was fusing.

She even overheated brass and didn’t realize it until the noxious zinc fumes made her cough.

By November, two months before the end of her contracted time, she had only finished the moonstone eggshell, the first step of the crafting, and she had fainted three times and injured her head. Fatigued, unable to hold her saw, she was sent to her bed to recover.

“I cannot release you from the contract if you don’t finish your egg,” Mr. Tanaka warned tersely.

She was a prisoner; she might die here, she realized.

New Year’s Eve arrived. Anyu made her way to the window, hoping to see Esther, who had come every month.

A storm whipped outside, gusts lashed at the building, and rain pounded the walls; all the gates, the walls, and the trees blended into the storm.

She couldn’t see anything but the black nimbus clouds, the pouring rain, and the blinding lightning that shot piercing pains into her eyes.

Esther wouldn’t come in the storm; she probably had given up seeing her now. It was New Year’s Eve, after all. She should be celebrating with Matthew and Mr. Dearborn.

Pain stabbing behind her eyes, Anyu stared hard into the storm, searching for the yellow dress and the red hat.

She didn’t see anything at first and then straightened—she could make out a woman holding a red umbrella across the street.

She limped under the ginkgo, one arm across her body as though cold; then the wind charged at her, and the umbrella snapped.

The storm poured over her, and she was drenched instantly.

Esther had come, despite the storm; she had come each month, standing under the ginkgo tree, to let Anyu know she was not alone, to let her know she was not forgotten.

Silently, Anyu wept happy tears. She was loved—yes, she was loved.

The next day, Anyu sat at her workbench, determined to finish the last ornament in this prison.