Novels by Tuo Wang

Adrian's POVThe black carriage turned out of the lane, and I made myself stop watching the place where it had been."I came by the back way for some quiet," Prince Evander said, looking at the women dusting their skirts. "Instead I've watched a thief cry thief. It's an old play." He lifted the riding crop and pointed it, without any hurry, at the maid in the green apron. "In my experience, the one who shouts loudest and points first is usually the one to look at. Search her and you'll know."He might as well have kicked over a hive. The women who had been kneeling on the seamstress a moment ago turned on the maid as one."It was her, my lord! Tansy and her mother. They told us the seamstress had it!"The girl's heart had been going hard since the Prince first spoke. Now I could hear it stumble and lose its beat altogether, and her knees went from under her."Mercy, my lord! It was me, I took it. It's in my room, sewn into the mattress. Plea

Wren's POV"Is this how a house of scholars keeps a binding day?"The voice came from the mouth of the lane. It wasn't loud, but it carried over all the others, cool and faintly amused.A black carriage had drawn up there without my hearing it, tall and plain, with nothing painted on the door. A young man was leaning out of it. He wore a dark coat buttoned high, and at his throat a silver crescent caught the sun."Anyone passing would think it was a fishwives' brawl," he said. "Six of you to hold down one woman with a belly. You must be very proud."The red-faced woman wasn't frightened of him. She looked at the carriage with nothing on its door and the single groom holding the horses, and I watched her decide he was some young clerk of her master's, cutting through the back lane to save his shoes."Mind your own business, sir. We've a thief here, and it's a gift from the palace she's stolen. It's nothing to do with you."They had me

Wren's POV"She'll pay ten times the usual," Hester went on, "and she knows you're near your time and oughtn't to be shaken about. But she says there's no one else within ten miles."She was looking at my belly as she said it, and her mouth went tight. I was six months gone and carrying like a woman at term. Hester had borne children of her own, and she had said more than once, when she thought I was asleep, that there was more than one in there or she was no judge."Hester, she can't." Briar was twisting her apron in both hands. "Can't they send the gown here? She could mend it lying down, you know she could.""I asked. Rowe says it's sewn all over with stones, and they daren't move it about in case something else comes loose. And by the time it came out here and went back, the moon would be up and the girl standing at the stone in a torn sleeve."I put my needle through the edge of the cloth so I wouldn't lose it and set the hoop down."I'

Evander's POVThe mark sat low on my left hip, where a belt would cover it. My mother knew it was there because she had bathed me. Two old nurses knew, and my father. I had never shown it to a woman in my life, or I had never known myself to.Cold went down the backs of my arms.I went over those three lost days again, as I had a hundred times since the Longest Night, and found nothing in them but snow and a scent. My mother's women were watching me. The girl had lowered her eyes, and the flush had climbed into her ears."One more thing," I said. "That night. What did you smell of?"She bit her lip and turned her face aside, the way a shy girl would, and didn't answer.It was the old woman behind my mother's chair who did. Mistress Coyle had served the Queen since before I was born, and she spoke the way she did everything, as if it were already settled. "Your Highness will pardon me. I unpacked the young lady's trunk myself this morning. He

Wren's POVHester's neighbor at the east end, Joan, took in plain sewing for a shop in Silverkeep called the Gilded Thimble, and when the weather warmed she walked me there herself.I went as Hester's niece from the country, a soldier's widow, in Hester's old brown dress with a shawl over my hair and my belly. Mistress Rowe, who kept the shop, was a sharp-faced woman with a thimble on every finger of her left hand. She took the sample I had brought, a linen square with a spray of meadowsweet in the corner, and carried it to the window.She turned it over and looked at the back for a long time. The back is where poor work shows."Who taught you?""My mother, mistress.""Six handkerchiefs and a pair of pillowcases, initials and a border. Bring them in ten days and I'll pay you a mark for the lot." She looked at the meadowsweet again. "If they're as clean as this, there's more."A mark for ten days' work was less than the Luna had paid for one of her ribbons. I thanked her and meant it.

Adrian's POVThe King made me Lord Marshal of the North in front of the whole court. It was an honor more than a command, but it came with a house on the river, an estate below the Saltmarsh and a procession of chests that the palace stewards carried into Duskmere all afternoon while my mother stood in the hall and counted them.By evening I had shaken so many hands that mine ached. In the Ashlands a man told you to your face that he wanted your horse. In Silverkeep they bowed and praised my courage and asked after my father's health, and I could hear their hearts quicken whenever my eyes passed over their daughters.I went back to my rooms to change and found two maids waiting there, in new ribbons, with their hair brushed loose."The Luna sent us, my lord, to see to anything you need.""I need you to go back to her," I said. "There must be work in the kitchens."They went red to the ears and fled. My mother came in five minutes later, as I had known she would."If those two don't pl