Chapter 1

I listened from behind the door, itching to rush out again and send him sprawling with all four limbs in the air.

My parents sat in the hall, staring at each other in horror.

“If you take out their bones… will they live?”

Mother’s voice shook.

The monk beamed. “I have secret arts to keep their bodies safe. When your youngest turns eighteen, cut out the bones and put them back into your eldest daughter and your son.”

“Then their sickly bones will be gone. Your eldest daughter will rise like the sovereign moon, and your son will be the richest man in the realm. Such good fortune for your family.”

He took a short knife from his sleeve. It looked quite ordinary. He stuck a yellow talisman to it; the paper gave a faint flash, then vanished.

He held it out to Father.

Father’s fingers trembled. He did not take it. “But… Jiang Li is my daughter too.”

Seeing him hesitate, Mother snatched up the knife. “I only want my eldest girl and my boy to be well!” she said through her teeth. “If Jiang Li turns into a beast, I’ll keep her for the rest of her life!”

Father let out a long sigh and lowered his eyes.

The monk’s gaze shifted to the crack in the door where I was hiding. A smile played about his lips.

I made a face at him, turned, and ran.

Even after I’d run a long way, my heart was still thumping. That little song kept going round and round in my head.

“No future as a human. As a beast, she’ll have plenty of room to roam.”

I was human. How could I become a beast?

Some eminent monk! He was a wicked monk, a charlatan, come to wheedle a bowl of porridge out of my parents.

Ours was a marquis’s household. An ancestor had won the title on horseback. Father was the third generation to hold it.

Hereditary it might be, but that title was worth less with every passing year.

We had neither real power nor imperial favor. We barely held our place among the capital’s nobility on the scraps of respect left over from our ancestors.

Father was mild and slow to act, in office as in life.

He never pushed forward for anything other men fought tooth and nail to get.

He did not scheme, seek powerful patrons, bring gifts to curry favor, or join factions to climb the ranks.

His colleagues laughed at him for being weak. His superiors thought him dull.

He didn’t care. After court, he came home and watched my sister practice calligraphy over a cup of tea, then changed the dressings on my brother’s injuries.

Other families were different.

The head of the Cui family had been only a sixth-rank official when they sent their daughter into the palace.

Within two years, Master Cui had risen all the way to the upper third rank. More carriages crowded his gates by the day, and all the capital looked on him with newfound respect.

The Wangs, the Lis, the Zhaos—which of them wasn’t doing everything possible to get ahead?

They attached themselves to the powerful or arranged marriages.

They presented memorials and beautiful women before the dragon throne, and prospered in a blaze of glory.

Only our house was quiet.

There was no song or dance in that great marquis’s residence, only my sister coughing and my brother howling as his bones were set.

The windows gleamed and the rooms were spotless, but the smell of medicine hung over everything. Even the courtyard peonies looked too tired to bloom.

I had seen Mother go to the temple every month to burn incense and pray for my sister and brother’s health. Her silver poured out like water, with nothing to show for it.

I had seen Father invite all sorts of holy men to draw talismans and chant spells. After all the fuss, my sister still coughed and my brother’s bones still broke.

I loved them too. But they could never go out. No one could take me on a spring outing, or carry me on their back to fly a kite.

I didn’t understand what that wicked monk meant by the sovereign moon, but it sounded like a good life.

Being the richest around, that I understood. It meant money.

With money, I could buy sweet cakes on East Street, a Monkey King mask on West Street, and lanterns in South Long Lane. I’d get some for my sister and brother too. That would make them smile.