About the author

Elizabeth Lim grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she was raised on a hearty diet of fairy tales, myths, and songs. Before becoming an author, Elizabeth was a professional film and video game composer, and she still tends to come up with her best book ideas while writing near a piano. An alumna of Harvard College and the Juilliard School, she now resides in New York with her husband and daughters.

Other books by Elizabeth include Spin the Dawn and Unravel the Dusk, the New York Times bestseller So This is Love, and Reflection.

Legends of Lor’yan

The Blood of Stars

Spin the Dawn

Unravel the Dusk

Six Crimson Cranes

Six Crimson Cranes

The Dragon’s Promise

Her Radiant Curse

A Forgery of Fate

A FORGERY OF FATE

ELIZABETH LIM

www.hodderscape.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2025 by Hodderscape

An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton Limited

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © Elizabeth Lim 2025

The right of Elizabeth Lim to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Map copyright © 2025 by Virginia Allyn

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Hardback ISBN 9781399714822

Trade Paperback ISBN 9781399714839

ebook ISBN 9781399714853

Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.hodderscape.co.uk

To my favorite girls, a book about three sisters

for three sisters: Charlotte, Olivia, and Penelope

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Chapter One

Mama used to fancy herself the best fortune teller in Gangsun—that is, until Baba disappeared at sea.

Her talent was in reading faces. She could divine someone’s lifespan from the texture of their hair, whether they’d be faithful lovers from the way their mouth slanted. Too often she’d go up to strangers and pinch their earlobes, for that was her way of gauging how prosperous they’d become. Mama loved nothing more than money.

With such a gift, you’d think that Mama would’ve married the richest merchant she could find. Certainly not Baba—a middling trader with blue hair, grand dreams, and nine coppers to his name. But no matter how my sisters and I begged, neither would ever tell the story. All Mama would say, with a sniff, was “Foreign faces are harder to read. Had I known your father would chase adventure over riches—”

“She’d still have picked me,” Baba finished for her one autumn morning. His eyes twinkled. “Your mother knew from the start what I was.”

“A pirate,” Mama muttered. “A thief.”

“An adventurer,” I said at the same time as Baba. With a grin, he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And once, in another life, your mama was one too.”

I stared at him, convinced that he was telling tales. I couldn’t imagine my prim mama with her hair down, let alone chasing after bandits or swilling rice wine with sailors.

She saw my skepticism and waved it away. “Those were desperate times. Before I had my three girls.”

I longed to know more, but Baba and Mama exchanged a look that drew the shutters over their past.

Mama picked me up and set me on her lap, her voice softening. “Thankfully, your fate will be different, Tru.” She touched the mole by the right corner of my mouth. “This means you’ll never go hungry, and you’ll have a gift for making coin.”

“Will she have a gift for saving it too?” Baba teased. He eyed the silk shawl draped around Mama’s shoulders and the new bangles at her wrists. “Because her mother certainly doesn’t.”

Mama glared, but her mouth betrayed the smallest of smiles. “Being married to a Balardan makes it harder to earn people’s trust,” she retorted. Her gaze raked over Baba’s hair, which shimmered dark blue under the summer sun. “I need to look presentable in case you scare away all my customers.”

“Your daughter isn’t a customer. She didn’t ask for her fortune to be read.”

“I don’t mind,” I said quickly. “I like it when Mama reads me.”

Back then, it was the truth. I was young and gullible, and no one believed in Mama’s abilities more than I did.

Baba clicked his tongue. When Mama was out of earshot, he leaned down until we were eye to eye and said, “No one can see the future, Tru. Not even your mother.”

“But she says—”

“Mama likes to . . . pretend,” said Baba in his lowest voice.

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“You remember that old story about the fish and the dragon?” he asked, instead of explaining. “Fortune finds those who leap, my Tru. Whatever yours is—riches or love or adventure—you make it yourself. Nothing is predetermined. Not by the gods, not by the lines on your palm or the creases on your brow.” He counted my worry lines with his fingers. “Or else these lines mean you’ll have seventeen children.”

That made me giggle.

“See? It’s nonsense.” Baba tousled my hair. Then—as if by magic—he drew out a wooden ship from behind my collar.

“Oh,” I breathed as Baba dropped the ship onto my palm. It was as small as a teacup and still in a rough state, but the smoothly sanded sails and the outline of a magnificent phoenix along the bow gave me glimpses of its potential. “It’s going to be your finest yet.”

“I think so too,” Baba agreed.

Art and the sea, those were what my father loved most, after his family. When he was away, he carved us trinkets of marvels he’d encountered on his travels: monkeys and tigers, shadow puppeteers, bridges cast like crescent moons—my younger sisters and I had an entire collection under our bed. This was the first time he’d shown me something that he was still working on.

“When it’s finished, I want you to paint it for me.”

My eyes went wide. “Me?”

“Yes. Falina says you steal into my cupboard when I’m not here. The one with all my paints and brushes.”

Demon turds, of course she’d given me away. I grumbled to myself, wishing my younger sister had never been born.

I wanted to deny the stealing, but we had a rule in our household, and that was never to lie to family. “I only did it once,” I admitted. “Maybe twice.”

“Why?”

“I was curious. I saw a painting of the Twin River Mountains inside Aunt Lili’s bakery, and they looked like two pears next to each other. She said she bought it for thirty jens.” I waved my arms. “Thirty jens! I wanted to tell her I could draw them better, for twenty.”

“Could you?”

The corners of my mouth twitched into a smile. My pride would be the end of me. “Yes.”

A hearty laugh rumbled out of Baba’s throat. “That’s just what I wanted to hear. Balardans have art in their souls, Tru. I was hoping one of my girls might paint.” He unrolled the leather case he kept on his belt, and his fingers danced across a set of carving knives before they landed on a slender paintbrush. “Here, to get you started.”

I held the brush between two fingers, surprised by its lightness. It was white and pointed, like the tip of a horse’s tail, and the handle was made out of bamboo. I’d seen a dozen like it in the marketplace, but that Baba had bought it for me made it the most special in the world.

“The hair’s made out of weasel,” Baba said, looking a little sheepish. “Not very elegant, still it makes for the sharpest lines. You’ll need that in a magic paintbrush.”

“A magic paintbrush?”

“A game I played when I was a boy. I’d paint anything I could dream up: flying sailboats, birds that could tell stories, and lanterns that never went out.” He leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially, “Then I’d say, ‘Magic paintbrush,’ and they’d all come to life.”

“Truly?” I breathed.

“Well, not truly,” Baba confessed. “It’s a game of imagination. A game where the only rules and limits come from here.” He tapped my forehead.

I exhaled with wonder. “Then how do you know who wins?”

“The best games have no winners or losers.”

I pictured playing with my sisters. All Fal would wish for were dresses and jewels, and Nomi—my thoughts turned tender—she’d want a mountain of books. My youngest sister was a genius; at four years old, she could already read better than Fal and me.

“Use the brush to paint what’s real, or paint what isn’t,” said Baba. “So long as painting it makes you happy, that is the best practice.”

My heart swelled. “Thank you, Baba.”

“My paints are yours now.” He brought the wooden ship forward. “Think about which colors you’ll use on it. One day, if fortune permits, it’ll be a real ship that we’ll sail together.”

“If fortune permits?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “We make our own fortune, remember?”

He laughed. “Indeed, Tru. So we will.”

In the weeks that followed, “magic paintbrush” quickly became my favorite game. Every afternoon, my sisters and I played while Mama read foreheads and destinies in the kitchen.

Nomi adored our games. Fal did too, though she’d never admit it. She’d hover over my shoulder as I brought to life the talking fish and singing trees from Nomi’s stories, casting a critical eye on every stroke. Then at night, we’d squabble over the ship I’d paint for Baba. Fal wanted it to be pink, Nomi purple. In my dreams, it was always blue—like the endless sky over the sea—with phoenix wings that were powered by starlight. As soon as I grew up, I’d sail it with Baba and take on the world.

Little did I know, fortune had other ideas for me.

It started with my hair. Soon after my tenth birthday, it changed color overnight. “Bandit blue,” my mother hissed when she saw. A damning sight anywhere in the city—I might as well have been born with three heads and an extra pair of arms.

Mama was devastated. She sought potions to turn my hair black again, but magic was expensive and hard to come by, so instead she’d make all manner of concoctions for me to drink.

Nothing worked. No tonic, no dye, not even a hat could fully hide the electrifying blue of my hair, and cutting it only made it grow back faster. Secretly, I loved it. Unlike Falina, who’d inherited both Mama’s and Baba’s best features, I wasn’t worth looking at twice except for my hair. The whispers it got aggrieved Fal, who wished she didn’t have anything to do with me. Naturally, that only made me love it more.

By the time I was thirteen, its color was so bold Baba joked that if he could make it into a dye, we’d be rich enough to buy a house on Oyang Street, where only the wealthiest merchants owned manors.

“How can you jest about a thing like this?” lamented Mama. “Her marriage prospects are ruined.”

“Wonderful,” said Baba. “She can come sailing with me.”

Mama stared at him, aghast. “Maybe in Balar, you barbarians would make an adventurer out of a girl, but here—”

“Here in Gangsun, a woman can’t run a business without her husband’s permission,” Baba cut in. “She can’t even own her home. Things will be different for my girls.”

“Yes, they will marry rich,” said Mama, who always had to have the last word.

They didn’t talk about my hair again because, a few days later, Baba announced that he was going away. He had accepted an urgent voyage that would take him halfway across the world. More than that, he couldn’t tell us. But we were used to his secret assignments.

“Will you sail across the Taijin Sea?” Nomi asked while Baba folded his warmest coats into his traveling chest. She had half a fried cruller—left over from breakfast—in one hand and chomped on it while she spoke. “I hear there’s dragons there. If you see one, will you make friends with it? Promise, Baba. I’d love nothing more than to know a dragon in my lifetime.”

Baba chuckled. “I’ve sailed the Taijin thirteen times, Nomi, and never once have I come across a dragon. But if I do, I’ll certainly send it your tidings.”

“Send it this too.” Nomi reached into Mama’s pan for the last cruller. She inhaled the smell of it with her eyes closed, then presented it to Baba as if it were her greatest prize. “The best friendships are made over food.”

Baba hugged her then, and I joined in too. Even if I had a hundred sisters, Nomi would always be my favorite.

“Where are you going, Baba?” Falina pressed. “Must it always be secret?”

“It’s only a secret because I haven’t yet received the details of the assignment,” replied Baba. “All I know is a treasure’s been found in the North, and I’m to transport it to the capital.”

“How long will you be away?” I asked.

“I should hope to return no later than winter.”

“Winter!” Falina was sullen, and for once I couldn’t blame her. “That’s months from now.”

“Just in time for the snow,” replied Baba. “And don’t we love snow—my pine, my plum, my bamboo?”

At Baba’s calling, my sisters and I bit back further protests. The names were inspired by his favorite painting of three trees covered in snow: Nomi was bamboo, Falina was plum, and I was pine. In spite of the cold, these trees didn’t just survive; they thrived. A way of reminding us to be strong.

“No more long faces,” Baba said. “Only your mother is smiling.”

Mama was elated, which anyone could have guessed from breakfast. Usually our morning fare was watery vegetable broth and burnt rice, but today a feast awaited us. There was fish congee with all the toppings—chives and dried shrimp and salted eggs—and an enormous pan of fried crullers, her specialty. Mama only made crullers when she foresaw good tidings in our future.

“This is the trip that’s going to change everything,” she’d said, dropping a cruller into Nomi’s bowl of congee. “I can feel it.” After we ate, she gathered us around Baba. “Come, ask your father what presents you’d like him to bring back.”

“Pearls and opals,” Falina blurted, always having to go first. “A new silk dress and matching jacket for every day of the week, and slippers! Embroidered slippers with upturned toe caps.” She paused and glanced at me. “Are you painting this, Tru? I don’t want Baba to forget.”

Fal’s favorite pastime was getting on my nerves. Trying not to roll my eyes, I hovered my brush over the precious sheet of linen parchment I’d saved for today. “Is that all?” I asked, starting a portrait of Falina with opal earrings and a pearled headdress. I was tempted to paint all the dresses tattered and stained but resisted. Least favorite sister or not, it was bad luck to draw unhappy things with my magic paintbrush.

“Add a bronze mirror too,” she said, “like the princesses in Jappor have.”

“How do you know what the princesses in Jappor have?” asked Baba.

“Mama told me.”

“Naturally she did.” Baba exchanged a smile with our mother. “Mirrors are expensive, Falina, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Baba.” Fal kissed him on the cheek. Next came Nomi, whose request was the same each time.

“I should like a sack full of books,” she said in as low and serious a voice as her eight years could manage. “And if you can’t find a dragon, I will settle for a mermaid.”

“One with waves of green hair and a violet tail painted of twilight?” I already knew.

“And pearls underneath her eyes,” added Nomi excitedly. “I read that mermaids cry pearls. The purest pearls in the sea.”

“That sounds painful,” remarked Falina.

“Not if you’re a mermaid,” Nomi said. “It’s as natural as bees making honey.”

While Fal clucked her tongue at our sister’s romantic notions, I humored Nomi and added a dragon and a mermaid to my painting. The paper was getting crowded, thanks to all of Fal’s dresses, but I was rather proud of my dragon. I didn’t know what dragon scales and noses were supposed to look like, so I’d drawn a series of uneven ovals that ended up looking more like teardrops, and a straight and proud nose—the sort Mama said resembled a waterfall of money—and a tail that fanned out like a flame.

“I don’t think dragons have legs like that,” observed Fal with a wrinkled nose. “He looks like he’s walking, not swimming.”

“I like him,” said Nomi, taking my side. “He looks regal. Almost real.”

He did look real, except I hadn’t given him pupils yet. Baba said that a dragon’s eyes were its spirit, and to always add them last when drawing a creature as unpredictable as a dragon—lest it leap off the page and whisk me away.

“Don’t forget to leave space for your wish, Tru,” Baba reminded me. “What would you like?”

I didn’t have to think long. “I’d like you to finish carving this,” I replied, passing him the small wooden ship he’d made for me years ago. “I’m ready to paint it.”

Baba smiled, but his eyes turned wistful as he took the piece from my hands.

“Did I say something wrong?” I asked worriedly.

“No. No.” He slipped the wooden ship into his bag. “I’m just thinking how much taller my girls will be the next time I see them.”

With that, he scooped Nomi into his arms, mussed my blue hair, and patted Falina’s braid, then slid his arm around Mama’s waist. She made a face, but when she thought we weren’t looking, she scooted closer to him.

My painting was done. I’d drawn the five of us in front of Baba’s ship, with Fal’s dresses dancing in the air and Nomi’s dragon watching skeptically, and an extra-large pan of fried crullers in the middle for good luck. Together, we blew it dry. Then in unison, as if we were priestesses blessing a charm, my sisters and I chanted, “Magic paintbrush.”

One by one, Baba embraced each of us. When it came my turn, I wouldn’t let go.

“Never mind the wooden ship,” I said into his ear softly. “Or Fal’s dresses and Nomi’s mermaids. Only promise that next time we can all come with you.”

Baba cocked his head to the side, his eyes twinkling. “Are you sure Fal would want that?”

“Nomi and me, then.” I smiled, tucking the ends of his green scarf over his shoulder. “She can look out for dragons while I count our treasure.”

“You are my treasure,” Baba said, kissing my forehead. “You and your sisters and your mother.” He touched my hair tenderly. “And this will be the last time I leave my treasures behind.”

Then he left for the port, his traveling chest under one arm and leather satchel swung over the other, a corner of my painting peeking out of the half-open flap. Nomi and I ran to the window, watching him braid through the crowds on the road. I was grateful that his Balardan blood made him tall, so I could track him until he turned the corner.

When he did, I closed the window shutters and started on the dishes. Baba had left us dozens of times before. There was no reason to think this time would be any different.

How wrong I was.

Four months later, on the gray and wintry morning before New Year’s, a pot shattered in the kitchen.

Nomi heard it first. She was the lightest sleeper of us three, and she jolted up, kicking me awake. “What was that?”

I stilled, listening to the aftermath of the sound. Silence.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back. “Maybe it was a rat.”

Nomi let out a silent shriek. “A rat?”

“They’re out to celebrate New Year’s Eve,” I teased, sitting up to peer out the window. There were lanterns hanging off the larches, and overnight, blue waterbells had bloomed. Star shaped with yellow bells, they were the first envoys of spring—and my favorite flowers. “Come see, all the shophouses put up rat banners. Tomorrow it’ll be their year.”

Nomi rubbed her eyes. “I hate the year of the rat.”

“Don’t say that. It’s the first of a new cycle.”

“In Balar there’s no rat year. Only numbered years. Makes more sense for keeping track, don’t you think?”

Nomi, so young and already so regrettably practical.

She jerked her head, suddenly sitting up in the bed. “I hear Mama.”

So did I. “You stay here where it’s warm,” I told her as I started climbing over Falina—who wore cotton buds in her ears and could sleep through a monsoon. “I’ll go see.”

Inside the kitchen, I found Mama sobbing. At first I thought it was over the broken pot of waterbells, the mangled flowers and orange clay pieces scattered across the tiled floor.

Then I saw the letter in her hand.

My heart sank and sank until I could hardly breathe. All I could croak out was one word: “Baba.”

I’d never forget how the air leaked out of Mama as she spun to look at me. How the muscle in her jaw jumped and her lips pinched together tight, as if she wished, for my sake, that I were still asleep. She sagged against the wall, and the letter dropped from her hand. I caught it before it fell into the puddle of dirt.

The paper was wet at the creases, the bright red ink smeared from old rain. The characters in Baba’s name were missing a few strokes—bureaucrats never knew how to translate his name to A’landan—but even so it was clear enough: to the family of arban saigas.

The rims of my eyes were burning, and the ink blurred as I read. Baba’s ship had been caught in a storm. Most of the crew had survived, thanks to him. But Baba was lost.

Lost. The word exploded in my head, and suddenly I felt like I was swimming in the pages of Nomi’s dictionary, trying to find a meaning of the word that wasn’t missing, vanished, gone.

Dead.

No, no, it couldn’t be.

“Is Baba . . .” I couldn’t say it. My knees buckled, and a strangled cry tore out of my throat instead. Mama covered my mouth with her hand.

“Don’t wake your sisters. Let them sleep a little while longer.”

It was too late for that. Nomi was behind the door, her jacket half-buttoned as she slipped out of the shadows. She had heard everything. Falina too.

Falina scooped Nomi up in her arms. My youngest sister’s lips had turned bluish, and she clutched at her chest as she coughed, her lungs convulsing with shock.

Tears welled in Fal’s eyes as she patted our sister’s back. “Stop it, Nomi.”

Not knowing what else to do, I reached for Nomi’s hand, wiped her nose with my sleeve. It’ll be all right, I wanted to tell her. Fal and I will take care of you.

But the words wouldn’t come. Only tears.

I held my sisters, desperately rewriting the morning in my head. A morning where Baba came back like he always did. With presents, with little carved animals and sweet treats wrapped in banana leaves, and new stories. Any moment, he’d stride through the door.

But as the seconds passed, it became clear that each scene I envisioned was an illusion. A fanciful dream and nothing more. Nothing could undo the stinging reality of Mama slumped against the wall, Baba’s name in red smearing the crescents of her fingernails. Baba, dead.

That was when Mama blurted, “Your father isn’t dead.”

Nomi gasped for air. “What?”

“He isn’t dead,” Mama repeated.

Fal looked up, unsure. “But that letter . . . Baba . . . Baba’s lost at sea.”

“Lost only means he hasn’t been found yet,” said Mama. “I’m the best fortune teller in Gangsun. That means I’m practically the best in the world.”

“Can you find him?” Nomi dared ask.

“Yes,” she said. “But I’ll need money first.” Her jaw tightened. “Your father didn’t leave us much of that.”

Her tone was thick, not with resentment but with worry. This was a side of Mama I’d never seen before. She put on her gloves, picked up her basket. “Sweep the floor. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Where are you going?”

Mama hesitated. “To buy more rice.”

I knew the rice was just a cover. She was going to confront Baba’s business partners for answers—and for money. Now that he wasn’t coming back . . .

Using my sleeve, I blotted Nomi’s tears. “Cry all you need,” I said, holding her close.

While Nomi sobbed in my arms, Mama disappeared out the door without another word.

Fal touched Nomi’s shoulder. Nomi was her favorite too, and the only time we came together was for her. “Didn’t you hear what Mama said?” she asked. “She’s going to find him.”

The conviction in Fal’s voice made Nomi look up.

“You . . . you really think he’s . . . he’s a-alive?” she asked us shakily. She sucked in a breath. “You think . . . you think Mama can find him?”

Fal looked at me, her bloodshot eyes reflecting the same desperate hope as Nomi’s.

The letter had gone limp on my lap, the coarse paper stained with tears. Red ink smudged my fingertips, the sight forever seared into my memory even after I wiped my hands clean.

No, I should have said. I don’t think she can.

That would have been the truth. But for the first time, I’d seen the cracks in Mama’s stony veneer. I knew she was pretending. She had to. For our sake.

And, seeing as our fortunes had turned to ash, I put on a brave face too.

“Yes,” I lied to my sisters. “I think she can.”

Chapter Two

Five Years Later

I was not in the mood to deal with thieves.

Any other day, I might have been flattered that they were after me. Not today.

I’d spent a month forging the painting rolled under my arm—mostly on an empty stomach—and I just wanted to sell the damned thing and stuff my face with something other than boiled cabbage and dumplings. Cabbage-stuffed dumplings no less. So help me, I was bringing four chickens home tonight. A bucket of fried noodles too.

If I sold the painting, it would be my biggest deal yet. The goal was to net at least three thousand jens. The auction house would get a third, and Gaari and I would split what was left. The agreement rankled me, but that had been our deal since we’d met, and much as I hated to admit it, he deserved the cut. It wasn’t easy to find a dealer who kept his word. Or whom I could trust . . . mostly.

Hunger panged my gut, and I tucked the scroll tighter under my arm while I swerved left, trying hard not to look back. Twenty paces behind trailed a trio of Gangsun’s most despicable art thieves.

To anyone else, they bore a passable resemblance to scholars. They wore the typical button-down jackets in joyless blue, with matching boat-shaped hats and yolk-yellow fans. But scholars didn’t usually stalk about the marketplace with veins bulging out of their necks and knives poking out of their sleeves. Needed more acting lessons, these thieves.

And Gangsun needs civil prefects who actually enforce the law, I grumbled in my head. I glared at the two ivory-collared prefects I passed, but they were too busy watching a cricket race to notice me, a pretend noblewoman trying not to trip over her menace of a dress.

In fairness, that was probably a good thing. Though the thieves behind me could have used a thrashing from Governor Renhai’s cane, I wasn’t exactly the most law-abiding citizen either. Come to think of it, my crimes would likely earn me more time in prison.

Trying to hurry, I hiked up my skirt and cursed Gaari’s advice to playact as a noblewoman today.

Your art’ll fetch a higher price if you look rich, he’d said.

He’d better be right.

Summers in Gangsun were usually cool, but not today. Sweat beaded along my hairline, and gods, my wig itched. But I didn’t dare scratch it. My own blue tresses were tucked under a high pile of black knots and braids that Fal had spent all morning wrestling together, pinned in place with peacock feathers and silk chrysanthemums.

“Are you sure this makes me look rich?” I’d asked my sister. “It’s piled like a tower of buns on my head. Weighs as much too.” I tried turning my neck, but I could hardly move without the wig threatening to slip off.

“Stop that!” cried Fal. “I haven’t finished pinning you down.”

As Fal inserted two more pins at my hairline, securing the wig, I got to work too. I sucked in my cheeks, painting generous contours so they’d look fuller and less hungry, thinned my thick brows with flesh-colored cream, and gave my nose a daintier bridge. Within minutes, I did look different. Well-fed and rich, hardly a peasant off the street. But my hair . . .

“Still think it looks like a pile of buns,” I muttered. “Lumpy buns. Don’t you think, Nomi?”

“For Saino’s sake, you’re a portrait artist,” huffed Fal before Nomi could reply. “Don’t you pay attention to anything? All the ladies of the first rank wear their hair like this.”

“Why would I want to look like a lady of the first rank?” I said, smearing away my mole with my brush. I painted a new one by my eye instead. “I’d be eighth rank at best.”

Fal stabbed a feather into my wig. Hard. As I winced, she replied, “Still rich. Everyone rich tries to look like they’re of the first rank.”

“Everyone rich also doesn’t wear shoes like that,” said Nomi, glancing up from her book to nod at my feet. “Should’ve kept to being a monk.”

My eyes flew down. Demon turds, she was right. Noblewomen didn’t wear flat straw shoes that could pass for a horse’s breakfast. They wore silk slippers with embroidered peonies, and little upturned toe caps whose purpose I had yet to understand.

“Can you let out the hem on my dress, Fal?” I asked.

“It’s not your dress,” she replied. “It’s the tailor shop’s, and I’m going to get fired if I’m late again—”

“I can’t go out like this. Unless you want to spend the rest of this year’s wages getting me out of prison.”

With a grumble, my sister set to work. “Just don’t get the dress dirty,” she warned when she’d finished. “Mrs. Su’s already suspicious about the tear I stitched up for you last time.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“And, Tru?” Fal crossed her arms, but the worry in her eyes was genuine. “Try not to get robbed—or killed.”

Oh, I was trying.

Sometimes I wished Fal were the one who had to do all this playacting. If there was one good thing about my younger sister, it was that she could charm a sparrow into a snake’s nest. I’d bet she could get the scoundrels behind me to escort her to the auction house—and pay for her palanquin ride home too. But deals were dangerous, and I wouldn’t put my sisters in danger. Mama did enough of that already these days.

I cut diagonally across the south market, shouldering my way through crowds of shoppers. Thank Amana, the auction house was just ahead.

A tremble shivered down my spine, and I threw a last glance back at the thieves, letting my eyes linger an extra beat on the one with long ears. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him.

Then I burst through the auction house gates. Inside was a long and serene courtyard with a large bronze tank in the center, the water within mirroring the heavens. As I passed my reflection, the effect of Fal’s wig and my makeup made me beam. I was practically unrecognizable. A proper lady of the eighth or ninth rank, so long as you didn’t look at my shoes.

I scanned the length of the courtyard for a hunched man with white hair. Gaari was always easy to see but even easier to hear. My ears picked out his deep and gravelly voice to my left, where he chatted garrulously with two art appraisers.

I tapped his shoulder, interrupting what sounded like an intense quarrel about where to get the best noodles in Gangsun. “I’m here.”

“Lady Vee?” said Gaari, squinting his one eye. He took a moment to recognize me. “Praise the Sages! I was worried you might have lost your way.”

He bowed, but under his breath, so I alone could hear, he muttered, “You’re late.”

“There were thieves,” I muttered back, pairing my response with a glare. Told you I should’ve been a monk.

Gaari didn’t waste a second. “Thieves?” he repeated, loud enough for all to hear. “Thieves, you say? No wonder you look so harried, Lady Vee.” He made a show of gesturing at the open doors. “Guards, be on the lookout for riffraff trying to infiltrate this fine establishment. Come, Lady Vee, let us find Mr. Jisan. He’s been waiting.”

Never one for subtlety, my friend Gaari. But it worked for him. The guards immediately straightened, and their attention flew to the street rather than lingering over my straw shoes and lack of identification papers. Swiftly—and Gaari’s legs were so long I almost had to skip to catch up—he led me down the corridor into the office where the art authenticator waited.

Like all government officials, Mr. Jisan was dressed in blue so dark it was nearly black. His face was long like that of a mantis, and he stooped over his desk, commanding a neat tower of pamphlets and scrolls, a myriad of glass disks for examining art at a close angle, and a hefty red seal for authentication.

I’d met him twice before, but he didn’t recognize me. Ironic, since his life’s work was to tell whether something was true or false. But to a man like him, it’d never occur that a woman might be clever enough to cheat him. That was the beauty of the scam Gaari and I had cooked up, and gods, it was satisfying.

“There, there,” Gaari said, patting the air above my shoulder as we entered the office. “You mean to say, they attacked your palanquin? The brazenness of those rascals!”

The act was on, and I bit down hard on my cheek to summon a nice, rosy flush. “The thieves followed me all the way from Hansun Park,” I said, lifting my voice an aggrieved octave. “I had to cut through the market to get here! And my poor maid . . . she was so terrified. She tried to lead them astray, but—”

“They still trailed you,” Gaari finished for me. “How terrifying. Were there many?”

I glanced at Mr. Jisan. His head was still bent over his work, but his hands weren’t moving anymore. He was listening. Considering.

Thieves meant there was interest in my scroll. Interest meant there was profit to be had, and who didn’t love profit?

“At least five,” I finally replied, voice shaking. “Maybe more. They’re still outside—dressed as scholars.”

“Ban Nu’s reprobates, I’d say.” With a harrumph, Gaari turned to Mr. Jisan. “Your Honor, will you send your guards to take a look? We cannot have thieves loitering about Gangsun’s oldest and most reputable auction house—”

Mr. Jisan set down his magnifying disk, the clatter of the glass swiftly cutting Gaari off. “No thief will dare enter an estate under the protection of Governor Renhai,” he said narrowly. “Your scroll, if it is indeed worth anything, will be quite safe here.”

“Oh, that is a relief, Your Honor.” I took out my fan and batted it. “Thank you for setting my mind at ease.”

“My graciousness has its limits.” Mr. Jisan cast me a sideways glance through thick spectacles, and I could tell that he’d judged me to be a lady of low rank. Hardly someone who’d bring in the prize of the day.

“You were due an hour ago,” he chided me, “and I am a busy man.”

“You’ll be glad you didn’t miss this one,” said Gaari, waving the scroll. “Lady Vee is an avid collector of portraits. She has one of the finest collections in West Gangsun.”

Mr. Jisan sniffed. “That wouldn’t be difficult to do. There’s scarcely any interest in portraits these days. Faces age, empires fall, but land is eternal.”

It was a quote from my least favorite Sage, who was responsible for the A’landan obsession with landscape painting. Mountains and rivers and forests and villages—that was what sold for thousands of jens these days. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what I specialized in forging.

“I’m fascinated by faces,” I replied, pretending not to hear, “and what they reveal about character.”

“Any street artist can paint a portrait,” Mr. Jisan said. “Few masters waste their time on the form. It is amateur work. Rarely sells for more than a few hundred—”

“Few masters indeed,” Gaari interrupted. “But those would include Master Lei Wing. Wouldn’t you like to see it before you dismiss it? It’s one of his originals. Dated the year he went missing.”

At that, Mr. Jisan perked up. Interest buzzed in his dark eyes, and he motioned for the scroll. “Show me.”

While Gaari carried forth the scroll, I backed into a corner and folded my skirt over my shoes. My wig itched again, and thanks to the sun flooding in from the windows, sweat was accumulating on my nose and under my arms. What a nuisance! Once this was done I was never playing a lady again.

I just hoped no one would hear how my heart hammered. This was the part of the transaction I hated the most. Either I’d end the day with a fat sack of coins in my pocket, or Mr. Jisan would ring that tiny bronze bell hanging at his side, and his guards would gleefully rumble in, hack off my right hand so I’d never paint again, and gouge out Gaari’s remaining eye. Then they’d take us to prison.

Enough, Tru, I chided myself. The authenticator hasn’t even begun the inspection yet!

Mr. Jisan unwrapped the scroll. First, he’d inspect the artist seal on the right corner of the paper. That was Gaari’s handiwork, and the real reason he earned half my cut. Gaari had a highly criminal talent for carving identification stamps, which explained the first rule he’d given me when we’d started working together: Only pick artists who are dead.

The dead couldn’t contest the unlawful use of their seals. Even then, I typically chose artists who’d died young, who’d been famous but not too famous. The profits were lower, but safer. Besides, I had no illusions about my skill as a painter—I was better than average, but nowhere near a master.

If you ever get caught, it’s both our necks at stake, Gaari never failed to remind me. And thick as it is, I’m rather fond of my neck.

I was fond of mine too, even the painful throb of its veins as yet another second passed without Mr. Jisan uttering a sound. Sometimes, a vivid imagination was a curse.

The second rule:

Don’t copy an artist’s work. Paint a new one in the same style.

That was common sense. I didn’t exactly have a personal library of classic art pieces, so I couldn’t have copied them stroke for stroke anyway.

And the third rule—

Mr. Jisan pushed his spectacles up his nose, disrupting my thoughts. “Hmm.”

My pulse spiked. “Hmm?” I echoed.

Gaari darted a warning glance in my direction. I’ll do the talking.

“Tell me about this work,” said Mr. Jisan.

“It’s a Lei Wing original,” Gaari replied. He folded the brocade cuffs of his sleeves while he spoke, then he leaned over the authenticator to give a more detailed introduction. “An early work, but he’s already begun to master the meticulous style and come into his own. Notice the signature clouds, the rolling hills in the distance? They embrace his hometown, which he missed dearly during his service to the emperor.”

Gaari said nothing about the actual subject of the portrait: a fisherman in the middle of netting a catfish. I’d modeled the face on an elderly basket weaver who’d taken daily residence on a corner of Dattu Street, deep in concentration as he worked. Someone I doubted Mr. Jisan would ever notice, even if he walked past him every day.

“What about the river?” queried the authenticator. “Lei Wing didn’t paint rivers like this. The motion, the composition—it’s all wrong.”

My eyes dipped to the water winding between the fisherman’s legs. Two catfish swam in the foreground, one light and one dark. Their eyes and tails were so lifelike they could have swum out of the parchment. But that wasn’t what made my breath catch. It was the serpentine shape of the river. If you stepped back, concentrated hard enough, it looked like a dragon, and the fish its two eyes.

My fingertips tingled, and I held them still by bunching up my skirt. “I see nothing amiss,” I lied. “I’ve seen plenty a Lei Wing piece with rivers like this before.”

“I haven’t,” said Mr. Jisan flatly.

“Which makes this piece all the more special,” said Gaari, wielding his silkiest tone. “Just look at the energy in the fisherman’s fingers. Those knuckles and knobs. Who else could paint hands like Lei Wing? And that expression on his face! Doesn’t he look like he might talk back at any moment? The piece will fetch a handsome price.”

I stared wretchedly at the river while Gaari covered up for me. Honestly, I barely remembered painting it. Then again, that always happened when I worked late and on an empty stomach. Such a simple mistake, but it could be the end of me.

I’d have to be more careful.

“The detail is there,” Mr. Jisan allowed. “The pose is similar to the Rice Farmer.”

“So it is,” Gaari said, twisting his lips. A token move that I knew all too well. With a sense of perfect timing, he started to roll up the scroll.

“What are you doing?” Mr. Jisan demanded. “I wasn’t finished inspecting—”

“I’m an honest man, sir,” said Gaari. “It’s occurred to me that you are less than enthusiastic about portraits, and I’m not here to waste anyone’s time. If you’d like to pass, simply say the word. I’ve an appointment with Lady Vee to speak with Mr. Wan, and we are running quite behind on time—”

“Mr. Wan?”

“Yes. He’s expressed interest in Lei Wing’s works many times. But we thought to approach you first, since you were so kind with the Chuli landscape that my associate sold you last time.”

“That was through you, Mr. Gaari?”

“Indeed.” Gaari bowed.

I held my breath as Mr. Jisan beckoned Gaari for my painting, and as he unrolled it onto his desk once more. I could feel my chest constricting, my lungs pinching and demanding new air, when at last Mr. Jisan gave a nod. “I’ll take it.”

“Wonderful news!” Gaari exclaimed. “You’ll not regret it—”

“But first,” said Mr. Jisan, waving Gaari away. “Enlighten me, Lady Vee. Just how did you acquire Master Lei Wing’s art?”

I closed my fan and lowered it to my side. The best lies were spun with threads of truth, and the reason Lei Wing was my favorite painter to forge was because . . .

“He went missing at sea,” I replied calmly. Like Baba. “My father dabbles in trade and encountered a merchant who’d smuggled Lei Wing’s last works out of Kiata. When I heard about this piece, I wanted it.”

“It is a rare find,” Mr. Jisan agreed, but his look was still hard. “Why are you selling it now?”

Were I Tru, I would have told him to go piss in a dragon’s beard. I needed money, obviously. My family had been surviving off boiled cabbage dumplings and I would have kissed a rat to sink my teeth into something that had actual spice and crunch. But I wasn’t Tru; I was Lady Vee.

And as Lady Vee, I raised my sleeve and wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of my eye. “My father is often at sea, and my mother is superstitious. She believes Lei Wing’s work will bring ill fortune to our family.”

It was the first time I’d liked Mr. Jisan, the way he rolled his eyes at my fictional mother. “Then rest assured, we will find the piece a proper home,” he said.

At last, Sages be praised, he signed the verification papers and stamped them with his seal.

“It is genuine,” Mr. Jisan told his subordinates. “Add it to the list for the next auction today.”

I was so relieved that I forgot not to scratch at my wig. Before anyone saw, I quickly blew away the stray piece of blue hair that fell over my eyes.

Gaari nearly had to push me out into the courtyard. I knew the routine; he wouldn’t leave with me. He would see the transaction through, then find me afterward.

“Well done,” he whispered. “Lunch is on me.”

Thank Amana, I was starving. “At Luk’s?” I asked hopefully.

“You fancy noodles?”

“I always fancy noodles.”

“Good. So do I.” Gaari grinned, his gray eye shining. “See you there.”