“Hey! Long time no sssee! I didn’t know you were coming tonight!”

“Yeah, well, you know, work. Finally got some time off.”

When I got back to Caltrop Pond for a long, relaxing, well-earned soak, I found a pair of spirits chattering away on one of the rocks. The first was a bamboo viper, a type of blindingly bright green snake that lived in – what else? – bamboo forests. The second was a whistling duck.

“Work, huh…?” asked the bamboo viper in a meaningful tone.

The whistling duck flipped his wings in a shrug. “You know how it is. Travelers need robbin’.”

“Uh huh….” The bamboo viper pointed her tail at a glass bottle next to his webbed feet. “Watcha bring tonight?”

At the question, the duck demon puffed up his chest and spread his wings. “This, my friend, is a delicacy the likes of which you’ve never tasted! The finest apple brandy, imported at great expense and risk to life and limb from North Serica!” Then he folded his wings and settled back down. “At least, that’s what the merchant we got it from claimed. He might have been trying to convince us not to kill him, though. Anyway, how about you? What’d you bring?”

The bamboo viper, I now noticed, also had a bottle looped inside her coils. “Ah, this? Just ale from Mistress Shay’s latest batch. She always gives me sssome as thanks for eating her rat problem.”

“Ah.” The duck demon was clearly unimpressed by Mistress Shay’s brewing skills. “Well, His Majesty will like that.”

She rolled her eyes. “His Majesty likes anything alcohol.”

With a chuckle, the duck demon bowed and swept out a wing dramatically. “Then we shouldn’t keep him waiting, should we? After you, milady.”

Clutching their alcoholic offerings, the two dove into the water.

Curious, I lumbered onto the rock and stuck my head over the edge, peering after them. Sure enough, the bottom of the pond blazed with light, turning the caltrop rosettes as translucent as good jade. A flourish of notes from a flute startled me, nearly making me lose my balance. A recorder joined in, then a lute, and then a whole orchestra of instruments I couldn’t identify. Together, they soared up and up and up in a crescendo until, right at the peak, a drum boomed and cut them all off.

Silence, for the space of one breath.

Then the music crashed back to the accompaniment of drunken cheers, and the melody was drowned out by a pounding beat that vibrated through my shell and made me itch to dance. Jumping into the water, I swam straight to the water court entrance. Here the drums were deafening, and the whole tunnel was lit by blinding rushlights. Shouts and laughter poured out of the audience chamber, which was packed with bobbing, swaying, dancing spirits.

I ached to join them. I loved dancing. And I hadn’t attended a party, let alone a good party, in centuries. It wouldn’t be wise…but judging from the smell, every guest had brought alcohol. I’d give them another ten minutes, just to play it safe. Then they’d all be too drunk to tell whether one partyer were a spirit or a really weird turtle.

Ten minutes. I could wait ten minutes.

While I swam in circles to kill time, I thought back to other parties I’d attended – and one in particular.

New Year’s Eve in the palace in the City of Dawn Song, nearly five hundred years ago.

I’d arrived without an invitation, wearing a gown cut from silk that was obviously coarser than the fabrics on display here. (In my defense, I’d been out in the countryside, and Lady Fate hadn’t given me much time to prepare for my mission.) But that didn’t matter. The incongruity of my dress – and the lack of an invitation, for that matter – would only be noticed by someone with the spare attention to look.

I lingered in a corner of the courtyard, listening to the music and laughter that spilled out the windows, watching the carriages pull up and the guests disembark, and noting the mannerisms I would need to affect. When I was ready, I sallied forth. Floating up the marble staircase and fanning out my nine, luxuriant, auburn tails, I gave the doorman a serene smile.

“May I see your invitation, my lady?” he asked politely, as he had every guest before me, refraining from commenting on my lack of a retinue.

“Yes, of course.”

My smile broadened into something dazzling, and my voice wove a spell of sweetness and light around him. His eyes unfocused.

“Thank you, my lady. Please enjoy the party.”

With a dreamy expression, he stepped back and waved me inside. Taking small, smooth steps so that my skirts and filmy scarf wafted around me, I glided into the main reception hall.

It was a scene out of a painting. Bright lights, brilliant silks, flashing gems. Lavish food and drink and musicians playing in the background while courtiers danced and politicked and composed poetry to celebrate the might of the Serican Empire and the glory of His Imperial Majesty, Cassius of the Lang Dynasty, may he reign ten thousand years.

The Son of Heaven himself sat on a dais at the far end of the hall, his chimera on his right, his empress on his left, surveying his courtiers with a remote, regal smile. Accompanied by their attendants, a line of nobles awaited their chance to present their New Year wishes and gifts to their ruler.

So this was the man I was supposed to bring down. Well, at least he was handsome. Heaven forbid I should have to waste my time on ugly people.

I didn’t approach him, not yet. Instead, I drifted around the party, exchanging fake smiles and insincere greetings and getting a sense of the alliances and rivalries among the courtiers. Most were human, with a smattering of mages, although perhaps a third were spirits of various sorts, all in human form to show off their transformation powers. At the center of the dance floor twirled a pretty young lady in a dress the yellow of autumn foliage – a gingko tree spirit. Next to the buffet table, a gnarled old man leaned on a staff, a small white dog at his side – the spirits of a pine tree and the mushroom that grew on its root. There were also cat spirits, dog spirits, snakes, hedgehogs, songbirds, even a pheasant who seemed to command particular respect. Even before they saw my tails, the other spirits recognized me as a fox, while the mages were absently scanning everyone in their vicinity and also identified me at once. However, I wasn’t expecting anyone to care what I was, and no one did.

Still trying to decide which group to insinuate myself into first, I wandered over to a clump of courtiers who were standing next to a display of pine boughs and dwarf orange trees. They were sipping plum wine and debating the merits of various poets. All long dead, but the seriousness with which they discussed the poets’ themes and careers made my ears perk up. This was promising. There had to be a secondary, potentially traitorous conversation concealed under all that literary criticism. No one could possibly care that much about how two different poets used the same mountain to symbolize opposing concepts.

“But if you look at the course of his life,” one human man was arguing, “it’s obvious that he went through a period of disillusionment with worldly concerns, especially politics.”

“You’re assuming he wrote that poem during that period, though,” pointed out a human woman. “There’s no evidence that he did.”

A maple tree spirit objected, “Except that we know from poems that are dated that he favored mountain imagery then.” And then she started reciting what sounded like his whole catalogue.

Hmm. Maybe it really was just a literary debate. Making a note of the courtiers’ faces so I could investigate them later, I kept going.

In the shadow of a pillar lurked a clump of humans with that sallow, hunched look of scholars who preferred to sit behind their desks rather than on horses. Their robes were even lower quality than mine and overwhelmed them, as if they rarely wore anything so elaborate and didn’t quite know what to do with the excess cloth. Dared I hope they were government officials…?

When I got closer, I realized that it was even better. Bands of colored silk hung under the humans’ chins and draped down their backs nearly to the floor. These were Imperial Mages!

Most humans couldn’t perform magic any more than they could sing, dance, or act, but a handful had a knack for it and an even smaller fraction received training in how to use it. Or, rather, brute-force it. Unlike spirits, humans weren’t magical by nature, so their idea of spells was shoving their will at the world to reshape it. This meant that mages needed to have a very strong sense of who they were and what they wanted and, as a result, tended to hold very definite opinions. They weren’t the most pleasant people to deal with, but they were among the most manipulable. For all that they believed they were governed by logic alone, they were just as susceptible to flattery as the average person.

Perhaps more so, because they believed it their due.

One Imperial Mage was waving his baggy sleeves and proclaiming, “The man’s an idiot! Everything he puts out is trash! Tell your protégée to pick better research collaborators!”

The woman he was addressing gave him a thin smile. “You’re welcome to tell her that yourself.”

From the way her neighbors smirked, the protégée in question wasn’t going to appreciate interference in her research direction.

Another woman cut in, “Did you attend the last colloquium? Did you see him run up to the speaker and tell him that everything he’d ever said was a lie?”

The Imperial Mages all laughed and started swapping stories about this very entertaining-sounding colleague.

Before they could get too carried away, the last man intervened. “Did everyone get their year-end reports submitted on time?”

What a killjoy!

The question sobered the mages at once. They had, but apparently they hadn’t enjoyed the process much.

Well, mage politics was fascinating and I’d find a way to exploit it later, but I’d heard enough for now. Pattering forward, I beamed at them, making the men preen and the women blush.

“Why, you must be Imperial Mages!” I cried, letting my eyes sweep over the loops of silk at their necks. “What an honor to meet you!”

The mages shifted slightly, looking to the last man. He stepped forward and bowed. Now that he was out of the shadows, I realized while his robes’ design was the same, the silk was significantly better and the embroidery much more skilled. It almost excused him being a killjoy. Almost.

“You do us too much credit, my lady spirit,” he said in a tone that bordered on convincing. “Are you new to the capital?”

His sharp eyes had already taken in the quality of my dress. This mage, at least, had some social experience.

I beamed harder, although without putting magic into it. “I am, honored mage!” Before he could start probing as to where I’d come from and whom I knew here and how I’d obtained an invitation to this party, I swirled towards the others. “I’ve always been fascinated by your work!” I enthused, letting them fill in their own antecedents for the “your.” “What are the latest research developments at the Imperial Academy?”

After a brief babble, the woman with the difficult protégée won out and started rambling about her latest spell. Or something like that. Her sentences were so packed with technical jargon that I couldn’t make heads or tails of them. I was making awed noises and searching for an exit when a servant prostrated himself in front of the killjoy. Now, that caught my attention – and all the other mages’. The woman’s voice cut off.

“My lord,” said the servant, “His Imperial Majesty wishes to see you. And you as well, my lady,” he told me.

I lifted one hand to my chest, feigning elegant shock. “Me? But I’m just a lowly spirit. I’ve never – I don’t know how to – I couldn’t possibly speak to the Son of Heaven himself!”

The killjoy shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. You’re not allowed to speak to him unless he gives you permission anyway. Just answer his questions if he asks any. He probably just wants to get a better look at you.”

With a nod at his colleagues, he followed the servant towards the dais.

“Uh….” After casting a final, helpless glance at the other mages and receiving their encouraging nods, I hurried after him.

Behind us, the mages were scooting around the pillar for a better view – and they weren’t the only ones. All around the room, courtiers were subtly re-angling themselves so they could see and lowering their voices so they could hear.

When we reached the dais, the killjoy prostrated himself. I sank down next to him.

“Cousin!” cried the emperor. “Come, there’s no need for that, Marcius! Rise! You too, my lady!”

Heaving himself back to his feet, Lord Marcius bowed his head and waited for permission to speak. I followed suit, clasping my hands in front of me and keeping my eyes demurely downcast.

“How are you enjoying the party, Marcius?” asked the emperor. “How did you manage to meet the most beautiful lady in the room?” And he burst into laughter.

When I peeked up through my lashes at the empress, she was smiling a gentle smile at the middle distance.

“I – ” began the killjoy with an awkward glance at her, but the emperor interrupted.

“What is your name, spirit? You may look at Us.”

I obeyed, pretending to be nervous. “My name is Flos Piri, Your Imperial Majesty.”

His eyes swept over me, from the ornamented loops of hair on my head all the way down my dress and out to the tips of my tails. He never registered the quality of the silk, although I was pretty sure the empress did.

“Welcome to the City of Dawn Song, Flos Piri. We hope to see you at future court gatherings.”

That was as clear a command as any. Concealing my triumph, I stammered out my thanks and withdrew so the Son of Heaven could tease his cousin some more.

And that was how I met Cassius.