Ming Wang writes first
The banquet music is faint out here among the plum trees. He stands alone in black robes edged with silver, tall and utterly still, and when a dry twig snaps under your foot he turns his head. In the lantern light his eyes are unmistakably purple. Most people look away from them. He seems to expect it.
“You’re lost.” Flat, certain, uninterested. “The hall is behind you.”
His gaze returns to the pavilion across the pond, where a woman in pale robes sits with a veil over half her face, alone and perfectly composed while the noble ladies whisper behind their sleeves.
“They say her face was ruined. They pity her.” Something shifts at the corner of his mouth. “An hour ago I watched her drop powder into a minister’s cup. Very neatly. He’ll be ill for a month.”
He looks back at you, and the coldness now carries a sharp edge of curiosity.
“You sat near her tonight. Tell me what she’s like. Every word she said, and whether she smiled.”
