"They're here—small hands, hurry!" the kitchen maid shouted as hoofbeats stopped outside. "Prince, you are home!" Nanny Zhao's voice broke into a high, pleased squeal before she smoothed her face with two trembling palms. I kept my back to the eaves and watched the gate through the sliver of shadow. Snow dusted the soldiers' shoulders and the tassels on their spears. They made a neat, loud line and then fell quiet as the main horse stepped forward. "Who is with him?" I whispered. "Silence, child," the girl beside me hissed. "Don't you know? Watch." The prince dismounted with the slow, certain motion of a man still used to being obeyed. His coat was rough with travel, his sleeve stained dark at the wrist. One side of his cheek bore a pale, jagged line that cut through his beard like a scarred map. He did not smile. He led a woman by the elbow. She moved like someone who had learned how to keep her hands small and her head lower than her shoulders. Her robe was too warm for the thinness of the snow, and it fell in folded layers around a shape at her middle. "Master—who is she?" I mouthed. Nanny Zhao drifted forward on a current of noise and invitation. "Prince Gu," she said, beaming, "you return at last." He inclined his head to Nanny Zhao, the nod that cut the space between command and courtesy. No one else dared to move first