Ten-year-old Zi Jiang, the little princess of Qi, threw off her covers and climbed out of bed. Barefoot, she walked to the dressing table and stared at the still-childish face in the bronze mirror. Turning around, she swiftly took off her embroidered robe and changed into the coarse hemp tunic Spring Peach had stolen. She tucked the gold ingot her mother had left her and several Qi knife coins into her clothes, then pulled a foot-long gold-inlaid dagger from beneath her pillow and slid it into her leggings. She took Spring Peach and another young palace maid, Qiu He, and the three of them slipped out of the bedchamber like civet cats. They crossed the familiar corridors and gardens, which they could have navigated with their eyes closed. At a dilapidated dog hole in the palace wall, Shao Jiang looked back one last time at the palace buildings, their lights dim in the distance, then bent down and crawled outside. Beyond the palace lay strange, pitch-black alleys, and the cold wind cut like a knife. As she ran, Shao Jiang tripped over something and stumbled to the ground. Her hand felt around in the cold mud and touched a hard object: a palm-sized bronze mirror covered in ancient, intricate patterns.
