Evvy nudged Briar with a bony elbow. She had noticed the tucked corner of Rosethorn’s mouth, too, even if she hadn’t heard her comment.

The messenger got to his feet as gracefully as a dancer. Once he was upright, he reached into one wide sleeve and produced two scrolls, each bound with gold streamers and secured with what looked like green jade buckles. He touched them both to his forehead, then offered one to the God-King.

Does he think the God-King is going to run down the steps to get it? Briar wondered.

If the messenger did, he was disappointed. One of the generals who had been in residence in the palace all winter walked slowly down to the messenger to accept the scroll for the God-King. Only when the general had worked several spells over it without result did he let the boy ruler have the message.

Once the God-King was reading his scroll, the messenger turned until he faced Dokyi and Rosethorn. “Is this unworthy one correct?” the messenger asked. “Has this one the honor to address the First Dedicate and Dedicate Initiate of the First Temple of the Living Circle, and Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn of Winding Circle temple?”

“I am Dokyi,” the older man said without bowing. “This is Rosethorn.”

The messenger bowed slightly and offered the other scroll. “Then I am honored to present my master’s invitation to Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn and her companions,” he said. His dark eyes flicked over Briar and Evvy. He bowed, very slightly, but there was still respect in his voice as he said in tiyon, “Am I mistaken? Have I also the honor to stand before Nanshur Briar Moss and his student, Evumeimei Dingzai?” Nanshur was the tiyon word for mage.

Briar was impressed in spite of himself. Few adults gave him his proper title, refusing to believe that someone his age had achieved a mage’s certification and power. He returned the bow and nudged Evvy with his foot until she did the same. Since he had been at the courts of royalty and the houses of nobles enough by now to navigate their mazes of manners, Briar said politely in tiyon, “May I have the blessing of one’s own name, so that I may thank one’s ancestors for the pleasure of a son with such grace and perception?”

“I can’t believe you just said that,” Evvy muttered.

Briar burned to give her a proper scolding. Instead he kept his face pleasant and watched the messenger. If the man heard Evvy, he showed no sign of it, but bowed a little more deeply to Briar. Were the movements all measured out for him? It made Briar wonder if he had a measuring stick at home, and if he practiced bowing to each particular notch on it so he would know just how far to bow to a lord, or a mage, or someone who had paid him a compliment.

“Forgive this humble messenger, gracious nanshur, but when this humble servant of the emperor, great is his name, Son of all the Gods, Master of Lions, speaks in the voice of so great and puissant a master, his own pathetic name and being is obliterated. Only the name of the mighty Emperor Weishu Maorin Guangong Zhian, sixth of the Long Dynasty, remains.” The courier cocked his head slightly, his black eyes glittering with more than a little touch of mischief.

“And if we wanted to ask how was the weather in the passes, would we say, ‘Excuse me, you?’” Evvy wanted to know. “How could the emperor in his distant palace know the weather in the mountains?”

Briar wouldn’t call the swift look that the courier shot Evvy a glare. Distaste, perhaps. The man found a smile — a tiny one — to plaster on his face. That was what he offered to Evvy. “But it was the Eagle of the Heavens, the Leveler of Mountains, who arranged our easy journey through the Ice Lion Pass,” he said coolly. “Such is his eagerness to meet Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn, Nanshur Briar Moss, and even the student of such acclaimed magic workers that our dread master banished the storms and split the snows in Ice Lion Pass to allow this unworthy messenger to bring the gracious imperial invitation to you.”

Rosethorn finally looked up from the scroll, her brown eyes shining. “It — this is amazing.” She looked at Dokyi, first, then the God-King. “I had told you that our plans were to travel through Yanjing with a Trader caravan when the passes cleared, then sail home from Hanjian. Our hope — my hope, and Briar’s — was to visit as many gardens and gardeners along the way. I never thought … I didn’t expect …” She took a breath and let it out. “Briar, the emperor has invited us to visit the Winter Palace in Dohan. He is offering to show us his gardens there himself.”

“You are also invited to be guests, all three of you, at the celebration of the Son of the Gods’ fiftieth birthday,” the messenger said. “It is the rarest of honors. There will be lords of Yanjing who will be gnashing their teeth with vexation that they have not been included.”

“The gardens at the imperial palace in Dohan,” Rosethorn whispered, running her fingers over the raised gold letters on the scroll of invitation. Her perfectly arched eyebrows snapped together in a worried frown. To the God-King she said, “Will you be offended if we leave soon? Because you’ve been so good to us, and I really don’t want to offend you.”

Briar looked at the God-King. Did he dare say no, given his concerns of that morning? He had not sounded as if he looked forward to any kind of conflict with the great emperor of Yanjing.

The God-King smiled at Rosethorn. “Keep you from the most famous gardens in our part of the world? I would not be so cruel. You have given us four glorious months of your company. I am only sorry to lose you as I would have been if you had left us according to your original plan, in six weeks.” To the messenger he said, “I do hope you will let them have two days to pack and let us say our farewells.”