A Debt of Dragons

The story so far

Three Coppers for a Prince (chapters 1-10)

Hong Mei runs the ferry at Willow Crossing, the third of her family to do it. She charges the dead half fare, haggles with everyone, and every night pours cheap wine into the lake for her drowned friend Wang Liulang, who drives fish into her net. One night she pulls an arrow out of an enormous carp and slaps a three-copper plaster on the wound. The carp is Ao Bo, Eighth Prince of the lake's dragons, and the law of the waters now binds him to her: he cannot go home until he saves her life, and he cannot stray beyond the light of her ferry lamp. Then Recorder Lin Ming of the Bureau of the Unrecorded explains that a written drowning that does not happen must be balanced. Someone else went into the river instead.

Lanterns on the Lake (chapters 11-20)

Bo cannot pole a ferry, but he learns, and Mei's grumbling bargains begin to turn into something warmer. Keeper Tan, the old turtle who keeps the Lake Register, lets Bo read a line he should not see, and Mei finally tells the story of the old ferry post: the night her mother went over the side in front of two hundred people, ten paces from shore, and nobody went in. The water is climbing the white marks on that post a finger a day. Then the mist parts on the spring progress of the Dragon King, Bo's father, a court of floating lanterns, and Mei haggles a drunken scholar's head down to the price of a silk stocking. Hidden in her cabin, Bo learns the arrow came from his own family.

The Ferry and the Court (chapters 21-37)

The arrow came from inside the dragon palace, and Bo still cannot go home until he saves Mei's life for real. The water on the old post keeps rising toward the double fifth, and every day with her fish-prince makes Mei's bargain harder to keep simple.

High Water (chapters 38-52)

A blind fortune-teller warned Mei to beware of water at the double fifth, and the festival is coming. Bo believes no register ever writes down a ferrywoman's name. But the river keeps its own accounts, and someone at Willow Crossing will have to settle them.

The Last Fare (chapters 53-67)

Every debt on the lake must balance: a life for a life, a fare for a crossing, three coppers for a plaster. Mei has spent her whole life making the sums come out fair. The last crossing will ask what she is willing to pay, and for whom.

Chapters 21+ unlock with coins or Unlimited.