Chapter 20: How to Haggle

She got Ling on the way back. It was the morning of the twenty-first, early, with mist on the water, and the Princess of West Lake came down the north steps in her silver-blue with the maid behind her and the parasol furled, and stopped at the ferry, and raised one dark eyebrow. "Three," said Mei. "It was one yesterday." "Yesterday you were a passenger. Today you're a princess who slept in Auntie Tang's back room on her best quilt." "And?" "She aired it specially. She'll tell everyone for a year. That's a premium crossing. Three." "The board says one." "The board," said Mei, "can't read either." Ling looked at her for a long moment. Then she laughed, a short surprised sound, like a fish breaking the surface, and put three coppers in Mei's palm, and Mei closed her hand on them and felt better than she had since last…