Italian fashions have come to Eastcheap.

Sibylla has a fine eye for beautiful things, but sometimes the flaws in a particular material may be very subtle indeed, not easily discerned. Kings must be discerning in all matters.

Shiv Roy has wings.

Two friends pause together briefly.

“Why do you wear your face like that?”

Nie Huaisang's hand comes up partway to Meng Yao's face before his fingers curl inwards. Meng Yao's eyes go wide and tremulous before the corners of his mouth curl into a small smile, like one of the soundless laughs shared between them in the midst of a banquet speech.

Alfonso is not well, and his bride already knows it.

In the early days of the Russo-Japanese War, a disciplinary episode results in Sugimoto Saichi being transferred from the 1st to the 7th Division. It doesn't take long to figure out that Russian gunfire might pose him less danger than the tangled web of a unit in which he's ended up.