Fingers probe and poke, silken stretches, and needles prick in my legs. I bend my back, swing my arms left and right—but there’s no escaping my predicament. Lanying’s watchful eyes guard me at all sides.
“Any sister of mine travels in style,” she’d said. She wouldn’t budge and dragged me out of the house in the early morning to what must be the best tailor in town.
“Still got your knife?” She sifts through strips and bits of fur hanging on hooks from a rugged crossbeam.
“Don’t need it,” I say. It got lost in the fire in Lhasa.
She pulls out a silky pelt, black-brown with a soft silver cast, and drapes the dark sable fur along my collar. “You do where we’re going.”
I shake my head. I don’t want it.
“This will do.” An approving clack rolls from her tongue, and the seamstress has
