Riveting and highly inventive Chinese-inspired science-fantasy of a royal family torn apart, painful betrayal, and deadly secrets. Set on a drowning continent full of corruption and deception and strange technology this is a richly envisioned and powerful debut novel from the winner of the Bram Stoker® and Nebula Awards.

On Piāo, the floating empire of lotuses, Xīlián discovers the royal advisors' ploy to overthrow her brother, Yún, the emperor, in the same way they had murdered their parents, by creating a deadly flood that will make Yún's death seem as though an accident. She flees to the drowning continent of Opera, a place of high tech and near environmental collapse where companies vie to sell a chance at immortality. There Xīlián seeks out her exiled brother Làng to help in her efforts to disrupt the advisors' plans and remove them from court.

Also residing on Opera is the outcast, No Face. Abandoned by the empire of Piāo, they plot to destroy those who tore their family apart. When Xīlián is caught and imprisoned and No Face discovers the shocking truth about their past, the two must work together to stop the advisors and unify their two lands or lose everyone they love to flood and revolution.