She looked down at her feet, which were covered in a drift of light. All around her soft frost was lifting and falling, whirling and dancing in the breeze. This was very different from the world the child had known so far – a world of contrasts and seasons – light and dark, even and perpendicular...
In the garden, glossy rhododendrons, blazing acers and a single, spiky-branched monkey-puzzle tree, fostered from seedlings in a new, harsh climate, were further testaments to its connections with the rest of the empire. It was only natural, then, that it should be set slightly apart from the res...