Award-winning author Aliette de Bodard presents yet another innovative space opera that broadens the definition of the genre: this time bringing xianxia-style martial arts to the stars.

Using the power of Shadows generated from their own bodies' vitality, Navigators guide space ships safely across the Hollows: a realm of unreality populated by unfathomable, dangerous creatures called Tanglers. In return for their service, the navigator clans get wealth and power-but they get the blame, too. So when a Tangler escapes the Hollows and goes missing, the empire calls on the jockeying clans to take responsibility and deal with the problem.

Vi¿t Nhi is not good with people. Or politics. Which is rather unfortunate because, as a junior apprentice in the Rooster clan, when her elders send her on a joint-clan mission to locate the first escaped Tangler in living memory, she can't exactly say no.

H¿c Cúc of the Snake clan usually likes people. It says so on her resume: "information gathering"-right after "poisoning" and "stabbing." So she's pretty sure she's got the measure of this group: they're the screw-ups, the spares; there isn't a single sharp tool in this shed.

But when their imperial envoy is found dead by clan poison, this crew of expendable apprentices will have to learn to work together-fast-before they end up cooling their heels in a jail cell while the invisible Tangler wreaks havoc on a civilian city and the reputation of all four clans.