After the assassination of her older sister Scilla, seventeen-year-old Jiara chooses to take her sister's place as the bride to the young king of a distant country, hoping to identify her sister's killer before Scilla's vengeful ghost murders their family. Includes author's note.

A twelve-year-old orphan, Mosca Mye, and her homicidal goose, Saracen, travel to the city of Mandelion on the heels of smooth-talking con-man Eponymous Clent, driven by her love of language and to find a better life.

"Sixth grader Betsy is the one who informs her best friend, Lizard, that thousands of the world's languages are currently threatened by extinction; Betsy's mother is a linguistics professor working frantically to study dying languages before they are lost forever. But it is Lizard who, gripped by the magnitude of this loss, challenges Betsy, "What if, instead of WRITING about dying languages, like your mom, you and I SAVED one instead?" As the girls...