Creative, imaginative, magical story of an empress's handmaid that is part espionage, part fantasy memoir. A delight of worldbuilding and a lovely nod to the profession of historians and archivists. As a bonus, it's also comprised of fierce, complicated women, with one of the only two exceptions to that being nonbinary. Wouldn't have minded a longer version of this without the frame narrative, but I'm grateful for what we got.