Daughter of the Tao — Lisa Mason

Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret: before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.

But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.

Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her?

Daughter of the Tao was published in Peter S. Beagle's Immortal Unicorn anthology (HarperPrism), which also included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner.

From the author of Summer of Love (A Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book), The Gilded Age, (A New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book), Celestial Girl (A Lily Modjeska Mystery), The Garden of Abracadabra, Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, Arachne (a Locus Hardcover Bestseller), Cyberweb (the sequel to Arachne), and One Day in the Life of Alexa..