Uncommon Echoes

Brianna loves her new job as maid to Lady Marguerite. Like many high nobles, Marguerite is attended by echoes, silent creatures who look exactly like her and move in perfect synchronicity. News soon comes that Marguerite has been invited to the royal city as a potential bride for the crown prince. Brianna is delighted to accompany Marguerite to the city - and perhaps get a chance to continue her own flirtation with Nico, one of the king’s inquisitors. Then, disaster strikes on the road when they come under attack.

In the royal city of Camarria, a street urchin named Chessie lives by her wits, always attended by her two faithful friends, Red and Scar. What no one realizes is that the “friends” are really echoes, creatures that look exactly like their originals but who possess no volition of their own. Echoes normally are only born to high nobles, and Chessie doesn’t want anyone to start asking questions about her past. So she’s developed the ability to move between bodies so rapidly that she can maintain the illusion that she and Red and Scar are three separate people.

Lady Elyssa despises her echoes - the creatures who look just like her and copy her every move. But it’s only the echoes that mark her as a high noble, someone elite enough to marry the king’s youngest son, Jordan. She can’t get rid of the echoes, so instead she amuses herself by torturing them when no one is looking. But there’s something Elyssa doesn’t know: Her casual cruelty has brought one of the echoes to life. And this echo, Hope, is learning to think and speak and act on her own.