The sea was glassy like eyes full of tears. Though wind caressed the waves with gentle knuckles and though ships grazed the surface with sails like gauze, the ocean remained on the edge of a sob. Morning mist hung in the air with shame, and stormy clouds threatened to spill over like the sea's eyes. The watery world of coastal Arthios in Djianora rested at the cusp of weeping and the cusp of waking, its waters still dressed in funeral black and its skies ornamented with the earliest beginnings of dawn and storm.

In the middle of her own storm, however, was Sienna Diaz. As she crossed the street, northwest winds leftover from the night sifted through her hair, blowing the dark strands over her face before she tucked them safely behind her ear. Then, she tucked herself into the darkness of the governor's deep-set doorway. The door was locked, but that wasn't a problem. She pulled the necklace she'd been wearing over her head. Inserting the necklace's ancient, rusted key into the knob and turning, Sienna slipped into the house.

She strained her still-adjusting eyes in the darkness thick like velvet as it pressed against her. Suddenly, she was very aware of the silence in the house, the crushing silence that caged her—

No, not silent. The feathery rise and fall of sleepy respiration softly filled the house from the other room.

Sienna took a step back, doubt drowning her and fear sending her up for air. The woman who'd given her the key at the docks had told her the governor and his family would be out of town for the weekend. Now what? Sienna's hand reached for the doorknob behind her, but she stopped.

Djianora was her best one. If she couldn't do this, then she couldn't stay there.

She started forward. Quieting even her breathing, Sienna stepped lightly as she approached the close and open bedroom of the governor.

A light, ocean breeze graced the shafts of moonlight in between the closed shutters of the room, sending a chill up Sienna's spine. Ever so slowly, she crept past the veiled bed and winced when the breathing coming from it became sharp—and then the sounds ceased altogether. Her heart beat to the rhythm of a Paracii execution, fast and frantic. She stood still, praying she would melt into the nightly shadows of a dark room if the governor and his wife were to wake.

When the sounds of sleep resumed, Sienna saw what she was looking for in the furthest corner of the quarters: the governor's desk, and the paper somewhere in the stack on it. Carefully, she lifted the stack and held it to one of the dim beams shining through the near shutter. She started to sort through them, page after page finding themselves in her other hand before—

There. 'Theft Report 3-45-2: Nena Diaphen'.

She slid the paper out, gently placing the stack back on the desk.

"I hope you're weren't planning on doing anything with that paper."

Whirling around, Sienna's eyes grew wide—the shadowy figure of the governor stood by his bedside. Something was in his hand. A blade? A phoryth shooter? She took a step back, glancing at the windows and then at the door. "I don't want any trouble. I won't hurt you, so just let me leave."

"You asked for trouble when you broke into my house." The silhouette's head turned to the bed. "Emmai, go upstairs."

Shuffling resounded as someone left the room. The governor's wife.

"I only need the paper," Sienna pleaded in a harsh whisper. "Let me pass."

"I remember your report," said the governor. "Theft is only punishable by imprisonment. Two months? Three? But I think you did a little more than just steal. Is that why you're risking your own life to get that report? Because you're going to lose your life if you don't?"

"Let me pass." She reached behind her as she spoke and grabbed the quill in the inkwell, holding it behind her back.

"Letting you pass would make me punishable, too. Don't move from there. I have a knife," he warned, his voice shaky.

Rushing forward, Sienna went to slide between the bed and the wall before the governor grabbed her wrist. She countered with the quill before he could move to stab with his blade, but he twisted out of her grip and slammed her against the wall. The quill broke and the report fell to the ground as the governor kneed her in the gut. The wind fled from her lungs. The world of black and white motes blurred for a moment before focusing again, the glint of the governor's blade sharp in the moonlight. The knife suddenly thrust—

But not before Sienna could twist the handle out of his hand and plunge it into the governor's belly.

Withering, sputtering gasps penetrated the dense silence of the dark room as even darker blood started to paint his white nightgown. Sienna's laboring breaths mimicked the dying governor, and she took a horrified step back. She bent down, hand extended as if to touch the stained bloom of dark, but she stopped herself. Tears welled up in her eyes. Her lower lip quivered. "I–I'm sorry, I just wanted to—I didn't mean to . . . I—djia . . ."

Then the blood started to pool onto the floor and Sienna swiftly recoiled, hand cupped over her mouth as the other ran through her hair. What have I done?

She glanced at the report on the floor nearby, its white surface now tainted with a spreading inky red. It was of no use to her now. Biting her lip, she held back a sob, her mind racing. Djianora had been her best one. And now her chance to stay was gone, and she would have to leave lest she be killed in return for this grave mistake. Her eyes darted to the window.

Morning light started to warm at the horizon and streamed through the slits in the closed shutters. People would start to awaken soon. Sienna slinked out of the bedroom and shut the door with a soft click. Leaning against it for a moment, she squeezed her eyes shut and let out a trembling sigh.

"Don't kill us, too."

Sienna's eyes fluttered open—Emmai was at the bottom of the stairs. Three pairs of eyes stared down from the top. Her heart dropped.

"Please, spare us," Emmai begged with a small voice, clutching the railing of the stairs. "The children."

She couldn't bear the velvety-dark house and the smell of offal and the three little pairs of shining eyes any longer. She said nothing, rushing out of the house and closing the door.

Sprinting through the labyrinthine village, Sienna turned a corner and stumbled through the door—her house, but her home no longer. She raced up the stairs, bursting into her room. It would be in the floorboards, the one that didn't creak near the window. Sienna kneeled, keeled over as she ripped the floorboard from its rusty nails and reached an arm's length in. Pulling the parcel from the crevice, she tucked it under an arm before leaving the room. She padded down the stairs silently, hand reaching for the doorknob.

"Djia, are you really going out while the storm's brewing?" Lanil called from the kitchen.

"No one will be out. You won't be able to buy anything," added Rephai as he ate breakfast, eyes sliding over to meet Sienna's.

Friends—her friends, but they could no longer be her friends. Sienna glanced down at her hands. Were they bloody? Did they suspect anything from the parcel in her arms?

"Why don't you join us for breakfast?"

Panic rose up in her throat as she imagined Emmai cooking for her children, the blood in her bedroom drying all the while the scent of spiced fomusco covered the scent of sour iron. With the slightest, fear-stricken shake of her head, she dashed out the door like a wild animal before her no-longer-friends could say anything.

Thundering down the streets in a frenzy, she bolted around a corner and breathed hard. She clutched the parcel to her chest and looked down. Brown, tied with strings. Finding the label on the other side she hadn't had time to read and scanning it quickly, she sighed with relief. She had it. It didn't matter whether she was caught or not now. Her life was safe and now she could escape—

Shouts echoed in the distance; they would be onto her before she could even regain her lost breath. Her eyes darted behind her one last time before she broke into a dogged sprint. 

Close voices called for the name she'd given to the Djianoran people: "Nena! Nena, wait!"

Eyes wide, Sienna backed against a sudden dead end, arms curling tighter over the parcel. When the clattering sound of hurried footsteps joined the voices, she tore apart the brown paper.

"Don't take another step!" she shouted when Lanil and Rephai rounded the corner. With a trembling hand, she held up a match from the countless others in the parcel. The very thing that ruined her chances at staying. Tears like the glass of the sea sprung into her eyes. "Move one foot and I'll light it. I'll leave you."

"What do you mean? Nena, come on. You're not in trouble—we don't know why you ran off," said Lanil, her hands outstretched at her side in a Djianoran sign of good will. Or was Sienna confusing it with the Porathi sign of challenge? There were too many worlds crashing through her mind like a tempest. Her fingers tightened around the match.

In most of the worlds she'd been in, open palms meant openness, but Sienna hardly felt open in a corner in the streets of the coastal village Arthios. The walls around her seemed to close in, and she took another step back, her foot hitting the wall. "Someone will find out I stole this, and that I . . . . Don't move! I'll light it, and you'll never see me after this."

"What are you talking about?" Lanil started forward but stopped herself as if she'd been burned. "Nena, we won't speak of this again. No one has to find out it was you that stole the matches."

She shook her head, saltwater painting wet lines down her cheeks. "But I killed him."

"Nena, slow down. Who? What's going on?"

A ragged, desperate breath escaped from Sienna. Her eyes trailed to the sky, tracing the storm-filled clouds with such a finality it made her heart ache.

"Did you know out of all the realms I've lived in, yours was the best? Djianora was my best one. I thought I'd returned to my home when I'd woken up that first day. The air tastes wrong and the water is too soft, but the colors are right. Do you see the sky? It's blue like the ocean. And the clouds are black with storm. Grass is green and so are leaves and honey is yellow and hands have five beautiful fingers—even your blood is pure and red and—" Sienna felt color rise to her face as the clouds of grief rolled away to reveal raw fury, the right and proper color but the wrong feeling. "I was so close, and I was content with having found someplace that wasn't my home but was close enough. And I stayed."

Lanil and Rephai glanced at each other and then back at her, concern clouding their eyes. Anger flared in Sienna's chest at their obliviousness. "Whatever you're saying about leaving, Nena—"

"I stayed for so long I almost was Nena!" she cried, begging them to understand without saying too much. My fault. My fault. Water and rain fell from her chin. "I wanted to be, too. I was ready to stay until I killed him and took the matches and I want you to know I'm so sorry I lied to you all and I just—I . . . I have to light this match. I can't stay or they'll kill me."

"Nena—"

"No! My name is Sienna Diaz. I'm from Earth, and you were my forty-ninth world." She lit the match and felt a rush of wind try to dry her tears in bitter vain. "Goodbye."