Dedicated to Awgy for being chaotic.

The swinging tapestry stretches shadowy figures on the tunnel walls, like cackling shades dancing through Antium's dead trees. I flatten against one dark wall, and across from me, Jacin does the same. Leavi's calls reverberate down the hall, and my eyes squeeze shut. I'm a child again, my sister screaming for help as she's carried away by the Kadranians. Flames devour our village as our parents' blood wets the dusty streets.

"Set their houses on fire," the voices in my head sing. "Spill their blood."

My muscles go taut. This isn't then. These men aren't the Kadranians. If I go after Leavi now, we'll both be caught.

The tapestry swings open, torchlight silhouetting the tall, tight stance of a soldier. I stand frozen. In and out, blood slicking the blade of my silverglass—it'd be so easy to get him out of my way. But stabbing Aster's people won't gain me any favors here, won't save Leavi, won't avenge my sister.

The soldier grabs at my arm, and I dance back. Jacin steps forward, fist slamming the larger man's jaw. His eyes roll into his head, and he topples. My gaze snaps to Jacin shaking out his hand.

He shrugs. "I didn't think we wanted to go the direction Leavi did."

I grin. Maybe bringing the odd-jobs-boy wasn't just a piece of whim.

Without discussing it, we pull the man's limp form into the tunnel, then hurry away from the tapestry. A couple halls over, I gesture at him to slow as I flip my hair over one shoulder. Meaningfully, I say, "We're supposed to be here, aren't we?"

Slowly, he nods, and we stroll down the passages. He asks something, but I ignore him. Thank you, shamans, for giving me everything I need to blend in here. I smile as I walk. You'll regret it.

Finding the stairs, I murmur, "Go into the hall and tell the first person you see that you've gotten turned around. Ask for directions to the Inner Ring guest chambers."

He frowns but nods. "Alright." He looks more like a farm boy than a visiting lord, but it's boulders over pebbles better than my patchwork dress with bones and feathers woven in. I glance at my bare feet, remembering that the Morineause probably also expect people to wear shoes.

As he goes down, I wait just around the curve of the stairs, glad he's listening to my instructions without argument. Sometimes it's so hard to get people to do what you want. Glee bubbles in me as, hand in my pocket, I finger the amulet I stole off Alaar's corpse.

The shamans are certainly going to regret it.

Several minutes pass before I hear Jacin speak, but the dumb little girl he asks readily gives him the directions. I wait for her footsteps to recede before coming down.

He opens his mouth when he sees me, but I summon a wild grin and say, "This way, shall we?" I stride the direction the girl instructed. It'd be a shame to accidentally let the group from the Kuddly Kitten Inn start thinking I'm nearly as sane as they are.

Up and to my right, a crowd of childlike, whispery voices chorus, "But you are as sane as they are."

I wince, muttering, "Of course you think so."

"What was that?" Jacin asks, catching up.

I glance at him and flash a smile. "Nothing." Because of my necklace charm, I wonder if he said that in Morineause or Avadelian. The charm makes me speak the last language I heard, so if it was Avadelian, I won't be able to speak to any of the castle inhabitants until I hear one of them speak. I frown.

We follow the girl's directions, soon arriving in an empty, drab hallway. The halls past this one share an outside wall, brightly lit by windows, but if the shamans' information is to be trusted, this interior hall stays mostly unused. I start toward a door, choosing one in the middle.

Just after I slip into the dark room, the door across the way creaks open, and I duck behind the wall.

"Who are you?" asks a shrill voice from the hall.

A tense second passes as Jacin doesn't respond, and I hurry to call out, "Jacin! Are you coming?" Surely she was speaking Morineause.

"Excuse me," he murmurs and slips into the room.

"Leave the door open," I whisper.

His brows draw, but he does. "Why?"

"Because I don't intend to share this room with you." The Morineause don't like closed doors.

High heels tap away. I'm glad she didn't get a look at me; a Draón savage in the castle would make a long impression. The sound of her footsteps disappears down the hall, and Jacin turns to me. "What now?"

I raise a hand. "Can you—can you please just talk in Morineause? Only Morineause? Thank you."

Confusion lurks in his eyes. "I was."

"Oh." My hand drops. "Well. Good, then." I spin to take in the dark room, the only light coming in from the glow crystals in the hall. A small table and two chairs sit in one corner, and in the far corner opposite, a bed lies. A tall box stands in the other far corner, with two thin doors in its front.

Brows drawn together, I move over to it and pull the doors open. A round bar stretches from one side to the other, and hooks with shoulders hang off it.

Jacin comes up behind me. "I saw one of these once, in the town I stayed at before Niv. You put your clothes on the hooks and hang them in here, so you don't have to fold them."

"Hm." Niv, the little Draón town we all met in, was not where I meant to be, but it was a lucky detour. I close the door back and spin to face him again. "Well, so. I'll take a different room, since the neighbors already think this one's yours." I wink, then move around him to the door.

"Wait. Idyne."

"What?" I say without stopping.

"Then what? What about Leavi?"

I pause. Leavi in a cold, dank dungeon eats at me, but beneath that... An idea forms and flickers like shadows on a cloudy day.

"Ooh," the voices whisper. "Oh, yes."

I turn to Jacin, arms spread out. "Of course we're going to help Leavi! You don't think I'd leave her to suffer, do you? I'm going to find Aster and tell him what's happened." A single word from him, and she rings free. And won't he have to be ever, ever so grateful to us. The shadow solidifies, and the voices giggle.

Jacin frowns. "Why does he have to be the one to save her? I'm sure there's something we can do."

Idiot. I pull on my brightest smile. "Aster's prince here. All he has to do is snap his fingers, and there you go." Nothing's ever quite that simple, but there's no reason to waste time picking apart Morineause politics for him.

"The prince?"

"Obviously." I grin and wag my finger at him. "Now, you stay here and don't get into any trouble. I'm going to get a room and find Aster!"

His frown deepens, and I slip out. I gently try the handle of the next room over. It doesn't turn, so I move to the one on the other side of Jacin's, and it opens. When I slip in, it looks the same as the other—undisturbed, unlived in, and ready to be used however I need. Perfect.

"But it's empty," the voices whisper.

I frown at them. There's plenty furniture here.

"Lonely."

"Shush."

"You're all alone again. Isn't that nice?"

I push the door shut and turn the feeble lock. The only people it'll keep out are the hall's other inhabitants. It would be easy to wiggle a hairpin in the other side and pop it open. I move to the table, setting my bag in one of the chairs.

From my bag come my two nicer dresses, the ones Leavi and I wore at the party in Niv. My hand strokes the fabric. My master, Alaar, bought them for me in the last town before we left Kadran. They were new.

The last time I held a new dress was my seventh birthday, a few days before the Kadranians ransacked my home and carried me away.

My throat tightens, and I fist the fabric. I never should have cast in front of the shamans. The magic reached up through me, telling me it was ready to be used, and instead of taking my wailing sister and running away, I cast. The dresses shake in my hand.

I've never been as strong with instant spells as I am with artefacts. The kra'kaa who was teaching me said that's common for our type. But like a foolish brat, I tried to stand up to the most fearsome casters in Avadel.

It isn't foolish anymore. They'll regret the moment they decided I belong to them.

I drop the dresses and straighten them on the floor. After pushing the table and chairs to the back of the room, I stand still between the clothes, eyes closed.

Travel, transformation, oaths. The divination of my kra'kaa teacher, when she tested me to see who I would become, loops itself in my head as I try to prepare. Feet to wander, hands to change, words to bind the world... There is magic within me. Strong magic, magic she feared at times. I just need to coax it out. In my mind's eye, I envision the dresses, picturing them instead as layers of fabric, long lines of thread at the seams. Cuts and patterns that are rearrangeable, undoable, reworkable. In my mind, the dresses unravel at the seams, the thread slips out of the stitches, and the fabrics come together, new. Thread winds its way into new seams, new shapes. A single—new—dress.

The magic warms me, like hot wax spreading through my skin. I let it overcome me, direct me, remind me what I need to do to make my vision reality. The warmth saturates my head, and my eyes snap open.

The dresses lie, unmoved, on the ground, and I draw casting chalk from my pocket. Murmured incantations drip from my lips as I lean forward and drag the chalk in a circle around each of the dresses, leaving a wide channel traveling from the two circles to a third, larger one. My eyes drift close, but my feet know the steps around the circles, and I chant. My fingers withdraw intermittent pinches of arcanum powder, spraying it over the diagram. My teeth tear off the scab on my thumb, and I shake the blood drop off onto the drawing.

I dance around the circles, coming to rest in the middle of them, and sink to my knees, arms extended over my head. My eyes drift open, the rush of the magic fading away. My heart thrums and muscles tremble as if I just sprinted from one end of the castle to the other.

Now, in the large circle in front of me lies a different dress. Not new, but transformed, remade in the fashion of the N'veauvian nobility. The skirt is long and high-waisted. Pieces of the material lost layers so as to now be thin and wispy, overlaying the skirt in a delicate, feathery way. The bodice is smooth, and a layer of cloth folds over the wide straps to create an attached shawl. The spell also changed the color of the fabric, from grey and tan to soft blue and black.

I smile. That will do nicely.

I stand, drawing the dress off the floor. I shed my other clothes, unbraid my hair, pick all the materials out, and brush it till the waves are smooth. Then I slide into the dress. Just as I asked the magic for, it fits perfectly. My long silverglass shard serves as a mirror as I apply a light coat of makeup.

I search through my pack for my bag of small stones. After finding it and copper beaten into a flat wire, I sit in one of the chairs. Using my silverglass to cut it, I wrap pieces of the wire around two similar stones and bend them into small hooks. With a dab of spelling oil, I cast to make the copper a shiny grey and the stones a mottled dark blue. I don the earrings and use a similar process to fashion a simple matching necklace and bracelet. That's all the copper, but that's all I need. All I'll have to do tomorrow is rearrange the stones and recolor them. I stand, pleased to be fool's gold among fools.

Now to find Aster.