“Never trust a survivor until you know what they did to survive.” I whisper the words to him, too late to change anything. His eyes, wide with pain, shock, and terror, latch onto mine. “Rey,” he chokes, “why . . ?” “That’s not my name. I’m sorry, Blake. I tried to warn you to stay away from me.” “I know who you are, Elisabeth.” His voice is a whisper. “I stayed anyway. I hoped . . . I wanted to show you that it was possible to change, that you could . . .” He trails off. “I’m sorry, Blake,” I say over my shoulder as I leave him. “I guess I really am a monster.” I don’t look back.

“Have you already forgotten?” She laughs, exposing teeth far too big for her mouth. It is a terrifying laugh, cold and cruel and coming from a child’s lips it is wrong. _ “In one tent you may view an execution, in the next a resurrection.” She blinks at me. “Remember that? You may be asked to dance with the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen, on a stage designed to steal your life force. You may be chased through a shadowed maze by one who showed you marvels, their welcoming smile terrifying when their teeth lengthen into deadly fangs. Always there are wonders, but always there is a price to pay._ You were warned. Don’t forget again, or you might end up like her,” she gestures to the curtain, and smiles again. I look toward the crack between the curtain and the wall, crimson light spilling forth, and almost miss her last words. Again, quoting the warning at the gates. “We shall see.” When I glance back, the child in her bloodstained white dress is nowhere to be found. Not even footsteps in the sawdust. Her words echo in my head as I gaze with no small amount of apprehension at the curtain. _Don’t forget again, or you might end up like her . . . Might end up like her . . . Like her . . . Like her . . . _ I pull back the curtain and look in on a fantasy scene from a nightmare. The walls, a vivid crimson, seem undecided on whether they’re tent fabric or wallpaper, but the rest is very clear, drenched in bloody light from the red chandelier, scarlet flames dancing within crystal tears. The only furniture in the room is a bed, ornate frame and rich coverings. And resting on it, facedown, surrounded by and partially covered with dissected roses in every shade of red, pink, and white, is a body. Obviously female, clothed in a simple white shift, blood dripping over her shoulder from a wound I can smell but can’t see, don’t want to see, because the positioning is perfect, and I can envision it easily, horribly— Heart in my throat, I creep closer, footsteps muffled by the sawdust that is thicker in here than anywhere else I’ve been tonight. I can’t see her face, but I have a horrible feeling that I know her. As I near the bed the coppery smell gets stronger, until, leaning over her, I’m almost choking on it. The air has a weight to it, a thickness that sticks to the roof of my mouth and the back of my throat. _I have to know. _ Before I can lose my courage, I reach out with a hand that’s shaking now and grab her shoulder, pulling her onto her back. Her head lolls, empty eyes staring up at the ceiling, and her front is drenched in iron-scented crimson but the wound I had feared is nowhere to be seen. Or any other wound, for that matter. Her shoulder-length hair is crusted with blood, but there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with her. Other than the fact that she’s dead. And her hair is different, her curves more pronounced (almost inhumanly), her face overdone with makeup but subtly different under it as well, but I still recognize her. “Aven?” I am not prepared for what comes next. I am prepared for nothing to happen. I already know it’s her, the horror already starting to sink in, making my vision blur. I am not prepared for her eyes to open. I am not prepared for her to gasp, reaching for her throat, then letting her hand drop as her icy blue eyes lock onto me. They were never blue before. I remember a thousand moments of hazel eyes, light brown hair, sunburned skin from forgetting sunscreen for the hundredth time, between the ages of eight and sixteen. I don’t remember icy blue eyes slightly too large in a face that’s slightly past impossibly beautiful, trending toward alien. I don’t remember platinum blond hair, a French braid coming out on one side, or the proportions that look even more unnatural as she pushes herself into a sitting position, hips too wide, waist and shoulders too narrow, legs too long and tapered. I don’t remember flawless porcelain skin, so pale, so perfect, so unsettling. And the way she moves isn’t quite right either. How she tilts her head, looking up at me, how she slides her feet off the side of the bed. When she speaks, her voice is too sweet, too fairytale, the juxtaposition of it against the words coming out of her mouth exactly what I’m learning to expect from this place. “In one tent you may view an execution, in the next a resurrection. Or at least, that’s what the whispers say. And everyone knows whispers lie. But is a lie not often a mask for a hidden truth?” And the words could mean a million things here, rose petals and bloody light and blood on her dress and in her hair, but even that’s starting to fade now, as she’s clearly unharmed. What was the lie, I wonder, the blood, or her flawless appearance? Both? Or neither? As Aven finishes the message, I sense that something has changed, and it’s the circus speaking through her when she says, “We shall see.” I don’t know if it means I get to go home. I think it means I’ve just earned a second chance at something.

“Where the hell did you find this?!” I shrug, leaning back in my chair. “Out and about.” “Y-you—do you know what this is?” “A very expensive space rock.” “This is Junis, the rarest form of crystal fuel known to the Collective, never let out of government control—“ “Also known as one very expensive space rock.” “I—yes, I suppose so. At this size, very expensive. But how do you have it?” “What can I say? I’m very resourceful.” They lean forward, a lock of green hair slipping out from under the hood that hides their face, and I hear the faint click that says they’ve pushed the button to deactivate all surveillance on the room. “Oakley. Where did you get this?” I exhale, pushing my mask up out of my face so I can see them without the technology between us as they let the hood fall back—long, died-green hair growing out indigo. Pale, sun-starved skin with olive undertones. Piercing eyes, the color of which I’ve never been sure, as I can never remember exactly what they look like. Jem. “I tracked a distress call in Sector Four-C to a downed freighter, floating dead in empty space,” I explain. “Not sure what took it out, but they were good, and fast. The beacon was cut off almost before I could track it, so I moved faster than usual, but by the time I got there they were already gone, leaving every worker on the freighter dead, the cargo hold empty, and the ship’s manifest wiped illicit-purchase clean. Even its ID number was wiped. I managed to catch the virus when I was trying to salvage information—here,” I pull the drive from my pocket and slide it across the table. “I don’t recommend plugging it into anything—it seemed remarkably hungry. I found the Junis in the cargo hold, but I don’t think it was the original cargo—they were too careful.” “Everyone slips sometimes,” Jem points out, frowning at the hunk of vaguely iridescent rock, slightly smaller than my fist, resting on the table between us. I shake my head. “I don’t think it was a mistake. Maybe the cargo was Junis, at least in part, but if so, then they wanted someone to find out.” Jem knows me well enough by now to see the signs. “What are you thinking?” They ask, resigned to the answer. “We’ve got a wider conspiracy here,” I say with relish. It’s been too long, I think, far too long since we were together. “Not just that—one with money, a superior fighting force, and sophisticated technology.” “I know where this is going . . .” “We have to find out more.” “You’re already in the middle of one project—” “This could be another facet of the same conspiracy! Or it could be someone else running in the same league. Either way, we have to find out.” They roll their eyes, then laugh (oh, how I’ve missed that laugh). “You came at the right time. This job is predictable enough to be boring after a while, especially compared to running with you. I’ll run some tests on the drive and the Junis, then join you on the Shadow in a few days.” I stand up, sliding around the table to kiss them before pulling my mask back down. “Thanks, honey. See you soon.” “Wait—the cameras.” Oh, right. Jem’ll have to make up a story to excuse turning off the surveillance, I think as I leave the building, once again looking completely like the lawless trader I walk as beyond the confines of the Shadow and her glorious purpose. I’m not worried, though. They could talk their way out of anything.

“When I was young, people always told me I would be a heartbreaker. I don’t think this is what they meant.” “Yeah, probably not,” Lillie answered, looking down at the mess the two had made. Fourteen bodies lay at the pair’s feet, some in possession of more of their body parts than others. “It’s certainly a more exciting take on it, though.” “Yeah. Exciting . . .” “Oh, come on!” She knelt, digging through the muck for someone’s pockets. “You aren’t still hung up on the ‘every life is valuable and should not be thrown away’ thing, are you? That’s ridiculous! You’re a deadly superpowered being trapped in a war for the existence of all life in this universe. A pacifist’s philosophy is going to get you nowhere but dead, and fast. Aha! There you are,” she held the thing aloft. It glinted in the weak light, a large gold coin stamped with the visage of a raven. It also had blood along one edge. Rhys wiped their hands on their thighs just looking at it. “But I am a pacifist.” “Gods, Rhys! ‘Only death awaits those who hesitate in battle.’ Your pacifism needs to die here and now, before it gets you killed.” She hopped lightly out of the circle of carnage, glancing back to make sure Rhys was following. They were, gingerly stepping around the bodies. Lillie rolled her eyes. “Could you stop looking so revolted? It’s not so bad.” “Let’s just get out of here before I throw up.” “You are ridiculous.” “I’m sorry I wasn’t raised in a den of heartless killers, trained to murder from before I could walk. Some of us had normal childhoods, and have normal issues with death as a result.” As the two walked away, something twitched amid the tangle of limbs and blood. Something small, yet important. It sat up on its haunches, sniffing the air. It seemed to lock in on the retreating pair. The tiny creature bounded after them.

“If you go missing while you’re here, no one will look for you. It’s part of the magic of this place—it was designed to make things easier for the predators. Once you’re gone you’re promptly forgotten by everyone, signs of your existence overlooked until they can be tucked away and vanished entirely by the city itself. I don’t know if there’s a way to get your stuff back once that happens, becayse no one ever comes back once they go missing. Just part of the magic.” She shrugs. The person facing her scowls. “That’s not—“ they sputter, “that’s not what magic is! Things don’t work that way!” “Try telling that to the missing,” she says. Their brow furrows. “I thought you said they were forgotten. How do you know they existed at all if they’re always forgotten as soon as they disappear?” “Oh, memories come back through after a while. Once it’s clear they’re not coming back. It’s an added security measure to ensure nobody every comes back.” “That’s horrible!” She shrugs again. “Maybe, but it’s life here, and you’d better accept it and start living by our rules if you want to survive here.” With a groan, she pushes herself to her feet, calling, “good luck,” over her shoulder as she walks away. In moments, she’s vanished completely, swallowed up by the evening gloom of the city. Her one-person audience sighs, standing up as well. As they do so, the impression of a charmingly innocent newcomer falls away, replaced by something much more bitter. “Good luck, huh? That’s all I get? Good luck to you and your weird, broken world. You’re the ones that need it, because I’m not here to follow the rules. After all, if they don’t work on me, why should I make the effort to follow them? I remember just fine. I remember all if it, and I’m getting you back if it’s the last thing I do! If I have to tear this world apart, if that’s what it takes to get you back, I’ll do it. Just hang in there, Damsel. Just for a little longer. I’m coming for you.” They tilt their head back, glaring up at the strange sky. “I will not rest until I have my Damsel back by my side, you hear me? I don’t care what it takes, I’ll pay the price, any price, so long as Damsel is back with me when all this is over. I will not rest!”

At the top of a nearby tower, two figures stand, wrapped in shadows, watching. “Well, that looks like trouble,” one says, turning to their companion, who, despite the heavy dark cloak they wear, seems to radiate delicate beauty. “Do you know what you’ll do when you finally come face to face again? You’ll have to eventually, you know.” “I know,” Damsel says, in a voice as soft and sweet as one would expect of a Damsel. With their next words, though, a thread of steel enters their tone, more appropriate for a Knight or a Prince than a Damsel. “And I don’t know what comes next, but I do know one thing: they will never have power over me again. I was their dainty pet, their pretty Damsel, for far too long. Whatever happens next, whatever I do, I do as my own person, not as a delicate extension of another’s will. For the first time in a long time, my thoughts are my own. I am never relinquishing that again.” “Good.” The voice is all steel now, as they extend the hilt of a sword. “Are you ready then?” The not-quite-Damsel nods, and takes the sword. “I’m ready.” “Come, then.” They leap from the perch, and the no-longer-Damsel follows, the pair falling as dark shapes in the gathering dusk before their cloaks become more than fabric, less than reality, and they are two more shadows drifting on the night wind through the Fathomless City.

I was eager once. Struck by the incredible truth that I, out of all of us, had been chosen, I saw it as exciting. I could hardly wait to get started. That excitement faded quickly enough once the real work started, and I realized just how hard a task it was. Now, it threatens to engulf me, everything else fading into the background as my burden grows exponentially heavier. It is astonishing how very heavy a burden can be when there is no end in sight.

I return to consciousness falling. The sky around me is dark, the roiling clouds lit up by periodic lightning bolts, strong wind blowing this way and that in no predictable pattern. Then the clouds part, and I see what I’m falling toward. Below me is a tortured landscape—sharp, broken-looking mountains like shards of obsidian, deep canyons full of rushing, raging water surging between mountain peaks, cascading off cliffs onto the broad plateaus, glinting with the shallow water covering them. The lightning seems to be the only source of illumination, but it strikes frequently enough to provide more than adequate light to see what I’m falling toward. Directly beneath me, on a small plateau falling in steep cliffs on all sides, is a temple, gleaming in the brilliant flashes as if made of polished mirrors. I recognize it instinctively, almost-memories telling me that it is where I am meant to be. But I’m falling fast, too fast. I reach desperately for the threads I know are there, the natural pathways that let me control my own flight, but they evade me. If anything they are surging around me, bristling and deadly, ensuring my demise. I fall faster and faster, coming closer and closer to the gleaming temple. Then I turn my head and see someone else falling beside me. It’s like the sky has become a mirror. Dressed in black soldier’s garb, short dark hair shot through with gold, skin neutral gray, eyes bright violet-touched silver, but otherwise she looks exactly like me. It’s creepy, seeing your own features reflected on someone else’s face, especially using a different color palette. She locks eyes with me, and the hatred in her gaze throws me off balance. Then the temple rises up beneath us and in a flash of violent light—

‘Elva!’ I wake up drenched in sweat, electricity crackling in my hair and at my fingertips. Zara is kneeling over me, hands on my shoulders, Ikaros on one side, Luxia on the other. The only ones that can withstand lightning, I think, and roll onto my side, pushing up into a sitting position. I run my hands through my hair, attempting to tame its aspirations of increasing my height all on its own. ‘Nightmares?’ Zara asks, full of concern. I nod. Ikaros and Luxia go back to bed then, but Zara, I realize, is fully dressed, her eyes bright and awake. She moves to stand by the window, hands clasped behind her back. I crawl carefully around the bodies of my unit-mates and climb off the bed. There’s a violent thunderstorm outside, and when I reach carefully toward it I sense a new storm spirit, figuring out what it means to exist. ‘Sorry about that,’ I say sheepishly, keeping my transmission quiet so as not to disturb those that managed to sleep through my dreams. ‘I haven’t had a dream like that in years. I’m not sure what triggered it.’ ‘Do you remember the face of the warped mirror?’ She inquires by way of an answer, meaning. Of course she’s skimmed the gist of the dream from me. I don’t even need to think about it. She’s still there, hovering in my mind. Zara nods, then presses one hand flat to the window, eyes unfixed, brows furrowed. ‘You remember when we were Grays, when you were afflicted by these dreams?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Well, she looks remarkably similar to that girl. Similar enough to be the same person, if aged a few years.’ I scowl in thought. ‘She does. She also looks like me. Just on a different color scheme.’ We stand in silence for a while, then Zara asks, ‘Are you going back to bed?’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t think I would be able to get back to sleep. I’m still full of adrenaline from that nightmare. I think . . .‘ She catches what I’m thinking, and grins. ‘Let’s go.’ From the roof, the storm is deafening. Zara throws her head back and inhales deeply, eyes closed, her hair whipping around her face. ‘I can finally breathe,’ she says, in a rare moment of vulnerability, and I catch a fleeting impression of her day, which she once again spent elsewhere. I stare up at the sky, rain and wind pelting my face. Lightning flashes overhead, a distinctive blue cast to it. This is one of my creations. Hello, young one, I say to it, stretching out my hand in the direction of its heart, whirling some distance away. Are these not glorious skies? Yes? The spirit answers in a childlike voice, sounding confused. Who and what are you? You are my mother, and yet you are not. My inner storm rears its head, and now I am the one to throw my head back, breathing in the night air, full of water and wind and charge to feed the beast within me. Almost without warning it surges up and out, wings of cloud forming in an instant. The great thunderbird screams a challenge to the youngling, who cowers, shrinking in on itself. I wrench my storm back, concerned that I have turned the poor thing against me, but after a moment it gathers itself, taking on a concrete form—a winged foal. It screams in reply, and now I smile, and leap up into the thunderbird, my body merging with my storm. I glance back once, and see Zara crouched at the peak of the roof, watching with appreciative eyes. ‘Go,’ she transmits. ‘Fly. Chase the night and don’t come back until dawn has overtaken you.’ And I do. The glorious fusion lets me forget my dreams and revel in the power of flight. The little one keeps pace the whole time, wings spreading a little wider with every hour that passes. With sunrise at our backs we soar, pursuing the shadows across a landscape of endless trees and mountains and water. We notice habitations from time to time, schools with their walls fully guarded, communities tucked into the natural flow of the land. Most of the day creatures are asleep, tucked into their little dens and cozy nests, while the night creatures roam free, stalking a quiet world while far above, we soar. And when dawn does overtake us, we’re nearly back where we started. The young storm, doubled in power and confidence during our flight, leaves me behind and continues on, faster and freer than I with my mortal roots could ever be, while I drift down onto our roof, the storm and I separating, then it coils back into its place in my chest and I open the window, slipping inside as quietly as I can. Zara’s sitting in the windowsill opposite me, while the rest of the room is empty. “You look better,” she comments. “And the skies are clearer now, so I’m guessing it helped?” “Yes.” “Good, because we have a meeting in fifteen minutes. You’d better get dressed.”

“Hand it over, now!” Cassius froze. He’d been alive long enough to know that those words were rarely good. He edged closer to the wall, peering around the corner. Three guards loomed over a slim figure in the loose clothing of a non-Rider. She was clutching something to her chest—a book, he thought. She couldn’t be more than twelve years old. The girl glared up at them. “No.” “Um—no?” The guard seemed baffled. “Give us the book, girl.” “No,” she repeated. “Girl, I’m warning you, you’d better hand us that book right now, or—” She moved so abruptly that it took a moment for Cassius’s brain to catch up. One moment she was standing stock-still, glaring at them. The next, she was diving forward, sliding between the guard’s legs and scrambling to her feet, then running, running, running, a blur of motion down the semi-crowded corridor. “Get her!” The guard shouted, and all three gave chase, yelling for bystanders to get out of the way. Cassius stared. In his five years living here, he’d not seen anything like that. It was the sort of thing he’d seen all the time in the streets back home, although it was usually food thieves running from shop-owners, rather than book thieves running from Dragonguard. “Hey,” someone whispered behind him. He whirled around, looking back and forth in bewilderment. “Look down,” the voice said again. He did, and found a cat staring up at him, wide golden eyes seeming to look right into his soul. “Oh, sorry,” the cat said, and a moment later turned into the book-thief girl, squatting on her haunches and staring up at him through the same golden eyes. “You’re really tall,” she commented. “What—how—” “Never mind that now. You seem like a nice person who knows things. Do you know how to get to the Dragonring?” “Do I—yes, I know how to get there.” She leapt up, bouncing with childish energy that made her seem either half her age or at least a decade older. “Great, then you can take me! Come on, come on, we need to get going!” He shook his head, trying to clear the fog. “No, no, no. I have to get to work right now.” She stopped, tilting her head. Disappointment saturated every bit of her, with underpinnings of hopelessness. “You . . . Can’t help me?” He sighed. “Not right now. How about I take you when I get off work this evening, seventh hour past noon.” “Oh, fine. I’ll find you then.” Her form shimmered strangely, and then the girl was gone. In her place was a little bird with golden eyes who hopped once, then took off in a slight puff of air and was gone. Cassius gazed after the creature, feeling like he’d been hit in the head. He’d felt like this before—the first time, it was dragons. The second time, it was Quinn Meredith. “What just happened?” He muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair. “Did I . . . Those eyes . . .” He would be late to work that day.

“No, Lila!” I keep walking, ignoring the voice in my ear. “I’m not helping you anymore.” “Lila! Lila, I need your help! Lila, don’t make me . . .” I pause. “Lila, please. Please help me, I am begging you, just one more chance . . .” I turn back to the doorway. “No, Lucien, you’ve had your chances, and wasted them. I’m done helping you.” Lucien is slumped on the other side of the barrier, smoky and indistinct as ever. I think of the solidity of their hand in mine in that moment, that one moment when I thought I could let them through. That just once, I could show compassion to another being and it wouldn’t backfire. I’d been wrong. So wrong. “Lila, you can’t leave me like this,” Lucien begs. It feels earnest, the desperation and fear woven into their voice. But then, the rest did too. And now I know them for what they are—a lying snake. Well, I’d known that from the beginning. I had just believed that they would prove different than the stories said, that this one would be kinder, truer, more honest. “I’m sorry, Lucien,” I say. “You’ll find someone else to help you, I’m sure. There are many gullible witches in the world, after all.” “No, Lila, you don’t understand—” I stalk back toward them. “What don’t I understand, Lucien? Your greedy, deceptive heart? You’re as much a villain as I was taught, perhaps worse.” “I know.” I stand still, stunned. “What?” “I know what I am. I tried for so long to be something else, something not so twisted and rootless. I tried to craft a moral compass. But it all falls apart in the face of true desperation. No, I won’t find someone else to help me. In a matter of hours there won’t be a need, because this place where I’m trapped will have dissolved, and me with it. I didn’t mean to manipulate you, Lila. I swear on all the stars in your sky which I have never seen and have never needed to see. Old habits die hard, I suppose. This was my last chance at survival, and, fearing that when it came down to it you wouldn’t help me, I acted on instinct.” There is what feels like real regret in their voice, more poignant than I’ve heard from them in the past, even when they were spinning their tale of tragedy to lure me in. “This is impossible,” I murmur, and turn away again, thinking. They had betrayed my trust. Again and again over the past weeks they had lied to me, spun tales and half-truths to get me on their side, and like the hopelessly compassionate person I am, I had been drawn in by their stories of betrayal and grief, up to the point where I had been willing to pull them through from their realm to mine. They had been lying to me before. They could be lying again now. As much as I want to walk away and forget about them, I know that if I do, their face will haunt me forever. If I take their hand again, the barriers between our minds will drop. Lucien will be able to read my thoughts, and I will be able to read theirs. My compassionate heart won’t let me walk away. I turn back to them, closing the distance between me and the doorway. “Give me your hand.”

When I look in the mirror, I see a demon looking back at me. Let me elaborate. My name is Morgan Ordell. I am sixteen years old. And I have a problem with mirrors. It’s not as unusual as you’d think. Most of the people this side of the Divide have special abilities, gifts, curses, whatever you want to call them. I know people who can turn into bats or deer or foxes, purify water with a touch, or manipulate metal. My ability, though, is special. I’m a Seer, a classification of abilities concerned with foretelling. Some Seers can touch an object and know everywhere it’s ever been, everyone who’s ever touched it, and if they encounter one of those people, they’ll know immediately who they are. Other Seers dream of future events, or see the color of people’s souls. Me, I see their true natures in their reflections. Or maybe it’s their fates. I’m not sure, and it doesn’t really matter. Either way, if I look at someone’s reflection, I don’t see their material body, I see something else. Sometimes it’s a delicate spirit wrapped in misty white robes. Sometimes it’s a skeletal child with long grasping fingers and an eerie grin with too much teeth. Sometimes I see animals, or skeletons, or weird rippling shadows. The abstract ones are always the most unsettling. Wait, scratch that. The most unsettling is what happens when I look at myself. Do you know how awkward it is, never able to look at your reflection? Bad enough trying to avoid mirrors—since I can never translate the reflections, and all they do is haunt me, I try to go without looking at them at all, unless someone asks me to and I can’t say no—but when you don’t really know what your own face looks like? Because trust me, I think I would know if I was actually a grinning skeletal demon with curving horns and pupil-less yellow eyes, completely lacking in a few of the outer layers that make we living onions recognizeable as human. I have hair. Lots of it. And skin—it’s a pale tan color, much like many other people I know—and I definitely don’t have horns. I’ve asked what my eyes look like, and everyone agrees they’re a nondescript hazel-green color, much like many other people. There’s a possibility they’re lying, but I’ve thought long and hard about it, and have failed to come up with a single logical reason for them to lie. So anyway, this demon is what makes me really hate mirrors. And sometimes my life. Because when I tell people I don’t like to use my ability because I don’t like what I see, they don’t understand why, exactly, I’m so reluctant. I don’t blame them. How could they? When they look in a mirror, they see the world reflected back at them, exactly as they’d perceive it if looking at it head-on. I’m the only one who knows what I see when I look in the mirror, and I’m the only one who’s spent countless sleepless nights with that grinning yellow-eyed face looming over me in the dark. Why was I explaining all this? Oh, yes. The eighteenth of May. It was the eighteenth of May when all this started. The day started normally enough—waking to the gentle summons of the early-morning sun, its familiar whispers of a day just begun and full of possibilities one of the best possible ways to wake up. I rolled upright, feeling the previous day’s hours helping to mine star-dust amethysts in the dull morning ache of my muscles, and stumbled, stiff and bleary, to the opening through which the sun beamed, unreasonably cheery as always. The climb down my tree—I live in a tree like every self-respecting person, not sure why that would be strange—was awkward, and I slipped once, scraping my calf on a rough-barked branch. On another morning I might jog the short distance to the river, but that morning I merely walked, along the path outlined in sun-glow flowers to my rock, where I slipped out of my shift, leaving it in a graceless pile on the rock, and jumped, making a splash that doubtless terrified any number of smaller creatures in the surrounding trees. Listen, I know people who try not to displace a single leaf, slipping from place to place with all the quiet, graceful dignity they can muster. It has always struck me as a miserable way to live. If no one’s watching, why try so hard? We all leave marks on the world whether we want to or not. Might as well not worry about it, and spare yourself vast amounts of energy better spent pursuing your own happiness. Ah, well. Back to how it all started. I completed my swim, feeling much better, and dragged myself up out of the water a ways downstream, then jogged gently back to where my clothes were waiting. My hair was wet, which meant both it and my shift would be that way for a while, but that was swimming for you. My day continued uneventfully until a little after noon, when, completely without meaning to, I stumbled across the thing that would change my world forever. Hidden in the shadows of the cavern, small and inconspicuous, I only noticed it because I was looking for more hints of the amethyst we were mining, and there were specks of the stuff outlining it, little swirls and stars of purple star-dust. It was a door, dear reader. A door to someplace strange, someplace unimaginably flawed, yet flawless in its utter difference from the world I had always known. A door to someplace new.