“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.