"And you're certain you lost the assassin?" my client nags.

I shrug. "Isn't it more exciting not to know?"

He gives me a beseeching stare.

"I'm certain then," I say offhand. "On a night like this, it wasn't even difficult."

The truth is, it was exhausting. The assassin was ferociously clever with shortcuts and ambushes. Three shallow cuts are stinging on my neck. Poisoned, of course. But I have immunities.

I owe my escape to the chaos of the festival. The windy night is seething with wild singers and painted dancers—a pursuer's nightmare. Every street is a baffling river of purple torches and purple-lit faces. Overhead, fireworks go screaming through the rain to crackle against the thunderclouds, outshining the lightning. It's distracting, dazzling, and sometimes outright blinding. Whenever a firework explodes, all the raindrops twinkle, filling the darkness with sparkles of brilliant emerald, dazzling blue, or murderous red. If the assassin can hunt me down through this level of chaos, I'll die unashamed.

Probably, my pursuer is no longer tracking me. Probably. But still, a sense of danger lingers on the cool night air, like the scent of an exotic spice.

"Can't you go any faster?" Jaden demands, shielding his eyes against the wind. I'm carrying him in my arms, burning the last of my magical strength. He's built as lightly as a ferret, but even his small weight is enough to set my arms trembling, after the night I've had. It's all I can do to keep up a slow jog as I climb the slope of an overlooking bridge.

I feel vulnerable at this speed, because I am. All my powers depend on velocity. If I could sprint, then Jaden would become as light as vapor to me. My thoughts would quicken and sharpen. My limbs would grow tough enough to withstand the bone-cracking torque of high-speed acrobatics.

As it is, my shaking muscles are going to force me down to a walk in a few minutes, and then I'll be as weak as any human.

I would love to just dump Jaden's grouchy backside into a snowbank. But he was limping when I found him, so I have to help him to safety, because I'm sort-of his friend. His only friend.

"You're going slower!" Jaden complains. "There could be mirrorlings out here."

"Then calm yourself," I admonish him. "What's the use in suffering before we're hurt? It's a beautiful night, so let's enjoy it. Look!"

I skid to a halt at the apex of the bridge. It's a perfect high-point from which to gaze out over the whole magnificent cityscape while I catch my breath. All the ice gardens look ghostly by stormlight, except when the fireworks boom. Streets like rivers of purple lava lace together, turning the dark vista into a spiderweb of violet fire.

Jaden grumbles, "It's too dark to see anything."

"Spoilsport."

"Even if you did shake the assassin, there's no certainty that we'll get home alive."

"In this city, is there ever?" I set him on his feet, and then take a moment to close my eyes and rest in the pleasant breeze.

When I open them, Jaden is leaning on the parapet beside me, which means that he's finally calmed himself. He's not actually a coward, any more than he's actually my client.

The truth is, we've hired each other. He agreed to help me search for the greatest person in the world, who is missing. In exchange, I agreed to guard him from his personal enemies. He's extravagantly rich in enemies.

I take a moment to consider him, my one ally in all this mess.

Jaden is, according to society, a wealthy and respectable earl.

But according to personality, he's a born sewer sneak.

The Jaden I'm used to is a dirty little sly-eyed spy, his cheeks striped with soot, his hair tangled like a nest of vipers. His native land is anywhere dark, and when he ventures into lighted places, he moves as furtively as if he's sneaking into enemy territory. Whenever I look at him, especially in the eyes, the phrase that leaps to mind is, 'up to something.'

Tonight is the first time I've seen him dressed as an earl, and it seems fake. I instinctively believe that my sewer sneak is the real Jaden, and that this earl is a disguise. He's simply conned the entire aristocracy into accepting him, which has to be the world's most monumental scam. There's only one reason I don't actually believe that: his skulking is charged with the unmistakable passion of escapism. When he's spying, he's not doing work, he's avoiding it. You can tell. He's like those barons and baronesses who burn with needs that cannot be fulfilled within the tight restrictions of their class, and who disguise themselves to perform as acrobats, or marry common singers, or fight and die as gladiators. Jaden is even more extreme. For pennies, he drags himself through sewer drains, pricks warlocks, gets himself stabbed, steals, fights like a mad rat, and usually ends up running for his life.

Whatever his psychosis may be, I'm glad he exists. The other spies I tried to hire acted tough, but ultimately didn't have the backbone to dig into a mystery as dangerous as the disappearance of such a powerful mage. Jaden is the opposite. Loud cowardice, silent grit.

I turn from the view, feeling rested enough to continue on. "How's your leg?" I ask Jaden. "Can you walk?"

He tosses his chin haughtily. "I can walk, but we need to run."

"Still spooked, are you?"

"If I weren't, it would mean I'd gone mad. You just bloodied the nose of a mirrormage. Not some brute fireball-hurler but a highly advanced, highly intelligent doer of the impossible."

His speech comes out in fits and starts, because I have picked him up and hauled him at a run down the street, up a side-alley, and into the raucous stampede of a grand boulevard.

"The masquerade was not a total loss," I shout over the noise. "We earned the adulation of the aristocracy!"

"Only because they were vain enough to assume that they were the mage's target! They weren't. You were."

"Faugh!" I scoff, as I dodge through a column of veiled priestesses, who are shrieking, "Hail the Mask! Hail the Mask!"

I take a teasing tone, "The baroness's spell was clearly aimed at you, and I saved your measly and ungrateful life. She must be one of your enemies—"

"The baroness? She's got nothing to do with this. A mirrormage would never reflect herself for a mirrorling. The baroness is her prisoner. And the spell was aimed at me only because you're so disgustingly fast that you can't be hit. The mirrormage is not my enemy, she's yours."

"I don't have enemies. It's my policy to resolve those situations quickly."

"But why should a mirrormage attack me?"

"That's quite clear," I argue. "See, odds are that if I mention your name to five random citizens, I'll learn that six of them want you dead."

"Yes, yes, I have been involved in many misunderstandings. But only rarely am I actually attacked. What has changed in the last few days?"

"I can hardly think at this miserable speed. Tell me."

"I began openly investigating the disappearance of El, your precious lightsmith. I was just beginning to probe the aristocracy."

"Then... then... " I accidentally clench Jaden hard, making him yell. I ignore him, "... then this mirrormage kidnapped the lightsmith?"

"Possibly, you outworld barbarian! Try not to cripple your only ally in your excitement!"

"So El is alive then?"

"Mages rarely destroy what they can exploit. The lightsmith will not be murdered, but tempted, enslaved, or simply robbed of magical energy. It has already begun. That mirrorling was built by a mirrorsmith, but powered by a mage of light."

"Tell me how I can track them down tonight!"

"Impossible. A mirrormage won't be found so easily. She's not going to let you turn this into a footrace; she'll fight you on her own terms. For now, we need to protect our necks."

"Very well, I'll take you home now and help your guards tuck you into bed. After that, I'll at least try to find them."

"Home? I can't go home! She may have already replaced my guards with mirrorlings, filled doorways with mirror portals. I'll walk into my closet and find myself a thousand miles away, trapped in some maze where I'll be imprisoned for the rest of my measly and ungrateful life!"

I slow down, panting. "So where do you want me to take you?"

"If you can gain entry into some kind of magical fortresses—"

He cuts off as I run up against an elephant mother. Beneath her gigantic bronze-beaten mask, her short tusks are hung with casks of splashing festival beer. I apologize for crowding her, since it's always best to be polite to elephants.

"Mysterious ones," she intones, greeting us courteously by pinching our cheeks with her huge dusty nostrils, "Would you hail the Mask on this night?" Her trunk loops around and brings us a ladleful of rich-smelling beer.

We each take the expected sip, dutifully hailing the Mask and calling the elephant "Mysterious one." That's the traditional greeting on this night. I'm not especially pious, not like the people who were born here; but I'm not fool enough to snub gods who are meddlesome, temperamental, and fantastically dangerous.

The elephant gives us each a priestly pat with her trunk. "May your secrets lie in darkness forevermore."

As we get up to speed again, Jaden complains, "We're going even slower."

"It's getting crowded here," I pant. "And you're heavy!"

"I thought the whole point of you was going fast."

"I'm an arrow, not a cart."

"You're a slug."

I smirk to myself. If he can play like this, then he's not as scared as he was. I tell him, "I could go faster if I wasn't carrying more than Atlas."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"The reason you made yourself the fastest thing alive—" He breaks off as I leap onto the roof of a housecart, then up to a higher street. "—anyway, what in the world is Atlas? Now listen, I have you all figured out. You made yourself the fastest thing alive simply to disguise your true nature—as a slug."

We reach a bridge over an aqueduct, and I deliberately slow the pace. "How did you manage to get yourself injured anyway? Trip on the stairs?"

He beams at me like a man indulging in a long-awaited pleasure. "Not at all. I faked an injury in order to use you as my donkey."

I jerk to a stop and stare at him. He's serious.

For a moment I consider hurling him into the water. But then I end up laughing with him. For a semi-coward, he has guts. "Alright, you win that round," I admit. "Come on, let's walk. I should rest my legs anyway, just in case." As we shoulder through the throng, I ask, "What should I be watching out for? What would an attack of the mirrormage look like?"

Jaden follows by my shoulder, shouting over a thrilling crescendo of trumpets, "Watch out for symmetries!"

"What kind of symmetries?"

Jaden pulls me to a stop and speaks into my ear so I can actually hear him. "Think of the attack in the ballroom. Each of us faced an enemy who was similar to ourselves. As a fragile noble, I faced the baroness. As a lightning assassin, you faced another like yourself. The eight guards were supposed to face eight guards of mine, only luckily I didn't bring them. If I had, then the fight would have been symmetrical, and we would be dead or in a dungeon."

He resumes walking, but I pull him back. "Then we really must hunt her down tonight. Don't you realize what your own words mean? She knows everything. She knows that I exist, which not many people do. She somehow knows that I hired you. She attacked us, which means she knows I'll free the lightsmith if she doesn't stop me. She even counted the number of guards inside your house."

"These are excellent reasons not to go after her tonight. If we—"

"How many mages have you fought?"

He hesitates in the purple halflight. Then, to his credit, his face becomes attentive.

I tell him, "I think you're clever, but you and I are not equipped to outsmart a mage. We cannot allow her to control the pace of battle. The longer she has to weave enchantments and schemes, the more dangerous she'll become. We have to rush her. If we defend, she'll curse us from halfway across the world. We'll never even see her, not until we grow too weak to save ourselves. Now, is there any way I can find her tonight?"

"Perhaps... the assassin?"

"The assassin will probably just spot me and kill me. I'll need a plan, a disguise, and a way to find one stealthy person in all this riot."

"Hmm..."

Jaden seems to be thinking, so I begin walking again. All this mental work is difficult when I'm at a standstill. And besides, I feel like moving. My legs are full of the restless thrill of knowing that El is not dead. The festival and my mood are well-matched.

I clasp my hands behind me and enjoy these feelings, and the night smells, and the sounds of happiness. This city has a personality that beckons, reaches out, and sometimes seizes one by the throat. People can touch me and talk to me when I'm moving this slowly, so before I walk a hundred steps, I have been pickpocketed by a child, who I chose not to stop, and I have been given a candied pear, showered with confetti, and kissed.

Still, I manage to keep an eye out for symmetries. They seem to turn up everywhere: there are laughing slaves being carried on the shoulders of their masters. Duos of daredevils leap from the towertops on glider-wings, blowing my capes with their wind. Their translucent membranes spread out symmetrically on either side, silhouetted against the lightning.

Then, less symmetrically, a rogue firework comes warbling up the street. It clips a shop sign, tumbles crazily, and then explodes so close by that I feel my ears plug and my eyes vibrate. Its blue and purple streamers sizzle across the rainy cobblestones, millions of fireflies scattering in panic. In the midst of the spark-shower, a pack of ragged youths and strong street children laugh and try to catch the bouncing lights, shouting, "By the Lass!"

I know these rascals. One of the oldest is a casual friend of mine. He's busy washing his hair in the downpour of a rain gutter, but when the rogue firework cracks, he looks up. Spotting me, he returns my wave with a blue-glittering grin.

These are runners—a kind of high-powered street urchin that does not worship Mask, but does worship winds, storms, and in some ways, chaos. They wouldn't miss a windswept night like this. My experience with their kind is that they always love and envy me for my speed.

"Mysterious one!" calls one of the boys. "Any work?"

Jaden begins to breathe in, opening his lips. I know what he's going to say: the runners are a perfect way to find the assassin. He's right about that, but they're not cut out for this type of danger. We'd have their blood on our hands. In the moment before his breath becomes words, I snap my fingers in front of his mouth, catch his eye, and shake my head.

Jaden gives me a startled look, then scowls and follows me into the crowd, complaining, "It would have been a fine method."

"Maybe. I admit it seems like providence that we met them just then. Quite a coincidence."

He grumbles, "A coincidence? As long as we're enemies of a mirrormage, I suggest you stop believing in coincidences and start believing in omens. But only bad ones."

The street ends in a canal fed by waterfalls from the aqueduct. Canal boats of all sizes make regular stops here, and Jaden and I happen to arrive at the exact moment when one of the larger, faster ones pulls to a halt.

"Oh look, what a pleasant coincidence, I mean sinister omen," I observe, tossing a coin to the boat guard as I step onto the gangplank.

Jaden eyes the boat narrowly. "Did I say omens? I should have said plots." But he boards without further complaint.

Most of the passengers are drunken, or snoring, or nuzzling in pairs under the cover of darkness. Jaden and I inherit responsibility for one sleeper, who asked to be awoken at a future stop. The man who originally agreed to do it needs to get off and find a washroom.

"I may have thought of something for your hunt," Jaden mutters, leaning across the sleeper to speak close to my ear. "Do you know how to tell when magic is powerful?"

I know a few ways, but I shake my head.

"It's twisty. Serpentine. That's why some mages show contempt for fireballs and lightning bolts. They're too direct."

"I don't think the assassin I'm hunting is magical though," I whisper.

"Well, this idea is about the mirrormage. I don't think you're going to find the assassin tonight."

"Don't you? I've been thinking that it should be possible. I've never seen anyone wear that particular type of hood."

Jaden scoffs. "It can't be that unusual. Look, here's one right here." He tilts his head, indicating the sleeper between us.

He's right.

"Oh," I say. "Well I suppose I just didn't notice them before. Anyway, about your idea..."

"Yes. I've heard that one of the many dangers of casting powerful spells lies in persuading them to target the person you wish. By default, they always strike the caster."

"That's odd. Why?"

"For the same reason that lightning strikes beneath its thundercloud and not a hundred leagues away. Electrical conductivity and magical conductivity are mirror images of each other. But with magic, the conductive materials are not things like copper, water, and human nerves, but passions, memories, and human fates."

I try to grasp how this is relevant, but my velocity is zero, and my exhaustion is catching up with me. I hide a yawn in the purplish gloom.

"My point is," Jaden murmurs, "if the mirrormage wishes to curse you, she needs access to something—or someone—to which you are deeply connected. The people nearest to you are in danger. She will try to trick, tempt, or capture them, and in all likelihood she has already begun. It will be painful, but we may find clues about the mirrorsmith if we visit your loved ones and learn who has been trying to manipulate them, or who has taken them."

I smile and shrug sleepily. All my closest friends and blood relations are far, far beyond reach. There are advantages to being an outworlder. "There's no one but El," I yawn. "Miss Mirror already has all my people."

"I wonder then..." Jaden muses. "She won't use the lightsmith to curse you."

"Mm?" I mumble, too sleepy to articulate the word 'why?'

"Too valuable," Jaden explains. "Whatever she uses will suffer worse damage than you do, since conduction is never perfect."

"That's nice," I breathe, and fall asleep.

I never remember dreams. To me, sleep is not an adventure into strange lands, but a little death. No time seems to pass.

If I ever did remember seeing a dream, I would be almost as startled as if I had hallucinated during the day.

I wake up to a dark silhouette shaking my shoulder. Ah, it's Jaden. Hard to recognize him in the dark.

I may not ever remember my dreams, but sometimes, rarely, I have a faint sense of it, like an aftertaste. This time, I dreamed of the assassin. Something faintly embarrassing. I can still smell that strawberry breath as if it's real. It's seems strange to me that a person who would slash my throat open with a smile would also stop to eat strawberries. Seems too human. Doesn't match.

"Is this our stop?" Jaden asks. I blink at the empty street beyond the gangplank, still disoriented, still leaning drowsily against the firm shape that I slept against.

Jaden's question is difficult to answer, since there's no landmark at our stop. The only sign is a sense of purity in the light, a quality as subtle as it is exquisite. I see it where the moonlight slants through the thunderclouds, pooling on the white marble of the street. "It's here," I tell him.

"Then it's time to be up. For you too." He shakes the sleeping passenger. I realize that we slept leaning on each other, skull moving against skull. We disentangle ourselves, still too bleary to feel awkward.

The stranger mumbles to Jaden in a voice thick with sleep. "Thank you, sir... Would you accept this?" A silver coin flickers in the dark.

"Oh, it was nothing," Jaden says, declining. "Sleeping through a stop is not so bad, I've done it before."

"Is that so?" the stranger muses, fingering the coin. "But my employer is not forgiving."

"Well I'm glad I could be of help," Jaden says, and starts over the gangplank.

I go to follow him, but the stranger suddenly catches me by the sleeve. "Are you with him?"

"I am."

"Then spend this on him; I'll be in no one's debt."

The silver coin slides onto my palm, as heavy as a dagger, as reflective as mirrored steel.

As Jaden and I walk down the street, I admire the strange coin, turning it idly to catch the purified light of the moon and the lightning.

We stay silent until the stranger draws far enough ahead that we won't be overheard.

"I never asked," Jaden says, "Where are you taking me?"

"The lightsmith's castle."

"It may be watched."

"I hope so. Then the assassin will come for us. I have no fear of a battle where the lightsmith's defenses are on my side, and when the assassin retreats, wounded, then I can follow."

"I..." Jaden frowns, "...I like the way you think."

It has been a few days since I returned to the lightsmith's street, and the sight of the moonlit spires is as soothing as a mother's lullaby. The many lights of the sky and the festival are purest where they reflect off of the crystal walls of the lightsmith's keep. In that light, even the ragged, all-concealing cloak of the stranger who walks ahead of us seems as glamorous as a raven's wings.

Then the stranger stops, and half turns.

Across the street from the lightsmith's castle is a newly built fortress. That's not too surprising. Such things can pop up almost overnight when mages are involved.

The stranger strides up to the fortress's outer wall and knocks at the gate.

There's something about this that unnerves me.

Symmetry.

Jaden and I are now at the lightsmith's gate, exactly opposite the stranger. As Jaden begins to enter, I glance back.

It's obvious from this angle: the new structure is made of steel and silver instead of crystal, and it does not purify the light, but aside from that, it is an exact mirror of the lightsmith's castle.

"Jaden!" I cry, grabbing his shoulder.

At the sound of that name, the stranger turns, eyes wide, lips parting in shock. It's the assassin. The gateway of the mirror fortress is open now, and the baroness is standing there, exactly opposite Jaden.

She gives us a little wave.