Excitement, the cause of the lightness that made me feel like I weighed no more than a feather, did not suit a situation where I needed to be stealthy.

Just as soon as Anna and I untangled from one another, I stood up and looked down at the city.

Without a moment of hesitation, I ran.

Dozens of campfires were scattered around the side of the city I could see, each a beacon that called for me to approach it in answer. Who were the souls sitting around their firelight? What stories did they have to tell? How could I not run towards them with reckless abandon?

It was temporary, but I was free.

“Autumn!” Anna snapped, her voice a harsh whisper.

The tall grass folding under my bare feet was soft and cool, a welcome change from the usual stone of the garden. I leaned into the decline, letting the hill speed me along as I went. My long hair trailed behind me in the night air as the city grew larger with each of my strides. Somewhere along the way, I realized I was laughing.

Heavy footsteps sounded behind me, coming much less frequent than my own.

The guards! I thought with a quick spike of panic.

I glanced back.

No, not the guards, only Arthur. He had joined me in my race down the hill.

Unfortunately for him, I was the wind. How could he compete with a natural force that had been suddenly set free after months of agonizing containment? There was no reality where I would let him win.

Nothing I felt was illusory. Everything I felt was mine and not a memory. My flight from the manor was beautiful and true in a way that little in my life had been. It was real, all of it, including the vicious thorns that punctured the bottom of my right foot when I saw the tangled track of vines a moment too late.

A shapeless shout slipped from my lungs as sharp pain shot through my foot and I sailed towards the ground.

I never hit it. Something coiled around my waist and held me aloft like I actually weighed as much as a feather.

“Stay low, the captain has eyes like a hawk.” Arthur whispered. Carrying me under his arm with seemingly little to no effort, he stepped over the perilous vines before lowering me gently to the grassy ground.

I crouched like he did. The tall grass reached up to my chin, but only covered the tall man to his chest. “Which one is the captain?”

“I haven’t met him,” Arthur said, looking up towards the manor. “Daphne says he patrols the hills all night.”

“Which one is Daphne?” I whispered. I knew Schmidt, Bool, Springer, Woolie, but had never heard the name Daphne.

“He’s supposed to be down at the bridge tonight, but all of them that are on duty are up at the gates.” Arthur whispered back.

The bridge I had nearly crossed just a few days ago when I had thought I was someone named Suri lay somewhere out of sight on our left.

“So, which one is he?” I repeated, my punctured foot beginning to throb.

“He was out there the morning you fell off the roof,” Arthur said, turning back to me. “He’s the one who told me I should join the city guard.”

Footsteps came from behind us and a moment later, Anna crouched down beside me. She grabbed my hand and thumped my fingers. “You can’t take off like that. It’s against the rules.”

In the low light, I knew her face well enough to know she wasn’t truly angry with me. “I’m sorry, I got excited,” I dropped down to my ass and pulled my foot up with my hands. “I stepped on some thorns.”

Small spots of dark liquid leaked from half a dozen spots on my sole in a jagged line. I wiped the blood away with my hand and smeared it onto the grass beside.

“It’s kind of stupid how little we thought about this. None of us are wearing shoes.” Anna whispered.

“We never wear shoes? Why is that a problem?” I asked, rising back to my feet and pressing my punctured foot against the ground to see how bad the pain would be.

“Stay low.” Arthur reminded me, pulling me down by my hand gently.

“Stepping on thorns for one,” Anna tapped the top of my foot with her hand. “What if there are thorns the rest of the way? Why don’t we go back and make a plan? We can try again tomorrow.”

I heard her logic. It made sense. I knew she was right, but I would have rather died than turn around and willingly reenter my prison so soon after I had escaped it. Finding myself in a position to do something I rarely had the opportunity to do, I ignored her question.

“Arthur is going to become one of the guards.” I said, dropping the information and using the distraction it created to begin creeping further away from the manor.

“Bullshit!” Anna blurted quietly, shoving her brother.

“I think so, it’s better than sitting around all day.” The tall man whispered back.

“How is it bullshit? What else is there for me to do around here?” Arthur said much too calmly for my liking. I had hoped to spin them into their usual bickering, but Arthur seemed like he did not wish to argue.

“What are you gonna guard, the garden?” Anna snorted and rolled her eyes.

Arthur shook his head. “No.”

“Have you told Ma? You know she isn’t going to let you.”

Arthur sighed. “It’s not her choice. I am a grown man.”

Anna let out an incredulous laugh. “I would love to see you tell her that to her face.”

“Keep your voice down. We’re fugitives right now.” Arthur hushed his sister.

Arthur’s size was not the only thing that had changed about him since we had moved to the manor. There was a tone in his voice, a weight, that made Anna listen to her little brother and cease her teasing.

Was that what he had been wanting to talk to me about, becoming a guard? I would make time to talk to him, when we weren’t what he had called us.

According to him, we were fugitives.

I had been a fugitive when I ran away to the mortal plane, but I did not think the word fit what we were doing. I had every intention of returning to my elaborate prison. If someone caught us, surely they would understand that I was taking a short leave of absence from my sentence and not trying to escape it fully. Which was a perfectly understandable excuse and definitely not fugitive behavior. With the overwhelming fairness and understanding I had been treated with before, surely nothing too extreme would happen if I was caught.

Despite the lack of bickering, my distraction had worked and the siblings followed me down the hill.

The manor growing smaller behind us, I reminded myself that it was perfectly fair to bind and seal my aura behind an unbreakable barrier. While we slowly crept over more tracks of thorny vines, my blood from my previous encounter with them still doting the grass under my feet, I reminded myself that it was perfectly fair to leave me with nine unimaginable punishments hanging around my neck like a chain. When the air began to cool as we approached the flowing river at the base of the hill, I reminded myself that it was perfectly fair for my life to be clutched in the death grip of The Mothers because I had done something I couldn’t even remember.

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Perfectly fair.

“Alright,” Arthur said at a normal volume and stood up. “We should be good now.”

Anna exhaled and used me to push herself up. “How are both of you fine? I feel like my legs are on fire.”

“We don’t sit around all day and drink like you do.” Arthur snapped his fingers and pointed at his sister.

“Look at it,” I sighed, walking right up to the river bank and looking at the dozens of campfires littering the streets in front of us. People of every age and variation sat around the flickering fires that littered the streets, big black pots like the one had been in the illusory cave served as the focal points. They all were laughing and smiling, undoubtedly engaged in the storytelling that came with Dreamtongue’s night. Deeper into the city, beyond my sight, there was someone I had to see. “She is in there, somewhere.”

“Who is?” Arthur said, holding his hands to his eyes like it would improve his sight.

“The Mother in Red, right? That’s who you mean?” Anna said, standing beside me and brushing my hand with her own.

“Right, Angry red.” I said, my incomplete list of The Mother’s names appearing in my mind. Subtly, my eyes on Arthur’s back, I wove my fingers within Anna’s. A jittery shallowness made my breath feel short in the best way possible. It was different, holding her hand behind her brother’s back. It was a secret pleasure that, combined with the thrill of my momentary freedom, made me feel like I would float off the ground if I let her go.

“The guards all talk about her like she is a god, but I’ve never seen her.” Arthur said, lowering himself and dipping his fingers into the river.

“You could,” I offered, thinking about how easy it would be to cross the water and enter Erosette properly. “We all could.”

Anna let go of my hand and crossed her arms. “Nope. No we can’t. No chance,” She said, asking her head. “We came to the river. It’s time to go back.”

“You are right.” I agreed, nodding my head.

Anna continued. “Even if we were stupid enough to go into the city, we can’t cross the river without getting soaked.”

“Right, very true.” I said, slowly backing myself away from her and closer to the river bank. Cool droplets splattered against the back of my legs as I reached the water's edge and focused my aura.

Arthur grinned widely and winked at me, evidently realizing what I intended to do.

“Let’s go, you still have to train tonight anyways and you need to take care of your feet.” Anna said.

Like when I had been in a desperate struggle against the lich’s creature, I pushed my aura out of my palm and worked it under my feet. I did not use it to launch myself towards some twisted flesh puppet. Instead, I took a step back and held myself just above the rushing water with nothing but my will.

“Autumn. No!” Anna blurted, stepping towards me and trying to pull me back onto the grassy ground.

“First, we all could see her. We shouldn’t, but we could,” I began, taking another step back. It was almost too easy to continue working. I wanted to cross the river. My will made it so that I could with hardly a thought. “Second, I am crossing the river and seem to be dry as a bone.”

Anna shook her head and I watched her initial anger turn to something else. Disbelief, maybe? Her eyebrows were knitted together but her mouth was held open in a smile.

It was a wonderful conflict that only encouraged me to continue. Making a mental note to make her feel that way as often as I possibly could, I continued walking backwards across the river. “Third, I’ve never done this before. So It seems to be an appropriate replacement for my nightly training, Coach.”

The sight of Anna being so confounded with me brought an energy to my aura that begged to be used. My confidence grew with every step I took and with a wink, I pushed myself off of my working suddenly.

My feet landed on damp grass.

Arthur clapped, his wide grin spread across his face.

“You’re ridiculous,” Anna called to me. “I love it.”

She loved it. . . I thought.

“You are wrong, mortal. I am not ridiculous. I am power and grace personified.” I said playfully, flaring my arms and dropping into a dramatic bow.

I felt so full of life that I thought it might start running out of my eyes and ears.

Then, my foot slipped on the damp grass and I dropped head first into the cold river.

My lower half had caught on solid ground, but before I could drag myself back up, sudden water filled my mouth and nose. Coming up gasping, both from the cold and the need for air, I threw myself back and tried to catch my breath.

Power and grace all the time, that’s me.

I pushed my soaked hair back from my face and opened my eyes just in time to see Arthur drop Anna to the ground beside me.

“It isn’t that deep, you could have walked.” He said, the water rising to just above his knees proof of his words.

“Shut up, you’re like thirty feet tall,” Anna said. She turned to me. “Are you alright?”

Running my right hand over my hair and pushing the water from each strand with my aura the way my mother had taught me, I could smell the spiced scent of whatever was being cooked in the pot at the fire closest to us.

“Never better, honestly.” I said with a smile.

Arthur stepped out of the river and I placed my hand above his right knee. From where the wetness ended, I pressed all of the water out of his pants leg and into the ground with my aura before doing the same to his left.

“You, uhm, look like you again.” The tall man said.

I could feel him desperately trying to not look down at me. He was the weird one, not Anna and I.

The short drowning must have broken my focus, but it took no time at all to shift myself back into the visage of Millime, whoever she was. “Do you recognize me?”

“I do, but I don’t think anyone else will.” Anna said, squaring my shoulders and looking me up and down.

“How do you?” I asked her, wondering if I should dull my facial features like I had when I was Dani.

“Your dress is filthy, your feet are beat to shit, and the way you look at me,” Anna listed quickly. “But nobody else knows you the way I do.”

Arthur cleared his throat. “Don’t listen to her Autumn, I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Don’t call her Autumn, dummy. That’s worse than somebody recognizing her.”

“My name is Millime,” I said, turning from the siblings and setting my sights on the group of strangers gathered around the campfire just a little ways away. “Millime.”

“You realize how bad of an idea this is, Millime?” Anna asked, taking up beside me.

“Completely.” I agreed.

“Just making sure.” Anna sighed.

It did not take us long to walk within earshot of the gathering around the pot. All were quiet save for a sandy haired man that was deep in the rows of his story.

“Azeralphane haunted the city for three days and three nights, The walking storm they called him. The streets were flooded with water and washed away houses. Thunder so loud it broke glass every time it cracked echoed constantly. No one could escape for fear of being struck down by his blue lightning. After three days, the council broke and agreed to turn the boy over to the demon.”

A smattering of gasps and sounds of displeasure sounded from the crowd.

The man continued. “What were they to do? Let all of Bebin be washed away? Azeralphane was relentless, he would not leave until he acquired what he seeked. . .”

Another story caught my ear and led me further down the street.

“But the King's wife was not in her bed chambers.” A girl, she didn’t look much older than Anna or I but who could really tell, said to a circle of other girls. All of them wore the same lightweight red cloak and had their hair pulled into tight buns behind their head. The fire they sat around was in front of a large shop with an entirely glass front. Backlit displays of all manners of jewelry shone in the windows behind them.

“Where was the queen, Rijn? Stop drawing it out.” A girl with eyes like Anna and Arthur said.

“The queen was not in her bedchambers because,” Rijn paused. “Because, she was in mine.”

The girls in the matching cloaks burst into wild laughter and I realized it was their roars and howls that had tempted me before my escape.

I began to giggle myself in the sweet smelling street. Several of them noticed I was participating in their humor, but Anna pushed me along before I could talk to them.

Uniforms. I realized. School uniforms.

The further we plunged into the city, the more pots and fires there were. Gruff looking men sat with dainty old ladies. Another twenty or so girls in the uniforms were captivated by a tall sorceress painting the shape of a woman in the air with her crimson aura. We wove through the maze of storyteller’s and their audiences as nothing more than temporary observers. Several times, I looked back to make sure Anna and Arthur were still behind me and every time I did, I found them there. Snippets of stories and single sniffs of scents all filled the air with a tangible festiveness that I would have been content to spend the rest of my life wandering in.

So many sounds.

So many people.

So much to see.

My attention struggled to focus on any specific thing for more than a second before it would latch on to something else.

Why did that man curl his mustache in that manner? Did I smell cinnamon? If there was a jewelry shop, there must be something I could find for Anna. I was being watched. Of course I was being watched, I was in a crowd. Someone was bound to be looking at me. Did that lady really need to be wearing two hats? Was that man staring at me or did it seem that way just because of the angle?

So much. Too much.

“Hey,” Anna said, softly tapping me on my back. “You’ve been standing still for like five minutes. Are you okay?”

“It’s a lot,” I sighed, shaking my head and closing my eyes. I turned to her and leaned my head against her chest. “I’ve never been somewhere with this much . . . everything.”

Anna wrapped her arm around me. “I can imagine. Why don’t we head back?”

“Shit.” Arthur said suddenly.

“What?” Anna asked.

From somewhere in the crowd of people, I heard a voice I thought I recognized.

“Oi, Ugi! You finally came down! Come sit with us, bring your friends!”

“The guards.” Anna said.

Shit, indeed.