Because I thought of Connor. The day we met. When he was two and I was twelve. The clean-clothes smell of him. The happiness, coming off of him in waves, so strong that my sadness about being cast out of the Palace blew away like raptor feathers in the wind.

Memory can make you feel things.

“Shut your eyes,” I told Ash.

She did.

“Do you remember the time you found out your mother was going to let you attend a meeting of her governing council?”

“Yeah,” she said, and my eyes were shut but I could feel the smile in her voice.

I let myself drift back into the body of the boy I’d been. Only a month or so before my banishment. I could smell the familiar interior: stuffy like a bank, safe like a church. Summertime; thick stone walls kept the inside of the place a solid ten degrees cooler than the rest of the city.

I saw us, in front of a long line of mirrors. Because of course the queen had an entire room just for getting dressed. Ash stood there, holding a dress in each hand. One gray and one mauve. I was sprawled on a massive round blue velvet couch.

“They’re both awful,” I said.

Ash threw them both on the ground. “They are.”

We wore the simple tunics used by Palace guards and soldiers for their training. Ash had just come from there—the nine guards stood outside in the hallway, dressed identically—they’d spent hours drilling martial arts, but she still only had the one move, where she grabbed an attacker by the wrist and by the elbow and bent the arm the wrong way.

“You should wear that,” I said, sticking out my leg to touch the tunic with my toe.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “This is a very big day for me. I don’t want to meet them dressed like a soldier-in-training.”

“Why not? Is it better to meet them looking like a duchess whose mother is trying to marry her off? Go in there as the princess that you are, not the one your mother wants you to be.”

She nodded. Of course I was right. I was only repeating stuff I’d heard her say before. Ash understood things in a way I never would.

She tried on several more gowns, but I knew the argument was over. I’d won.

I let it swell and grow inside of me, the same pride I’d felt back then. In that moment I’d believed that I belonged in the Palace, that I was part of that world, that I had something to offer. That Ash and I would change our city, fix everything that was wrong with it.

My spine tingled. It got stronger and stronger—my hands turned cold and started to shiver, like a freak-out might be moments away, but I breathed deep and calm and soon the shivering subsided.