As if the sight of it had strangled her, she suddenly sank to her knees, gasping for breath. The sweater she’d borrowed from Lyric’s older sister had been too large for her just minutes ago, but now it was so small, Claire could see her wrists. But though the sweater was shrinking, it wasn’t tearing. It was clinging to Claire, squeezing her. Black dots swarmed at the edge of her vision, and she felt like she was drowning all over again.

“Elaina—Elaina!” Lyric’s voice reached her as if from afar.

Hands gripped under her armpits, and her legs burned slightly as she was dragged across the carpet. And then, suddenly, she could breathe! The sweater around her loosened, and the sleeves dropped back to where they should be. She lay on her back, letting her rib cage expand and contract, while a circle of faces looked curiously down at her, including one very angry face with wild white-blond hair.

“How dare you disturb rehearsal!” the director exclaimed. “You know better than to go inside a Smother-Ring! You are hereby banned from the coronation celebration! No, banned from the entire Historium!”

“Director,” Lyric said timidly, “she actually doesn’t know—”

The director whirled on her. “What do you mean?”

But before Lyric could reply, another one of the dancers—a boy with a long chin and even longer nose—gasped. “Oh, is that the girl whose thoughts have been Gathered? The one found washed up on the beach?”

“I heard it was the harbor, actually,” said another dancer, her many braids and twists pulled into a high ponytail on the top of her head. It bobbed and swayed like a question mark.

“Lyric was there!” the boy said. “Lyric’s the one who found her—my little brother said he heard her mother yelling at her this morning.”

Claire was surprised, but she knew she shouldn’t be. In a city of professional storytellers, of course news of the girl with lost memories would spread quickly. Which meant that soon, Mira Fray and the queen would learn of it, too.

“Enough!” the director snapped. “You.” He pointed at Lyric. “Explain.” Lyric stepped forward and quickly rattled off The Story, and Claire tried her hardest to look as though she had lived through it. When Lyric was done, the director’s eyebrows had lowered so much that Claire thought they might slip off his nose. “Historian Fray warned of two dangerous girls who have been flouting the Guild Treaty and causing havoc for our queen. How can you be sure this is not one of them?”

Claire’s heart caught in her throat. He had already guessed her identity!