The gown has likely already been confiscated by the officits with all my other possessions: a worn volume of Evewynian myths and folktales, a dried plum blossom pressed between the pages; a doll I’d bought with my first month’s stipend at the Queen’s Company; a cloth square embroidered with mountain orchards in bloom, purchased from a festival; ticket stubs to plays I’d attended with Saengo at the theater; the very first message Kendara wrote me, a single sentence indicating a time and place to meet, meaningless to all but me.

They were few in number and yet the physical sum of all my years in Vos Talwyn. A pang of longing strikes swiftly, making my chest ache with the knowledge of lost things, lost time, lost dreams. Every moment I’m here feels like I’m careening further and further away from the life I’d chosen.

Saengo makes a face and ties the scarlet sash around my waist. “You know I respect Kendara, but I don’t like her ‘tests.’ You always come back looking a little less like yourself.” Her voice grows quiet. “Like how you looked when you stabbed that shadowblessed. Everything about you goes cold.”

“He was trying to kill me,” I say dryly. I slip my bare arms through the sleeves of the robes, which cascade down my form. In a gown like this, I would have fit right into one of the queen’s lavish balls or dinner parties.

On those evenings, Saengo and I would sneak from the barracks and hide within the gardens, watching the court in their resplendent silks beneath the glow of hundreds of painted lanterns. Being a lord’s daughter and heir, Saengo of course was taught to dance. So we pranced in circles around ylang-ylang trees, swinging our arms in dramatic swan poses between rows of hibiscus and plumeria, each dreaming our impossible dreams.

Saengo shakes her head. “I know. You didn’t have a choice. But you’re also one of the most compassionate people I know. Stop rolling your eyes. It’s true. I worry when you’re forced to do things like that. Kendara didn’t like seeing any softness in you.”

I sigh. “She would absolutely disapprove of this gown.” She disapproves of anything too conspicuous, like silks and jewelry and smiling and pretty much anything that isn’t dour and boring.

Still, she taught me to survive. Saengo doesn’t understand that I’ve rarely had the luxury to be soft. I didn’t have the protection of a powerful family. Or any family. I didn’t have wealth, status, and comfort.

All things she’s lost because of me.

“All right, your turn.” I reach for the laces at Saengo’s collar. She jerks away, but not before my fingers pull down the fabric, just enough to reveal spidery blue lines climbing over her collarbones. “Saengo!”