She had tied a golden sash around her waist, cinching in the ill-fitting, high-collared dress in an attempt to look a bit more presentable, if not in fashion. Coriane told herself she didn’t mind the whispers of court, the sneers from the other young ladies who watched her like she was a bug, or worse, a Red. They were all cruel girls, silly girls, waiting with bated breath for any news of Queenstrial. But of course that wasn’t true. Sara was one of them, wasn’t she? A daughter of Lord Skonos, training to be a healer, showing great promise in her abilities. Enough to service the royal family if she kept to the path.

I desire no such thing, Sara said once, confiding in Coriane months before, during a visit. It will be a waste if I spend my life healing paper cuts and crow’s-feet. My skills would be of better use in trenches of the Choke or the hospitals of Corvium. Soldiers die there every day, you know. Reds and Silvers both, killed by Lakelander bombs and bullets, bleeding to death because people like me stay here.

She would never say so to anyone else, least of all her lord father. Such words were better suited to midnight, when two girls could whisper their dreams without fear of consequence.

“I want to build things,” Coriane told her best friend on such an occasion.

“Build what, Coriane?”

“Airjets, airships, transports, video screens—ovens! I don’t know, Sara, I don’t know. I just want to—to make something.”

Sara smiled then, her teeth glinting in a slim beam of moonlight. “Make something of yourself, you mean. Don’t you, Cori?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I can see why Julian likes you so much.”

That quieted Sara right away, and she was asleep soon after. But Coriane kept her eyes open, watching shadows on the walls, wondering.

Now, on the bridge, in the middle of brightly colored chaos, she did the same. Nobles, citizens, merchants seemed to float before her, their skin cold, pace slow, eyes hard and dark no matter their color. They drank in the morning with greed, a quenched man still gulping at water while others died of thirst. The others were the Reds, of course, wearing the bands that marked them. The servants among them wore uniforms, some striped with the colors of the High House they served. Their movements were determined, their eyes forward, hurrying along on their errands and orders. They have purpose at least, Coriane thought. Not like me.

She suddenly felt the urge to grab on to the nearby lamppost, to wrap her arms around it lest she be carried away like a leaf on the wind, or a stone dropping through water. Flying or drowning or both. Going where some other force willed. Beyond her own control.