Isolde extends the now much-lighter flask to me with a questioning look.

I glare. Then again, I’m not exactly in the position to take the moral high ground tonight.

If the drinks at the party were fizzy, pink, and delicate, this is molten silver, hot, and bright all the way down my throat. Coughing too loudly to try to play it off as something else, I hand back the empty flask.

“What are we supposed to do now?” I think I might sound accusing. It’s hard to tell. I don’t think changelings are supposed to have as many human emotions as I do. I’ve never met another who’s lived with humans as long as I have (at least, that I’m aware of), though I know they exist. “Isolde.” I grab at her arm. “What happened back there? Why didn’t you just stick to the plan?”

Isolde wipes a hand across her sweaty hairline, right above her mask. She isn’t looking my way, but I can sense her mouth puckering into a sullen frown. “What about you, huh? Who were those people? How did they know about—?”

“Shh!”

I hush her as a trio in cheaply painted skull masks stumbles past us, screeching with laughter. I stare at my boots as they pass, trying to keep my eyes in the shadows so they don’t flash with light. So no one else finds out I’m a changeling.

I’m tired.

When it seems safe enough, I tug on Isolde to bring her closer. “I ran into him at the party. It...it just slipped out.”

Curses. I should have lied. I should have told her that he’d noticed my eyes, anything to not make myself look this foolish. But her face is already twisting in surprise and something else, something almost angry but not quite. Her mouth opens—

“He didn’t seem suspicious or anything,” I lie, covering her half-started word. “And then the girl showed up and dragged him away, and—well, then they seemed kind of suspicious.”

Isolde’s mask is slipping off her face. She shoves it up roughly, and I’m met with a dark, quiet stare. “You know we have to get out of town,” she says finally. Her voice is rough and quiet. “First thing in the morning. At the latest.”

She’s right. Between Leira Wildfall, that girl with the beams of light, and the city guard, we’ll need to be careful for a while. Even once we get out of the city, we have no way of knowing if they’d follow us to the next place we happen to settle in.

“I know,” I say. “You’re not going to make a habit of making me help you pick locks, are you? I don’t think our parents—” I cut myself off suddenly, seeing the faintest twitch as Isolde flinches.

They didn’t raise us for this life, but we found it anyway. Easily. As if it’s what was always meant for us.

Isolde looks offended. “Of course not. I was just...so sure there was something great in there.”