There’s a chance that my sister’s brush with the faeries that stole her left her with a touch of magic. Not like my enchanting magic—more like uncanny luck, a skill with illusion. Her fingers are lighter than an autumn breeze. People tend to avoid her, and I don’t know if it’s because she’s always hanging out with her weird changeling counterpart or because she has her own kind of otherworldliness.

But we don’t talk about that.

I tell myself to take another deep breath. I don’t want to fight with my sister. Not really.

We finally pass out of the edges of Market Square, trailing the walkway alongside the river choked with darkened barges that will carry things in and out of the city in the morning, when the world creaks back to daily life. We’re almost home.

I squeeze my hands into fists, trying to ignore the slight tingle still lingering at the back of my mind, itching over my palms.

The wide path hugging the river along the outskirts of the city is all but abandoned. The moon is the only source of light now, washing silver over the river and the jagged silhouette of the crumbling ruins at the city’s edge. Auremore is a city built on the bones of an older civilization, with very little respect for whatever calamity wiped the original out all those centuries ago. It’s easy to forget all the history that lingers beneath when you’re in the city, but here at the border, the old and new butt against each other awkwardly.

I force a little smile and try for a joke. “Next year, all I want for our birthday is to not endanger our lives.”

Our birthday. I force myself to say it aloud, to claim it. I belong in this life as much as she does, and the circumstances of my birth don’t make us any less sisters. Doubts lurk in the dark corners of my mind, telling me I’m only lying to myself. I turn from them, pushing their whispers away. Just like Mami taught me to do.

Isolde’s hair catches the moonlight, silhouetting its sweep over her shoulders, and she gives me a gleaming, innocent smile. “No promises.”

Our home is parked in a solitary spot on the other side of the river, across the bridge that separates Auremore from the countryside. Other enchanted wagons and regular, horse-drawn caravans are spotted along the banks, but the Destiny is (in my admittedly biased opinion) the most beautiful of the bunch.

The solid wood box has been our home for the past three years, and I still feel lighter every time I see her cheerful paint job—emerald, accented with mint green—even tinted indigo in the night. She’s maybe six feet by fourteen, propped up on beautifully carved wooden wheels, with a domed roof, a little tin chimney poking out of the top, and round windows in each side. One large rectangular window in the front, currently closed off by curtains inside, lets the driver see without being exposed to the elements in even the worst weather. Two fold-away steps lead up to the door and a small platform in the front, used by the previous owner as a stage.