I take a deep breath, doing everything I can to keep my voice from wavering. I even manage a mockingly stern look. “You cannot shorten my nickname to a shorter nickname. It’s unconscionable.”

A mischievous grin slips naturally over her face. “You like it.” The cheerful look is gone as quickly as it came, but she doesn’t look away. “Seriously. What’s wrong? And I can tell it’s not just what a disaster tonight was, so don’t even try lying.”

I miss home. The words don’t come. Tongue-tied, I just stare into her eyes, softer for me than for anyone else in the world. But I don’t have to say it. My twin can look at me and know what I’m thinking.

I do miss home. I miss it like I would miss a chunk of my heart removed from my living body. We’re leaving this city that sheltered us for the better part of the spring and summer, but we still can’t go back. I miss the embrace of the familiar, the rhythm of daily life with our parents. And I know that they don’t—can’t—miss me back.

My fingers squeeze the vial, knuckles going white. I know it’s my fault we’re on our own. My uncontrolled, reckless, dangerous magic that made me a criminal before Isolde had ever so much as set her eyes on a lock pick.

I miss home excruciatingly every day. But it’s worst on days like this.

Moving instinctively, my head settles onto Isolde’s shoulder. The ends of her dark hair tickle my nose as her head leans on mine, sheltering me.

“Want me to tell the story of how Mami and Papa adopted you?” Another birthday tradition. They told that story every year. I can hear the smile in her voice. Is it forced or real?

“You weren’t there.” Another forkful of cake turns to glue in my mouth. “I mean, there’s no way you remember. You were less than a month old.”

“You don’t know that.”

“How old you were?”

“That I don’t remember.”

I snort. “Go ahead, then.”

There’s a pause as she chews. “Well,” she says with her mouth full, “I don’t remember, honestly. But from what I’ve been told, it was easy to tell, even as a newborn, that you were a changeling. Mami had been around enough other babies, after all. And don’t tell me that newborns don’t have a personality, because if they didn’t, one of us wouldn’t be here.”

I’d helped our mother, the town midwife, with dozens of births before everyone found out I was a changeling and suddenly wouldn’t allow their children within spitting distance. Up until that point, I’d considered myself something of an expert on the subject. “I wasn’t going to correct you,” I interrupt.

Isolde hums. “Sure you weren’t.” She gives up on her fork, lifting the cake to her mouth with her bare hands. “Worried over what would become of her other daughter, she decided to come find me herself. She left in the night, because she knew Papa would try to stop her. You were in a sling tied close to her chest as she traveled through the forest for three days.”