The feather-faced woman is still staring at me with wide, owlish eyes. Then she turns, and her eyes flash red like a cat’s in the night. If I hadn’t been sure that she was a faerie before, I am now. That gleam in the darkness is the one thing faeries can’t change about their glamours.

The one thing that reveals a changeling’s true nature.

A cold breeze rushes over my skin, trailing chills as we let the scene fade behind us.

Isolde releases my hand, adopting an exaggerated drunken swagger. She crashes into someone with gold leaf painted over their cheekbones and lips and stops, slurring apologies and patting the person’s shoulders.

I roll my eyes as she falls back into step with me. “Can’t you at least save it until we get there?” I mutter, barely moving my lips.

Isolde’s hand slips out of her pocket, withdrawing a silver-plated compact mirror that she definitely didn’t have a few seconds ago. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“You’re not here to have fun. You’re here to get into the house, grab as much as you can, and get out, ideally without getting us arrested.” I know my voice is coming out too harsh, but I don’t know how to fix it, so I settle for nudging her in the ribs with my elbow.

Isolde looks at me sideways for a moment, as if she’s just now remembering the seriousness of our situation, before stuffing her loot back into its hiding spot with a chastened sigh.

I am not a pickpocket.

I don’t mean that in any kind of morally superior way—the truth is that even if I wanted to be a pickpocket, I don’t have the talent for it. Not like Isolde.

Isolde steals, grifts, pickpockets, and pawns. I keep us fed. We don’t need to be wealthy. We just need to survive until we can scrape together enough to reunite, to start over in a place where no one knows my face.

The noise of the festival fades as my fingers drift to the vial on a leather cord around my neck.

Our parents—Mami, a midwife, fierce and tough, with her homemade remedies for everything from a cold to stubborn zits; Papa, gentle and strong and always coming home from his studio with clay under his nails. They wouldn’t want this life for us. They’re good people. Honest people.

And they aren’t safe as long as I’m around.

So we left three years ago to run from city to city, to steal and cheat and lie and scratch out a living, telling ourselves it would be justified. It would all be worth it when we had enough to make our family a new home. When I could walk down the street without flinching every time someone looked at me a little too long, worrying they’d seen my face on a wanted poster somewhere.

We’re coming up to the bridge now, boots pounding an uneven rhythm on the cobblestones as the crowd around us thins. The streets are too choked tonight for horses or wagons to force their way through, leaving extra space on the wide bridge. The sour smells of warm human bodies pressed together and beer subtly ebb away with every step.