The collar, it seems, has trapped her in the younger state.

“Alive,” Iseult agrees. “Trickster’s spell was successful, and after that, the witch and her hedgehog friend went on many grand adventures for all the rest of their days.” Those words are not how Nomatsi tales end, but Iseult likes the Cartorran turn of phrase. She likes the idea of grand adventures with Safi at her side.

Owl is still clapping when a single knock sounds at the door and Leopold fon Cartorra strides in. As usual, he looks effortlessly perfect. His black brocade enhances the width of his shoulders, sharpens the tapering of his waist. He has even added a small cap that sits jauntily on one side of his head. On anyone else, it would look ridiculous.

On Leopold the Fourth, it looks dashing.

Owl rises and runs excitedly toward Leopold. “She says you are dressed very nicely,” Iseult translates as Leopold meets her. The child strokes his black cape with green curiosity. Like most things in the palace, such finery is new to her. Even her room, which is threadbare compared to Safi’s and Iseult’s, draws comments from her daily.

“It is not a color I would choose,” Leopold admits, and he offers Iseult his hands to help her rise. Even his gloves are black. “But it is imposing, and on a wedding day, it is good to look serious…” His eyes rake up and down Iseult’s new gown. Approval shimmers in his Threads.

Approval and something else. Something lilac that Iseult wishes she could not see.

“I will be back in a few hours,” she tells Owl in Nomatsi. Then to Zander in Cartorran: “Keep her safe.”

The gentle Hell-Bard smiles, his Threads suffused with warmth. “I always do.”

“Yes,” Iseult agrees, and she attempts a smile of her own. But it is tight upon her lips. Forced, false, frightening. Ever since she has reached Praga, she has tried to be like other people, wearing emotions on her face. Making expressions that reflect what people think she ought to feel.

But more often than not, she gets it wrong. And judging by Leopold’s wince, she is currently failing. Again. So she abandons the smile and hopes the heat rising up her neck is invisible.

She wishes she could simply spend her days alone with Safi. Or better yet, with Safi and the weasel on a road to Poznin. She hasn’t studied the diary pages in so long, and Poznin calls to her like a beacon in the night.

Leopold offers his arm, but before Iseult accepts, she grabs a burgundy cloak off the worn armchair in the corner. A matching scarf too, for outside of Owl’s room and her own, she dares not show her unnaturally pale skin, her unnaturally golden eyes.

Being the Cahr Awen earns her gifts, but it does not earn her respect.