I woke in the morning, under a comfy blanket, arms wrapped

  around Ever’s warm weight. The low rumble of her purr vibrated against

  my chest. I wondered where the blanket had come from.

  Looking down at the cat woman drooling slightly on my

  bicep, I couldn’t help but consider the implication of the differences

  in beds between here and home. I’d needed to share a bed with someone

  not terribly familiar a few times in my life, mostly as a kid with other

  kids. But the plain flat rectangle of a modern bed made it easy enough

  to ignore the fact, so long as there were enough covers, and a decent

  amount of space. These cup-shaped things, however large or shallow, were

  designed to bring anyone using the space into close contact, piled up

  like a heap of kittens in a basket. I hadn’t reckoned with the

  difference at all when I made my offer the night before, but after a

  moment’s consideration I was glad. I wouldn’t have wanted that to stop

  me from doing so.

  Despite my best attempts to stay still while my brain

  worked, Ever woke soon after me, raising her head from my arm and

  blinking around uncertainly. I offered her a close-mouthed smile. Fangs

  first thing in the morning didn’t seem super friendly to me.

  “Sleep well?” I asked.

  She sighed and stretched, turning to bury her nose in the

  base of my throat for a moment. “Like a dream,” she answered. “Thank

  you.”

  I stroked a finger under the corner of her chin, pure

  habit from home. “You’re most welcome. And thank you. I’ve been needing

  some comfort myself recently.”

  She blinked up at me as though disbelieving the statement,

  but smiled back hesitantly, and then she was moving away, crawling out

  of our nest and straightening her clothes. I followed suit.

  “Whose blanket is this?” I asked, as I started to fold it up.

  “Can’t you smell La’a on it?” she responded.

  I took a sniff, cocking my head. As before, any time I let

  myself pay attention to the input from my nose I was instantly

  overwhelmed by a zillion different pieces of information. Was the

  slightly dusty copper scent of the drake among them? Maybe, I couldn’t

  be sure.

  “Nah, I really can’t. This nose is just too much. Literally.”

  Ever cocked her head up at me, pausing with one hand on the curtain. “Really?”

  I shrugged. “It just tells me so much at once I can’t make heads or tails. Kind of annoying.”

  “Huh. We should find you some help for that, once we get home.”

  “That’d be nice, I guess.”

  I followed her out into the common area, setting the folded blanket down on a spare chair.

  “I’ve gotta ask. A lot of what you told me last night

  kinda flew over my head, you know? I understood some things, but others

  don’t make sense to me. Like why do you act so standoffish if you

  actually like physical contact?”

  “Oh.” She folded herself onto a knee-chair, a frustrated look on her face.

  I settled myself in the same bean bag-like one I’d used the night before, winced, and dug my tail out from under me.

  “It’s a matter of propriety, you see. That sort of thing

  just isn’t done. I—” If she weren’t so self-contained, I imagined Ever

  would be twisting her fingers into knots or some such. As it was she

  just got even more still.

  The curtain of La’a’s room slid back with a surprisingly

  loud metallic sound. “Really?” She said. “It’s simple. The wolves are in

  charge around here, and wolves think touching is for babies and people

  you’re fucking. Anything else they see as ’weakness’ and make fun of. So

  sane folk who like not being all alone have to pick between getting

  picked on for being normal or getting messed up in the head trying to

  toe the line too hard. By the way, congrats. I thought I was the only

  one who was going to get lucky last night.”

  Ever’s indignant gasp would presumably have been followed by one of their usual arguments, but I jumped into it for a change.

  “No, nothing like that. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  “Why the side of Luuuve!” she crooned ridiculously. “So disappointed now. Still, cuddles is a good first step.”

  “Thank you for the blanket, La’a,” I offered.

  She shrugged one shoulder and folded into a seat.

  The other curtain opened, with less gusto, and Fiddle

  poked his head out. “I suppose there’s no point me hanging back,” he

  commented, and shuffled into the room as well.

  The others greeted him casually, while my brain hiccuped

  over how tiny he seemed now, when last night, in the dream library, he’d

  been only about a head shorter than me.

  “Good morning,” I hurried to paper over my silence. “More’s the merrier.”

  I looked around at the three of them. “So I take it Kiri was on the side of ’touching is dumb’ too?”

  Fiddle nodded ruefully, Ever reluctantly. La’a snorted a laugh. “Very much so.”

  “Well, obviously, I am not.” I took a deep breath. “I know

  I’m not actually your princess or anything, but as far as I’m

  concerned, nobody should feel reluctant to share a touch or a hug—around

  or with me. I agree with La’a, it’s good for you. We need hu—” I

  stopped and started over. “We need contact, especially from other

  people.”

  “Here, here!” the drake cheered, displaying her uncomfortably sharp teeth in a grin.

  Fiddle smiled at me, and Ever just nodded, obviously still uncomfortable despite everything.

  “So what do you say we go downstairs for breakfast? I’ve had enough privacy for a while.”

  #

  Perhaps inevitably, the dining room of our chosen inn

  wasn’t very busy when we got there, but I appreciated the little bit of

  hubbub anyway.

  Over my second plate of eggs, crispy rice, and

  honey-glazed fish, I related my first visit to the dream library to my

  companions.

  “I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the amazing—” - “—librarians.” I stopped. “The” “librarians around—What the fuck?”

  Fiddle grimaced. “I did tell you, the librarians prefer their privacy.”

  “You didn’t say they could edit I’d

  never experienced being unable to say the words I’d planned to say

  before, and I didn’t like it one bit. Gave me a sudden gush of sympathy

  for my old friends with speech impediments.

  “It’s not your brain that’s edited, just your tongue,” Fiddle corrected. Cheeky git.

  “It’s okay, Anne,” Ever put in. “He has told us about what the librarians are.”

  “It is possible to get around their block with a bit of ingenuity,” he affirmed.

  That made me feel a little better, but still. “Damn, mind magic is no joke.”

  Fiddle picked up on how bothered I was by this revelation.

  Probably had something to do with how I sat there not eating with a

  frown on my face. After a minute’s contemplation, he offered, “It might

  make you feel better to know that mind magic can never erase knowledge.

  That’s anathema. It can be obscured or restricted, or even created—with

  illusions—but never destroyed.”

  “Huh. That does help. A little.” I was able to return to

  my breakfast after that, although I ate the rest of the meal in silence.

  #

  Back on our way again, Ever led us off through more of the

  bustling city, skirting around the western side of the

  honest-to-goodness Jack’s beanstalk slash vertical jungle toward the

  city’s northern gate. I could just hear the river over the babble of the

  morning crowds, but the smells that pushed their way to the forefront

  of my awareness were all green growing things, even above the urban

  melange. My head kept turning back and up to stare at the twisting maze

  of vines, populated with a wide variety of life.

  There were busy green-furred monkeys climbing around all

  over, squabbling with completely normal looking squirrels, and dozens of

  species of colorful birds. Here and there the wall of vines was

  interrupted by clumps of packed earth or stone, some big enough to build

  on, although none had been that I could see from here. It seemed the

  only construction of any size up there was the official residence we’d

  seen yesterday, on the other side of the mass. But after a while I did

  catch a glimpse of a person up there as well. They had big round ears

  and a long, naked tail and I only realized they didn’t entirely belong

  because they were wearing clothes.

  “So rat folks are a thing here too, huh?” I murmured. “Are they about your size then, Fiddle?”

  “Hmm?” Fiddle followed my gaze briefly, then went back to watching the crowd around us. “Yeah, about that.”

  That was a pretty short answer for him. I glanced over at

  the back of his head, but it didn’t tell me anything. His tail wasn’t

  swishing about more than usual, so that didn’t tell me anything either.

  It did remind me of something that had bothered me the day before. That

  jerk bird guy in the doorway. How he’d used the word ’small’ as though

  it were the worst sort of insult. It didn’t make sense. I didn’t want to

  pester Fiddle about it, but I couldn’t help worrying at it again. I

  knew the wolves who seemed to make up the ruling class—or at least a

  high caste—around here were big on being big and strong and soldierly,

  but could it really go so much further than preference? Was their

  society actually prejudiced against the ? What idiocy.

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  brown I sighed. I suppose there was no point hoping for a utopia when the world was still full of people.

  The change in scenery as we approached the edge of town

  distracted me from my ruminations. The narrow lane we were following

  spilled into a large, complicated intersection, half a dozen streets

  coming together along the city wall, funneling toward the North gate. We

  joined the flow of traffic heading out without any difficulties,

  although I got the faint impression that several were on the cusp until I

  happened to look at them. Hm.

  We passed through the gates with no searches or questions

  from the alert guards. They looked everyone over as we went by, but

  didn’t stop us. I wondered if they had wanted posters someplace, to

  catch lawbreakers trying to leave, or if they’d rather just let them go.

  The wilderness around here was pretty dangerous, it seemed. Maybe

  they’d just let it do the work for them in such cases, and keep the

  ’undesirables’ from coming back inside.

  Past the gate, we crossed over the same sort of deep ditch

  as at the gate we’d entered, walking on a solid plank drawbridge, but

  beyond that the medieval-esque familiarity ended. The road split into

  seven separate tracks. The leftmost one headed a bit to the west and

  then paralleled the river, disappearing into the distance in much the

  way I’d expect from a road. The other six alternated between normal

  looking roads that eventually curved over to meet the first one and

  weird ones that went underground for a brief stretch. Those three spread

  apart from one another by maybe thirty yards, with a normal road

  between each, and descended gently into the earth. The sides of the

  three channels arced up smoothly, eventually covering each road as it

  sank, leaving straight, low ridges showing their path, until each opened

  up again—not more than a quarter mile further on—and the roads rose

  back to ground level, with a steady trickle of foot and cart traffic

  exiting. The weirdest part was that most of those travelers were turning

  around immediately and heading back toward the city on one of the

  intervening roads.

  I looked to my companions, very confused as to the point of these bifurcations and detours.

  La’a grinned, the first to notice my expression.

  “You’ll see. There are signs.” She pointed ahead to the

  spot where the confusing roads divided from one another, and sure enough

  there was a sturdy wooden signpost, arrows pointing to the three

  strange tunnel roads.

  Ever looked like she was about to comment for a moment,

  then shrugged, apparently deciding to let the drake have her fun this

  time. As we got close enough to the way-posts, I read off the portions

  in Indran, “Hovethborg, Capital of Ulthara; Haupunktur, Grey Range Central

  Pass; Kolotokelau, Gateway to Talakoni.” The signs were written in at least

  three other languages, their statements about the same length for each

  name but the last. The round, swooping lettering for that one went on

  much longer for whatever reason.

  “Wait, so these tunnels are some kind of magical transportation?”

  “Yes indeed!” Fiddle crowed, as pleased as if he’d made

  the guess himself. “These are Step-Gates. We’ll enter one here, just a

  couple of hundred chiliells from the border with Sisselia, stroll down

  that tunnel, and exit just outside the capital, nearly two thousand

  chiliells away!”

  “Damn! I have no idea what a chiliell is, but that sounds like quite the shortcut.”

  “One chiliell is a thousand ells,” Fiddle said, with only a

  hint of ’how can anyone not know this’ in his voice. “And an ell is

  about the length of your—well of an average person’s—stride.”

  “Hm. Okay. Thanks.” I gave him a smile and started working out rough conversions in my head.

  Ever guided us onto the track to the northernmost of the

  three Step-Gate roads and we strolled along with the traffic till it

  backed up for another inspection. Two pairs of guards—all brawny wolf

  guys in fancy armor—stood to either side of the tunnel’s entrance. One from each pair

  was quizzing travelers about their business and passes.

  “Passes, huh? Are we okay there?” I asked my guides.

  Fiddle perked up and stepped away from the line to get a look ahead.

  I heard in my head all of a sudden.

  I gave Ever a nervous look.

  I tried asking the same way.

  She winced and responded,

  My brows rose. I knew that Kiri’s ridiculous height would make her stand out of pretty much any crowd, but still…

  La’a’s mind voice sounded even grouchier than her out-loud one.

  Ever offered. I wasn’t feeling it. I really didn’t want a whole city—or

  even a whole city’s worth of cops—welcoming me back as their favorite

  princess.

  Fiddle put in confidently. He returned to my side and frowned, probably working up some cool mind magic.

  I did as he asked, bending my legs almost triple to bring

  my head below the level of at least some of the crowd walking ahead of

  us. It wasn’t exactly fun, but this body was crazy fit, and I figured I

  could probably duck-walk a mile or two if I had to.

  I asked him.

  He laughed aloud. :No, sorry. Invisibility gets harder

  the more minds you have to affect. I’d keel over trying to hide you from

  everyone here for even a couple of minutes. But I can disguise you as

  someone else. A shorter Ulfur, so you won’t be recognized. That I can

  hold in a crowd for a half hour or more, so long as the height and width

  aren’t too far apart.:

  I hummed at that. Sure I probably , but that certainly didn’t mean I to.

  Fiddle’s head snapped up to look me in the eye, more

  surprise on his face than I would’ve expected for such a simple

  suggestion.

  I nodded encouragingly and he laid a hand on my elbow, expression going intent for a long moment.

  :There. You can straighten up now, although maybe go

  back to walking on your heels like you used to. That’ll fit an Ursur. I

  made you look older, too, just in case.:

  I didn’t ask in case of what, just settled my feet flat on

  the ground again and unbent my knees to a comfortable degree. I was

  surprised at how much less natural it felt already. But it did drop the

  top of my head by maybe a foot or so.

  Ever and La’a both gave me a careful once-over and offered

  their individual brands of approval: The cat gave a reassuring nod and

  the drake snorted and looked away without comment. I sighed and tried to let go of my nerves. Just act natural, that was the key to deception.

  I asked, worried again.

  :Hah, I’m better than that. I can make the change feel

  retroactive, so when they see you now their eyes tell them you always

  looked like this. Unless they happened to pay very close attention to

  your appearance before, they won’t notice a thing.:

  Huh. That was pretty impressive. Sort of giving a boost to

  their normal change blindness, I guessed. I took a calmer breath or two

  as none of the other shuffling travelers seemed to pay any attention.

  When we arrived at the guard post, soon after, Ever showed

  the questioner some sort of medallion and indicated the four of us. He

  perked up, then deferentially nodded and let us pass.

  As we started to descend the walls began to curve up and

  in ahead of us, following the gentle arches of numerous wooden poles

  woven into a solid surface. At first I imagined it to be bamboo, but the

  texture was all wrong, with no visible node lines interrupting their

  smooth surfaces. Eventually I remembered the specifics of the crazy

  vertical jungle in the middle of town. That’s what made up these walls,

  of course.

  As we passed into the tunnel proper, lit once again by

  glowing fairies in metal cages along both walls, I started to feel an

  odd buzzing sensation from Fee’s resting spot behind my ear. The farther

  into the tunnel we got, the stronger it became. My first guess was that

  it had something to do with the fairies lining the way, but there had

  been far more in use in the towns and I hadn’t noticed anything like

  this before.

  “Are your fairies vibrating too?” I asked.

  “Ah, that’s a reaction to the sheer amount of indigo in

  here. Nothing to worry about, I promise!” Fiddle said, seeming to have

  regained his usual cheer.

  Curious, I reached down to Ever’s ear, trying to touch

  Nuum. My finger passed through the space the yellow fairy occupied like

  always, with no more sensation than before.

  With nothing much to look at as we paced slowly through

  the tunnel, I focused my attention on Fee’s buzzing, wondering if I

  might be able to tell anything specific from the sensation.

  “Hey Fee, about my time sense. It tells me hours and minutes, but can it work in shorter increments?”

  :Certainly, Bonded. You have merely to focus on such. This one’s help is not required.:

  “Can it measure the speed of things?”

  :Not directly, Bonded. It is possible to improve that power to allow for such measurements, however.:

  “Huh. We should look into that when we get a chance. Could be useful. What frequency are you vibrating at right now?”

  :This one cannot say, Bonded.:

  Huh. “Can’t because you don’t know? Or can’t because something prevents it?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Hmph.”

  I experimented with my time sense and it was as she’d

  said, I could choose to pay attention to tenths or even hundredths of a

  minute, which was funky. I even tried paying attention to thousandths,

  but that just blended into a meaningless blur. Not too surprising. I

  tried using those indications to measure the speed of Fee’s vibrations,

  but they were just too fast to get a solid read on. But at least the

  experiments kept me busy while we walked through the dim,

  not-at-all-claustrophobic tunnel that only rose maybe two feet taller

  than the top of my head in the middle.

  The light of the fairies was eventually challenged and

  then eclipsed by the sunlight visible at the far end of the tunnel. It

  had a sharper edge to it than the light where we’d just been, and I

  wasn’t entirely surprised when our arrival at the exit had my friends

  and the other travelers around us blinking and shading their eyes. I

  didn’t feel the need for that, my eyes adjusting to the change in light

  as smoothly as if I’d slipped on sunglasses at the perfect moment.

  The view included the shimmer of a large body of water off

  to my left, and rolling farmland ahead, most of the houses wood and

  stucco with gray-thatched roofs and most of the fields still empty this

  early in the year. We followed as the majority of the traffic turned

  sharply to our right and doubled back on our path, passing by the

  outside of the low mound that protected the Step-Gate we’d just come

  through.

  Once we’d passed it, the walls of a large city rose ahead,

  spreading out to the shore of the sea or ocean, with a river glittering

  down from hills that rose precipitously toward the rising sun. It

  didn’t exactly hurt for me to look straight at the sun now, but I wasn’t

  able to see much past its glare either. I could just tell that the

  highest, distant peaks of the range had snow on them, but depending how

  far north we were now, snow on the ground might not be impossible here.

  The air was definitely nippier here, probably above freezing, but not a

  long way. I didn’t feel the need for more clothing anyway, but with all

  Kiri’s protections I probably wouldn’t in the middle of a polar bear

  plunge either, so that wasn’t much of a metric. I glanced at my

  companions. Ever and Fiddle showed no signs of physical discomfort

  either, but La’a had pulled another garment out of her pocket and was

  wrapping it over her robe like a big shawl. Interesting.

  Ever caught my attention before we got to the city walls

  and directed us off the main road onto a side track that headed east and

  uphill, skirting around. This path led us along the base of a series of

  watchtowers, and we passed by quite a few small squads of soldierly

  types moving around as we went. Even as a bear woman, I got second

  looks from most of them, and a few gawked to the extent of bumping into

  their fellows, or stumbling on the rough edges of the trail. It wasn’t

  constant, but a frequent enough irritant that I found my mood souring

  significantly by the time our course curved around and began to descend

  toward the bank of the river. It must have leaked into my expression, as

  the last trio of guards we passed on the way all flinched and ducked

  their heads as they passed instead of just staring like lovestruck

  tweens. That didn’t make me feel any better.

  “So, we’re avoiding the city, that’s cool and all, but where exactly are we going?” I asked, to distract myself.

  “Like we said before, we’ll take the river back to Tonnheim,” Ever said.

  “Which is—?”

  She grinned and turned to point to the east, toward the mountains in the distance. “That.”