Night is falling fast. It’s impossible to get a room in Swyndale during tourist season, but I have connections just outside the city. The capital of the most traveled country on the continent is a popular place for assassin requests.

I walk to the city gate. It’s long past dark by the time I arrive, but the street lamps are lit and the guards still stand alert at the gate. I show my travel papers and pay the gate fee. Monsieur Bolbec has a point about these fees… The suave politician and businessman is not a good person, but as a repeat client he chooses his—my—targets well.

Just outside the walls of Swyndale lies a town called Stonehaven. Most residents are workers in Swyndale who can’t afford to live within the city, or who have family in the town they don’t wish to leave. At least the employees of official Swyndale homes and businesses get free passage through the gate.

The streets are empty when I arrive. Most of the town probably has an early rise in the morning. Not much happens in Stonehaven after dark.

A chill shivers up my bare arms. The autumn night air can be felt much more strongly here, in the empty streets.

The houses of Stonehaven stand in three mostly-neat lines forming a semicircle around the town square. I walk to the second line, then three houses in.

I knock on the door. A moment passes before a woman opens the door. Her brown hair is pulled into a knot away from her tan face.

“Isolde,” she says, recognizing the face I currently have. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

“Just arrived today,” I explain. I offer an apologetic smile. “Have room for one more?”

“For you? Always.” She steps aside and gestures for me to enter.

“Thanks, Lily. I appreciate it.”

I enter the small stone home and step into a living area, currently lit and warmed by a bright fire at the hearth. A small wooden table and set of cabinets designate the eating area on the left. A child with sparkling hazel eyes and dark, curly hair looks up from her place on the woven rug on the floor.

“Isolde!” she cries, a smile stretching across her brown face. She has her mother’s eyes, but her father’s dark hair and complexion. And his bright smile. She drops the doll in her hands and jumps up.

I hold out my arms for a hug. “How’s my little Sparrow?”

The child squeezes my waist in a tight hug, then jumps back to look at me. “Do a trick!”

“Sparrow,” her mother scolds. “Isolde is probably tired from traveling.”

“I always have time for my little songbird,” I say, smiling at Lily before kneeling in front of Sparrow.

I close my eyes and breathe in a long, steady breath. I picture my auburn hair growing longer, longer, down to my waist, my hips, the floor. I open my eyes and exhale, directing the energy into the spell.

Sparrow laughs and claps her hands, jumping up and down, as my hair reaches down to the floor. “Can you make it like mine?”

“Of course.” I close my eyes and breathe in. This time I picture the dark curls that tumble around Sparrow’s face before exhaling and directing the magic.

She laughs again and reaches one hand up to tug on a lock of her own hair. She turns to her mother and points back at me. “Look, Mommy!”

Lily smiles. “I see, honey. It’s time we get to sleep now, Sparrow. We should let Isolde rest, and we need our sleep for tomorrow.”

Sparrow pouts but doesn’t argue. Lily lights a candle and sets it in a small chamberstick. She uses a metal tool to extinguish the fire in the hearth, leaving the coals and embers to keep the room warm.

While Lily takes Sparrow to the back room to change for bed, I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I picture the auburn hair of my current disguise, framing the sun-kissed face of “Isolde.” I open my eyes as I exhale to return my hair to that form.

Once Sparrow has been tucked in, Lily carries a bundle to the living room. I take the bedroll and unroll it on the floor by the hearth.

“Will you be here tomorrow?” Lily asks.

“I have somewhere to be. But I’ll be back in time to see Sparrow before bed tomorrow, if not earlier. Do you expect Imani back?”

She shakes her head. “No, he left only a few days ago. He won’t be back for at least a fortnight. He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

“Perhaps we’ll have better timing next trip.”

She nods. “Perhaps. Sleep well.”

“You too.”

Lily returns to the back room to sleep. I pull a thin, pale scarf from my bag. I wrap it around my head, careful to tuck every bit of hair inside. I reach my hand into the very edge of the hearth, where the ash is cool enough to touch. I cover each palm and then brush the excess off before dusting the slightest bit on my face. I can’t risk Lily or Sparrow seeing my undisguised form as I sleep. My true face is thinner than this one, with sharper lines, but there’s nothing I can do to hide that.

I wrap myself in the blanket and pull the edge up over my chin to cover as much of my face as possible. It doesn’t take me long to fall asleep.

I wake when the first hints of light shine through the small, murky window of the stone house. I sit up and stretch. I take a deep breath and visualize the tan body and rich auburn hair of my Isolde disguise. I exhale and direct the spell, like pulling on a familiar dress.

I brush the ash off my hands and face as much as possible and remove the headscarf, returning it to my bag. A rough loaf of bread rests on the table by the wall. I find a knife in the cabinet and cut a thick slice. Bread in hand, I slip out the door and walk around to the back of the house.

The chickens are still asleep in their simple wooden coop. I’d hate to disturb them too early. I don’t have time to cook an egg, anyway. Instead I turn to Lily’s small garden with several vegetables, partially shaded by an apple tree. I pick an apple and head back to the street.

Several people are out beginning their day, but they pay no attention to me. Though a small town, Stonehaven is close enough to the capital that strangers are not an unusual sight. I walk in the direction of the city gate.

Time to scope out the mark.

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