She shrugged. “Hector and I talked about it. After we rescue Maez, we’re coming with you. We made ourselves targets the second we left with Grae. Either you win or we die, so we might as well help you.” She grinned, shuffling her feet closer to the window to escape the gale of icy wind. “In your kingdom, will you let humans and Wolves be together?”
I hadn’t thought about it before then—that I might be able to make decisions that would affect other people like her, but the word came tumbling out of my mouth. “Yes.”
Sadie pulled out her dagger and held open her palm. “Then I pledge my sword to you.” She slit her hand and held it out to me. “My future ruler and regent.”
“You’re so morbid,” I muttered.
“The word is ‘sanguine.’” She smirked. “But yes, always.”
I took out my knife and did the same, knowing that this was a declaration to myself as well. I thought to Grae, to our confessions in the forest. It was time I showed him all I was willing to fight for.
Vellia’s voice whispered back into my mind: Whatever it is you want from this life, Calla, I hope you have the stubbornness to take it.
No more silent submission. I would be the ruler of Olmdere or I’d die trying.
“I accept.” I shook her hand, our blood oath tying us together to whatever end. “Welcome, Sadie Rauxtide, Knight of Olmdere.”
We both balled our cut hands into fists, turning back to the shop window.
“I’m freezing my tail off. Do you want to go inside?” I asked. Sadie nodded. “Celebrating your knighthood by perfume shopping.” I guffawed, shaking my head.
“I think I’m going to like your court, Your Majesty.” Sadie laughed, holding open the door for me. “Don’t drip blood on the carpet.”
When Sadie and I returned to the wagon, spirits buoyed, only Ora was there. Sitting at the kitchen table, they had needles held between their clenched, ruby red lips and pieces of fabric strewn across the table all around them.
“Oh good,” they said, their eyes landing on me. “I was doing some mending of the costumes for the performance, now that you’re going to be a little star.”
Sadie leaned into me and muttered, “What does that mean?”
“I’ll explain later,” I replied.
“I’m going to go sit up front and sharpen my knives,” she said, clapping me on the back and then lifting her bag of makeup, “and try not to stab myself in the eye with this kohl stuff.”
“Have fun,” I said as she crunched back down the icy steps toward the front of Galen den’ Mora. I raked my snowy boots across the grating before shucking them off and adding them to the pile of drying shoes by the door. Warmth greeted my cold nose and cheeks, the smell of cinnamon lingering in the air as I sidled down the narrow corridor to where Ora sat.
“So . . . ,” they said, spreading out different fabrics: satins, beads, feathers, velvets in every hue of the rainbow. “What do we think?”
What did I think? I took in all the different options with a shake of my head. “I’ll be honest, I’d half-forgotten about the performance with everything else that’s going on.” The moment in the forest with Grae still echoed through me, contending with Sadie’s new oath for pride of place in my mind. I clenched my too-long sleeve around my cut palm.
“Masquerade.” Ora tossed the word around, tapping their fingers across the different materials as if summoning a spell. “Dark and sleek, bright and fun, glittery and elegant . . . What kind of performer are you going to be? What do you want to wear tonight?”
I blinked down at the fabric and two completely different answers leapt instantly into my mind, canceling out my decision before I could even speak it. Why was this so hard for me? Why couldn’t I just pick one? These answers shouldn’t feel like a knife twisting in my gut, forcing me to reflect on everything that I am.
That nagging feeling came back again, the one that had been growing in me for days since Malou first asked my favorite color, since I first admired Ora’s wardrobe, since I first started asking questions of myself that I’d never asked before. But now, I knew it was so much more than colors and clothing, it was the rudderless searching part of me that felt . . . clashing. At war.
There was the person I positioned myself as, the one I showed to everyone: the shadow, the warrior, the one I felt I needed to be. I knew how she dressed, what she wore, not because she liked it but because it made sense for the person I created her to be . . .
But then there was this other person, someone freer and more vibrant, someone who was beginning to claim more and more space in my mind, and they were starting to shout to be heard over the sound of who I was supposed to be.
“I don’t know how to pick,” I murmured, that inner voice screaming at me for the cowardly answer. “I’ll wear whatever you think is best, okay?”
Ora clasped their hands together, seemingly reading the silences between my words as readily as they heard my words themselves. “I told you before: it all starts with what appeals to you. It shouldn’t matter what I’d want you to wear,” they pushed, ever so gently. “I can’t tell you who you are.”
“Who am I?” I wasn’t sure if I was asking them or myself, but the words shook out of me regardless, that shouting growing louder in my mind. I balled my fists, wanting to punch one through the wall.
Ora took the needles out of their mouth and stuck them back into a giant ball of felted wool. Standing, they walked over to my side of the bench and sat back down, the action making my eyes well. It was so careful, so tender, it made me feel like they saw under all my layers: the frustration, the realization, the grief, and release, all the words so close to being spoken and yet tucked down so deep.
“Who are you, love?” Ora asked the question with such gentle warmth, finally giving me the courage to turn toward the thoughts that had been gnawing at me.
From the moment I met Ora, it felt like a missing piece was placed in the puzzle of my mind. No, I remembered what I had first thought. A key in a lock that fit, but I wasn’t sure if it would open. There was this restless agitation in me that had no name . . . but now, knowing that there were actually people who thought how I thought, who felt how I felt, who eschewed the confines of constructs that never fit them, it made that key start turning. And now, being put on the spot and asked that question, knowing such endless kindness waited patiently for my answer beside me, I felt the tumblers finally click. I could deny it no longer.
A tear slid down my cheek and Ora kept radiating that calm warmth, seemingly knowing that strange sort of joyful release that was washing through me.
“I was always searching outside of myself to find who I was—for someone else to tell me.” My voice cracked and I took a shaky breath. “How could I find out there something that was always within me? I shouldn’t have been searching, I should’ve been digging. I was buried there all along.”