Weeks Later...

She had saved her family from poverty with that dagger years ago, and now used it to build the Discussion Group's knowledge. Except that it had become abruptly dull and clumsy, not because of any fault of her own, of course, but because magicians surrounded and stifled her like a plague.

The castle halls were infested with the filthy creatures, each one sneering at her in turn as they crossed paths. The kindest ones merely glanced over her like they would a passing dog. The cruelest flicked her with their flowing cloaks or the back of their hand. It should have been fine. Sonia had mentally prepared herself before making her journey; she had told herself that the magicians would treat her like the scum of the earth and studied the map Brackson had drawn for weeks. But it wasn't fine. Her hands clenched in fists and she finally understood how Chess could cut crescents into her palms with her nails. Sonia's fury had direction, but with magicians around every corner, that direction was everywhere.

"Are you lost?" A soft voice interrupted the blood boiling in Sonia's ears. She turned and saw a man in servant's clothing, his arms tucked politely behind his back and his neck curved in a permanent bow.

She knew the castle halls like the back of her hand, in the two-dimensional format of Brackson's map at least. Still, Brackson's map didn't include the location of the Guard. Sonia forced a smile and attempted to soften the growl in her voice. "Somewhat. I'm supposed to deliver a message to the King's Guard, but I'm not sure where he is."

The man chuckled, "Oh, that's a tough one. He disappears every now and then, but if he is here, he's with the King. You'll find him in the throne room at this time of day." He rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke, as if the unnatural curve caused him pain.

Sonia forced her fists to pinch her skirt into a curtsy. She doubted the servant received respect from anyone else in the castle, so it was the least she could do. "Thank you, sir."

His wobbly smile made her want to smack someone, but instead she scowled and forced her feet forward. The throne room was one of the more difficult rooms to reach, despite its importance. The architect had clearly thought it through, as they had made the most important room the most difficult for enemies to raid. Sonia, however, had dressed like a servant. Nobody would stop her. She could probably get close enough to kill the King when she found him, but that wasn't why she was there. Assassinations never helped the commoners, anyway. Not when the replacement was just as bad as the original.

"Why the glare, girl?" A hand latched onto her shoulder like a claw, forcing her to stop.

Sonia glanced up and froze. The magician had blood-red eyes and a robe to match, and when her hand began to boil like fire on Sonia's shoulder, Sonia understood why. She was a fire magician.

"I – my boyfriend broke up with me." Her voice sounded high and weak, even worse than the servant man's meek tone. She didn't like boys, but it was the only excuse she could think of that wouldn't get her in greater trouble. The heat on her shoulder began to subside.

The magician's red eyes squinted as she smiled. "It's better off that way. Your lot shouldn't be breeding, anyway. The kingdom doesn't need more commoners."

Sonia barely kept her expression neutral. "Right. Of course. And I can't work when I'm pregnant."

The burning hand released her shoulder and clapped her on the back. "You get it. You're smarter than most of the weaklings who work here. Just remember to keep a happy face. Nobody likes the sight of an angry servant."

"Of course," Sonia said, training her eyes on the ground. She could feel her neck bowing.

"That's a good girl." The magician's voice trailed behind her as she walked away, her cloak flickering like a flame in the lamplight. Sonia imagined a river of water rising from the cracks in the stone, crashing down upon the flickering cloak and crumbling the fiery magician into ash. But nothing happened. Sonia didn't have the power to fight back.

She straightened her neck and continued towards the throne room. Brackson's reluctance to return made sense, now. Someone as obsessed with power as he was would have fallen into depression or been crushed by a magician's blow after too many years within the castle walls. Sonia only had to stay as long as she felt was necessary to gather information about the King's Guard.

The only problem was that the King was alone. Even in the safety of the throne room, the absence of protection seemed strange to Sonia. But perhaps he wasn't alone. Magicians were capable of every strange power she could think of and more; there had to be at least one that could turn themselves invisible.

Sonia nearly turned away when she failed to find the Guard's shadowy form in the room. Her eyes passed over the King's face as if he were the unimportant servant, clad in grey to blend into the castle walls. He didn't allow himself to go unseen, however, as the servants did. He spoke.

"Did you just become a servant?"

Sonia froze for the second time that hour, hating herself for her timidity in the face of the magicians. "I – yes, I'm sorry if I did something wrong." She found that her eyes had fixed themselves to the ground once again.

"Oh, I didn't ask because you did something wrong. My guard just happened to mention that there was a girl who looked like me in the outskirts when he last visited them. It's unlikely that I would have two doppelgangers, so I figured you were the same one." His voice was nearly as soft as the servant's, but not nearly as nervous.

Sonia couldn't help herself. She looked up, and met her own dark eyes. Even his hair reflected hers, although his was cleaner and flowed in what had to be an intentionally messy style. The similarities were subtle, since he had inherited great height and broad shoulders and brows with much more to them than Sonia's, but anyone who knew either of their faces well would see it. They stared in silence for a while, until Sonia dared to ask the question that pulled at her tongue. "Were you born to commoners?"

He nodded, stroking a chin that was delicate for a man but fit Sonia just fine.

"Did the magicians take you away because you shoved a soldier without touching them?" she asked.

He nodded again. "I can do much more than that, now."

Like mind control, Sonia thought to herself. "Well..." She didn't know what to say. She had been afraid that the magicians had harmed her older brother, that he was struggling to survive. She hadn't expected him to be king. "I'm probably your sister, then," she finally said, since she couldn't think of anything else.

"Can I..." The King, her brother, rose from his throne and closed the gap between them in two strides, reaching for her face. "It won't take long," he said, and then his fingers touched her cheek.

And the world went dark.

A light pulsed in the distance, growing closer, larger... until her parents' faces filled her sight, oversized, as if she had shrunk or they had grown. They smiled, and she shrunk back. Bile rose in her throat. Her stomach twisted.

They vanished, darkness taking their place. Sonia collapsed onto the ground, but there was no ground beneath her. She dropped, fell, tumbled. Then the town was there, "Welcome to Amery" rushing past in its crude red lettering as if she rode a galloping horse. The streets were dusty and dry from the summer, then coated in snow, then flooded with rain, then gone. Dark. Nonexistent.

She dropped, the nothingness rushing past her ears with a snake-like hiss.

The farm's crops billowed in the wind, flowing like ocean waves, or at least that's how Sonia's father had described them. She had never seen a body of water larger than the pond, and even that only appeared during the rainy season. In the distance, the wooden barn slanted towards the sun, the paint peeling in short fat strips like boxy yellow leaves. The sun shone overhead, baking her skin, not nearly as hot as the fire magician's hand.

The rain thundered down, turning her socks into a soggy mush.

The snow encrusted the world, breaking away under her mittens to reveal the skeletons of crops.

The wind carried pests in a cloud of buzzing darkness which grew closer... closer... Sonia tried to run. She stayed inside when the pests came. They ate everything. They ate flesh. They ate her.

The darkness gripped and twisted her stomach. She was going to throw up.

She blinked. She saw the King's face. She saw the tile floor grow closer, then felt an arm catch her. "Sorry about that," his soft voice said. He sounded apologetic. But he was a devil, a trickster. Tricksters lied. "I just wanted to check. You really are my sister. My parents have a few more wrinkles than I remember, but that's just how things go, isn't it?"

Sonia shut her eyes, the darkness behind her eyelids not nearly as overwhelming as the darkness she had seen before. The nausea had subsided, but she needed to think. She hadn't come to the castle to find her brother. She didn't care for the creature he had become. She needed to find the Guard.

Sonia shoved the King aside, stumbling towards the door. She heard footsteps behind her. She ran.

"Wait!" he shouted.

The ground lurched, an invisible force turning her limbs to fifty-ton stones. "Not like that..." The King sounded almost exasperated.

The force released her, and Sonia sprinted, ignoring her brother's shouts behind her. She kept running, past baffled magicians and cowering servants. Every time a hand or an arm reached out to stop her, she turned down a hall. She didn't know where she was going, but it didn't matter. She had to escape the King.

Except one of the magicians moved too fast for her to escape. A gloved hand gripped her arm, pulling her to a halt.

"What are you running from?" He asked, his voice rasping against the air. Sonia looked at the glove – it was black. His cloak was black. His waistcoat was grey, but it was still clear who he was. Sonia had found the Guard.

"The... King. He used his powers." Sonia couldn't think of a lie when she was still struggling to catch her breath.

His mask hid his expression, but Sonia heard his sigh. "I'll talk to him about that." Then the mask tilted, dipping up and down slightly as the man behind it examined her face. "Oh. It's you. Don't you live in Amery?"

Sonia had caught her breath, but she couldn't find the words to speak. She had never seen the Guard, yet he had seen her. He spied on them more closely than she had thought. If he knew who she was, he had to know about the rebellion. He was probably just waiting for their numbers to grow, so that they could serve as his next blood-plastered example.

"I-I came here to talk to you," she stuttered, the script she had practiced vanishing from her thoughts. Why would he remember individual commoners if he wanted nothing more than to kill them?

The Guard didn't say anything for a moment, but he did release her arm. "About what?" he asked.

"About you. About where your loyalty lies. The new King clearly cares somewhat, since he's implementing a school system, but it's winter. Half of us are starving. Most of us had to sell the food we needed to survive the winter to pay taxes. We need you to help us." The new King. Her brother. Sonia almost wished he had been a weakling and suffered from the other magicians' bullying. He would have ended up more human than he was now.

The Guard took a step back. "Why would I help you? There is no reason for any rumors about my loyalty." He crossed his arms. "I am loyal to the King. Not to the filthy commoners. I would recommend you leave this place before I make you a permanent servant, instead of the spy that you are now. Then you won't have the choice to escape the King's wrath."

Sonia felt her feet hitting the ground before she even realized she was running. She had seen the library through the doors at the end of the hall; she remembered where it had been on the map. She knew where she was and she could escape. The others wouldn't expect her back in Amery so soon, but she couldn't risk staying in the castle when she had angered the highest members of its hierarchy. Even in Amery, she might not be safe. But she couldn't think about that, not now. Now, she just had to escape.