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With Evander’s help, I glue on a moustache and twist Akilah’s hair into a fashionable masculine braid. Her new outfit seals the magical disguise perfectly—though her giggling might give us away.

“How long will we stay like this?” she asks.

“Until I spell you back. Or someone counters my work.”

“Excellent,” I say. “No need to worry then, we can move about town.”

Evander picks up his cat. “Not just can. Should,” he says. “Mingling with—or better, befriending—your peers will minimise suspicion.”

“Right. Befriending.”

Akilah flattens her palms over her leggings and tries out her deeper pitch. “If we go to the market, can we get some steel? I feel that’s all I’m missing as a man.”

“What kind of magic do we have if we need crude weaponry?”

Evander pulls two sheathed daggers from under his mantle. “Many linea carry in case of magical impairment. If someone confronts you, pretend you’re drunk and draw steel. Most are honourable enough to match steel for steel, and most are shockingly bad at it.”

Akilah takes her dagger with terrifying glee. I point my sheathed one at her. “No.”

She clasps the blade to her belt and strokes her new chin-beard. “Maybe it’s time for me to putyouin danger!”

I laugh and attach my own dagger to my hip, then pause. It’s not just our persons I need to keep safe. I take out the last glittering capsule of Poison Halting Miracle, set on navy silk in a palm-sized box. The other, entrusted to River, should already be in Megaera’s hands. I pass the box over to Skriniaris Evander. “I only made two of these—one for the examination, and the other for... to help a friend. I don’t want to leave it in our rooms or risk losing it gallivanting around town. Will you safeguard it?”

Skriniaris Evander tucks the box into a deep cloak pocket and picks Taffy up, cradling her against his chest. “Try the dance academy near the luminarium, your soldad will allow entry. There’s bound to be exam candidates renting rooms there.”

* * *

Akilah’s eyes widen as the central courtyard opens before us, a sea of bright cloaks washing up to a stage alive with dancers who move about in billows of silk to the delicate sounds of harps.

We’re ushered to a side table that gives us a better view of the patrons than the stage—exactly what we want—

I gasp and hunch over hurriedly, an elbow on the table, hand shielding my face from view.

Akilah tears her attention from the dancers. “What—”

Her question is cut short by the arrival of a jug of wine, set on the table with a flourish and two cups.

I pour quickly, heart racing. Usually, I avoid alcohol. It suppresses my magic, makes it go wayward—something I learned the hard way.

I shake off a growing flush and welcome the burn.

“One level up, directly opposite us.”

Her eyes blink rapidly. It’s a moment before she laughs. “You know, if it weren’t for him being so hot and cold... He’s extremely beautiful. Just look at him. Skin like marble—”

“Aki—Ilios...” I shake my head. “Swivel out of view.”

“We’re masked. Unrecognisable.” She strokes her beard again, posing with one hand on the hilt of her dagger. “Not sure I’ll want to go back to skirts after this.”

I grimace and peer again, cautiously, over the room. Behind the ornate balustrade of the gallery above, Quin is engaged in conversation with a scarred aklo; the stern set of his jaw suggests something isn’t going his way.

His head shifts and I swing mine to the sconces on the wall beside us, the dancing shadows they cast.

Akilah pours more wine. I snap my gaze to her laughing one and she lifts her cup. “Bottoms up.”

“Not so fast.”

“This might be the only time I partake in the delights of the academy. Let me indulge?”