I watched the soldier leave with our lunch dishes, and checked my mana levels again. It had been hours, and there was no word yet. It was time to just go for it.

There were a few different points of failure in my plan, with each one multiplying the difficulty. If everything went right, it would be a cakewalk. A cakewalk that left a gallon or two of my own blood and skin behind, sure, but that was all prepwork so it didn't count. If one thing went wrong? Well in that case it was likely it wouldn't just be my blood anymore. Two things? It would be a miracle if I made it out. Three? I was royally fucked.

The very first thing I'd have to do if I wanted the easy version of the plan to work was something that I'd never done and was likely impossible; I had to get Helma into my memory palace basically against her will, and so deeply that she wouldn't be able to get out or feel what I was going to do with her body. Even thinking that sounded unbearably creepy, but whatever. I'd managed to hold Hugh in my memory palace, but he had already been there a bunch of times and had tuned out his actual physical location over time. Helma wouldn't have that, and so I needed to supplement it with a tether - not a fate layer one because I didn't want it to be permanent and was saving my mana.

It was super risky, and if it failed entirely I needed to be ready to abort and try to bullshit my way out; I didn't want her to know that the Dumine lock wasn't doing shit. I walked over to her, trying to look casual in a realistic way - too relaxed and it would be clear I was up to something, so I needed to be just a bit off. I went for a mix of tired and cranky. "What are you writing, anyway? Are you taking notes on me?"

"Oh! No, no this is unrelated," she said, "I'm hoping to get transferred to work on the Grand Alignment task force, and so I've been writing up a proposal. There's a minor noble from the one of the cities in the Free States that I think is planning something, and nobody has really looked into it yet so far as I can tell."

That sounded... familiar. The memories from Connie were too faint to grasp most of the time, but this one was... oh yeah. It was related to how I found out about the lost Duminere. He was on the expedition, or he bankrolled it or something. Well, whatever he was planning was fucked now since I got there first. Suck it, random dude. "You just don't want to work for Klinec anymore, right?"

She sputtered a little. "He's - Commander Klinec is a, is, he's a very well-respected officer, and it's... I'm more than pleased to..."

"He's a slimy piece of shit, you can say it. It's fine. And I saw your face in there, you know he's on the verge of fucking this up and getting in trouble with Hammersmith, and probably taking you down with him."

"I... shouldn't discuss the situation with... um."

"With a prisoner?"

"No! You're not a prisoner. Technically, you're free to go." She looked uncomfortable.

"Yeah. Totally free, so long as I don't mind letting my friends die. Very cool."

Helma tried to project this stoic vibe, but I could see the distress around her eyes and she was tapping her finger against her notebook the way she did when she was nervous. I reached out and took her hand, and she looked at me. I smiled. "Hey. Sorry. I know it's not your call, and I know you don't like it. Look, close your eyes and take a deep breath."

Amazingly, she did - and then her eyes snapped open. "Something is... " she pulled away from me. "Did you... are you trying to do something?"

I put my hands up and stepped back. Shit. "Hey, no. I've still got a lock on my Dumine, remember?"

With perfect timing, the door opened behind her and Klinec stepped in. "Calliope, I trust you're comfortable. Helma, I'm going to have a chat with our guest. Will you deliver this - in person, please - to Storm's Keep?"

He handed her a scroll case, and she looked nervously between us for a moment before darting out the door and down the hallway. She slowed down after twenty feet, looking thoughtful. Idly, she examined the hand I'd held as if I might have left a mark. When she reached the security door, Helma pulled some rune-covered cylinders out of the wall to rotate them - it was the same tech Sige had shown me months ago in the lost Duminere's security room - and then walked through into the teleportation room.

"I need to deliver this to Storm's Keep," she said, "passphrase crimson-scale-fourteen."

She walked forward to the center of the circle, but before the attendant could do anything Klinec came in and gestured for Helma to step back to him. "She's insufferable. I'll take the message myself, just... go deal with her."

Looking mildly confused, Helma handed the scroll case back and walked down the twisting hallways until she reached the training room again. She scanned the room, looking like she was forgetting something, and then finally settled down and went back to her notebook. She looked up at me, working out, and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop - but it seemed like she was going to dismiss any lingering concerns.

So far so good.

The one working out was my duplicate - having quickly changed back to looking like me after playing the part of Klinec. My other mind was in an identical room just below us in my memory palace, matching Helma's location precisely and doing everything she did - that was the one the tether was to. The idea was simple - if she was going to be getting faint feedback from her actual body that was going to tip her off to the fact that she was in my memory palace, I would muffle that by sending another layer of false information; that mind's tether to her was passing along all the sensation from the duplicated room. The already minor feedback from her actual body in the real world would hopefully be next to nothing, since I was busy carefully removing her uniform. I also now had the runic code for the doors and the passphrase for teleporting to Storm's Keep, so there were only two problems: Barick and my face.

My face was going to be a rough one, in that I was pretty sure my plan would work but it was so fucked up I didn't want to think about it. I loosely tied Helma up, not enough to really restrain her since she might sense that even through my muffling but enough to mean she wouldn't be able to suddenly get to her feet and run. Of course if she did try to run my options were limited, since the contract said I couldn't harm her. The word 'harm' was already getting turned into a pretzel by my plans, but stabbing her or something would for sure be too far. But guess what didn't actually harm you? Having a Dumine lock. I clipped it on to her just to be safe, and headed over to the healing pod. Time to get to work.

The mind that was mimicking Helma had been carefully sculpted using divination to perfectly match her appearance - something that turned out to be harder than I expected. I'd been changing clothes no problem, but that was external shit. My mind's form wasn't something I could easily mold, since it was created by a feedback loop with my body. Still, I had practiced for weeks in order to better pull books with me into the prime plane and read at night, and I'd carefully removed a mole as a test after talking to Hugh about physical alteration.

I was focusing on the face, since we were already basically the same build - I wouldn't be able to change my whole body with this method regardless. I'd die if I tried. Even if I got the face right, there was a lot I'd need to cover up; her metallic copper hair was noticeably different from mine, and our skin tones didn't match. Could I steal some of her hair? Would that count as harm? I'd be gentle about it. But it would probably look like shit anyway, and it would be easier to cover my hair up.

I had prepared to make weapons out of some of the exercise equipment, but thankfully Helma had been carrying a small knife in her belt - it wasn't much, but it was better than a makeshift shiv. I had to move fast, because not only might someone come to check on me at any moment but this next part had to be done with divination on and having the tether to Helma was already making me hemorrhage mana. I'd been at full, and now I didn't have enough left to make another fate thread. It hadn't been as bad as with the spirit - clearly that thing had somehow actively been pulling my mana - but when they weren't on the fate layer the threads were pricey.

Hesitantly I let it dissolve - Helma was just sitting in place now, as was her body, so it shouldn't be as big of a risk. If I was lucky, I'd still have enough left to make that last thread even with some divination as I did the delicate work on my poor face meat. I made sure any sense of my body was turned off - I sure as fuck didn't want to feel what was about to happen - and began the brutal job of removing my face. The idea was simple; the healing pod was extremely high quality, and could re-grow everything in a fairly short amount of time. It would do this based on a combination of the Common Local Understanding, for basic "how are humans put together" / "what is a muscle" stuff, and my mind's self-image for the details. I was making the assumption that my actual DNA wasn't going to get in the way, which seemed likely since I already didn't look like a Sahrger. Magic was strange shit.

Hugh had implied it wasn't this simple and I was likely to fail miserably, but I figured that could be overcome with repetition. Surely if I just cut my face off over and over again it would eventually heal to match Helma's appearance, right? My biggest concern was interference from the mind that still looked like me - well, like Calliope Smith - but I was counting on my control of the tether to get past that. I was funneling as much information as possible from the correct mind to my body, and shutting off the other one. If it didn't work, well, I had other - worse - plans.

I couldn't turn off the divination right away, sadly, because until the healing had gotten going I didn't want to turn on any awareness of my body and that would mean not hearing if someone barged in. It didn't take long to get past that stage, however, and so I had a little time while the process finished to review my notes and think of all the millions of ways this could go wrong. Most glaringly, I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do once I got to Storm's Keep. I would still look like Helma, assuming that worked, and there was a chance I could bullshit my way through things.

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It had been a while since I had been anywhere near this impulsive. I was being manic, irrational. I'd just cut my whole face off, for god's sake.

"Fuck this stupid trauma bullshit," I muttered, under the assumption that my erratic behavior was because I was feeling trapped. But that wasn't all. There was something else, and I didn't love that I couldn't put my finger on it. It felt like I was being manipulated, but it was just me fucking my own life up. I took a break, checked out my face - it was a horror show. It didn't look like me or Helma, and my nose in particular was all wonky. I looked like an early AI image of a person. Still, that was proof that it was doing something. I pulled out the knife and started cutting again.

I thought back to the big problem of what to do when I got to my destination. I had the fate threads I could follow to Katrin and Errod, so locating them wouldn't be a problem. It was tempting to try and tether Katrin so I could maybe see through her eyes, but the most likely outcome would be seeing the inside of a jail cell. If I could use it to get her into my memory palace that would be worth it, but I wasn't sure she'd get the message; the wild mage had caught on quickly enough, but she'd been paying attention to the link for a while. I decided to hold off for the time being.

The second I thought I had enough mana, right at the end of the second attempt at my new face, I decided it was time to do the other thing I wanted a fate thread for - the one that I thought might kill me. That was super unlikely now that I had a redundant mind, but it was still a bit scary. Still, I needed a better way to fight if things went wrong. I took a deep breath. My body looked like Freddy Kreuger, so it was an awkward moment... but it was a day for crazy bullshit. I couldn't trust the Empire, I'd known that for a long time. I had to get out of here. I had to find my friends. And that meant I had to do everything I could.

I tethered a fate thread to my mind, sending the other end off to my memory palace. I felt it connect a moment later, and something... shuddered. I'd wanted to prepare for this by tethering my mind to the memory palace somehow, not to keep it stuck in there but to keep it attached and prevent it from being pulled away into another plane. But I hadn't found anywhere to attach it yet, even though some part of me was sure it should be possible. The tension increased, and I made sure my body was safely in the pod growing the next iteration of the face as I hopped back into the memory palace where... something was happening.

There was a sound, in the distance - like a bell whose ring got deeper and louder rather than fading away. I'd heard it once before. I rushed through the memory palace, wondering if the others could hear it too - Helma in particular should probably not have her immersion ruined right now. Finally I turned a corner and found what I was looking for - the stylized amber version of me, grinning and running towards me while glowing like the sun.

Our bodies collided, and I felt the threads attached to me waver... and hold.

Much like with the extra mind, there was just one of me standing there after. I looked... pretty normal. There was maybe a faint afterimage when I moved, but it was only noticeable if I really looked for it. I strained, pulled, and watched my arm split in two - one of which was glowing amber. Okay, so it was probably reversible if I tried hard enough, though even having the arm out was tiring. I popped my awareness into my other soul and confirmed it was still in its domain in Erima, and my other mind peeked in on the duplicate and Helma - and it wasn't great news.

She was up and pacing around, and kept touching herself and the walls. Then she turned to the duplicate with a look of horror. "Why can't I use magic?"

Ah, crud. Well, I knew that had been coming. Soon she would start to struggle, and then she would try to leave - and I didn't really want to let the Granch eat her. I ducked back to the body and the current round of healing was almost done. I settled in to the body to wait it out, and when it was finally finished Helma was just starting to stir. I hopped out and ran to look at myself, and... well... it wasn't terrible. I did, basically, look like Helma. The hair being wrong was bad, and the skin color hadn't spread far enough, but I could cover most of that up. I used some hairpins that Helma had on her to attach her hood over my hair and ears - it was a strange look for indoors, but a plausible one if I was about to travel somewhere so it might not draw too much attention. It would have to do.

Getting past Barick was the next hurdle. I couldn't package everything up again, because I was in the middle of executing the plan, and he would for sure feel that I was trying to pull some shit. I could tell myself this was fine, that I was allowed to leave, that technically there was no rule against wearing someone else's face, but... yeah, that wasn't going to work. I'd planned on tethering him to one of the little doughboy spirits as a diversion, both to have a spirit on the loose and send a bunch of strange feeling his way, but I was basically out of mana. I could maybe make a regular thread, but it would only last for a second.

I could take the long way. There were some hallways that I was sure connected, but that I hadn't mapped out. I could go around, avoiding Barick, and then... hopefully not get lost or hit a dead end or stumble into a room I shouldn't be in. Well, maybe if I just hurried. I swept past Helma, who was just blinking and looking around in confusion, and stormed out the door, shutting it behind me.

"Bar this door," I told the guard, "and don't let her out for any reason. Don't listen to anything she says, no matter how convincing. She's not your long lost sister, she's not an old family friend. Got it?"

They nodded, looking nervous, and I hurried away. Would Helma have some official way to prove who she was? Would they think back to the strange way I was wearing my hood up, or notice something about what I'd said? I'd done really well on the voice, I thought, but I didn't know procedural rules and it was possible that any kind of deviation would result in them sounding the alarm. I hurried down the hall, quick but not running. I didn't want to look panicked, just like I was doing something very important.

I turned, and headed down another hallway I'd never been in and had just barely been able to see a little of with divination. This was uncharted territory, although so far everything had been on the same level and so it was highly likely it would wrap back around and meet up. I ignored everyone and everything, holding Helma's journal in front of me and looking down at it as I marched - it wasn't as good as a clipboard, but it seemed like it was better than nothing.

There was a door up ahead, blocking the way I needed to go. Would the rune sequence be the same? I didn't want to assume anything. I slowed down when I noticed some others were also heading towards the same door, and I fell into step with them.

"Helma," one said. I nodded back. "You heading somewhere?"

Every extra word out of my mouth was another opportunity to fuck up, but saying too little could draw suspicion. I patted the bag at my side, and tried to sound mildly frazzled. "Just a delivery, then hopefully heading right back."

That seemed to do it, and one of them opened the door. That led us into a large meeting hall, which wasn't what I was expecting - but there was a door on the far side. One of the soldiers snickered. "I thought we weren't supposed to take shortcuts through the conference room?"

I felt a trickle of panic along my spine. What should I say? What reason could I give? Maybe I could ignore him - I was going to be pretty close to my destination once I hit that door. Then the joking tone he'd used registered, and I realized there was nobody else in the room. Ah. "I won't tell if you won't," I said, and the man laughed. Phew.

Another one opened the next door, and just as we were all leaving - and I could see now that this hallway would in fact get me back into known territory and to the teleportation room - Klinec was there. The soldiers stammered and saluted and went around him, while he just stared at me. I waited, patiently, not in any rush to start a confrontation with the soldiers nearby. When the door had clicked shut, Klinec spoke.

"Why are you not with the Sahrger?" he asked, and I could feel every muscle in my body unclench a little. Just a little. If he had known who I was he would have surely called the soldiers back, but now I could stall a moment and we'd have some privacy.

"I.. sir..." Helma's stammering earlier was easy to reproduce, and a great filler since people like Klinec loved to make people squirm. "I was just - there are still guards, and I... I'm very sorry, sir. I'll... I'll head back now."

What I wanted to do was stab him in the face, but that contract was itching at me. Klinec looked mad for a moment, and then narrowed his eyes. Uh-oh. "Take off your hood," he said. Fuck.

"I'd like to leave now," I said, and started to walk past him. Saying that was important, from a contract perspective, but I wasn't delusional enough to think he'd just let me by. In fact, I ran into an invisible wall almost immediately.

"Crystal, silent, finger. Respond."

Ah, some sort of code word thing. Helma was probably doing the same with the guards I'd left blocking the door, so the alarm might already be getting raised. Meanwhile, I had to respond to Klinec. While I did have a plan for this occasion, it involved punching him in the throat and running - which I didn't think I would be able to do while in a force cage. Fine. "Dogs. Your mother. Orgy."

His face flushed, but he kept himself under control. I felt the force walls closing in, and he reached for the iron manacles at his side.

"I'm asking to leave, Klinec. Are you barring my way? Are you breaking the oath?"

He smiled. "This is just reasonable security measures, I think you'll find." He reached out with the manacles, and I felt my arms forced into position.

I railed against the oath, trying to argue with it. This was clearly him stopping me from leaving. Obviously. Common sense fought back, my own knowledge of how shady my situation was in general, the fact that I looked like someone else, me being in a room I wasn't supposed to be in. I'd been invited, kinda, but... yeah. This was hard. The manacles snapped into place, and I felt my wrists begin to burn. This, surely, was an attack - and I was being bound. This was blatantly a violation, right? The oath finally conceded, unraveling at my end, and I hoped that wherever she was Hammersmith could feel it on her end too and knew it wasn't triggered by me.

Before I could act, everything around me folded and I found myself in a small box of dull mirrors. Shit. That motherfucker had the Containment gift - he could make sealed-off spaces. I'd been put into an extradimensional jail cell. I tried to concentrate, but the iron wasn't just burning my skin - it was like my lutore was on fire. I couldn't switch my awareness to the memory palace, I couldn't make a thread, nothing. All I could do was think about the iron, this ancient curse boiling my very soul.

I'd been able to resist, when I was younger. When mom hung great grandma's scissors over the door, I'd pushed past - sure, it gave me headaches all day, but I'd done it. When mom held those same scissors to my neck and left a festering cut, I'd still managed to use my innate magic to make the phone ring and distract her. But something about the iron wrapping around me, or maybe something about being here surrounded by magic, was just too much.

Actually, no. Fuck that.

Some fucking iron, stopping me? Bullshit. No. I'd been training to be the hero of a story since I was a little kid, and I wasn't going to let the most basic, boring metal in the world stop me now. I forced myself to take a deep breath, and pulled some of the hair pins out from where they were keeping the hood in place. The locks on this world were shit, when they weren't magic. Might as well be a Masterlock, and I could pick those with a paperclip and a mean look. I was a little worried about what Klinec was up to, but it had only been a few - very painful - seconds, so he probably hadn't had time for much. Could he carry me with him, in this space? I didn't know a lot about the Containment gift.

The manacles popped loose, first one and then the other, and I let them fall to the bottom of my spatial cell. My wrists looked like ground beef with herpes, but I could feel my magic again, feel the memory palace, and - most importantly - properly move my awareness into whichever of my vessels I wanted. With space twisted up into a box it was a little hard, but after a moment I found a spot in the corner - nothing my body could get through, but I had another way to deal with threats now.

Klinec screamed when he saw my ghost appear in front of him, glowing and furious, but that screaming stopped once I shoved my spectral hand into his brain.

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