Noarwin swept out of the dingy alley toward the Lostress Summit Barracks in the north-east side of the city. His tentative allies shrunk under his shadow, their hoods obscuring them from direct view as their eyes darted back and forth. Noarwin didn't intend to let them wander with their real faces for long and cleared the Summit gates—distracted despite his precarious companions. An irritated flutter ticked in his right temple, his fingers in a steeple at his chest. His knuckles pop, pop, popped. Where had the captain wandered off to? Wasn’t his sort meant to be reliable? Noarwin passed several low, large buildings built from gray brick and tin. Some housed soldiers, a few mess halls clustered at one end to feed them all, and a place to wash created a center assemblage of showerheads and stalls. Other, less readily identifiable, structures created a maze for outsiders, but the Summit had dragged Noarwin there fourteen years ago. Plenty of time to learn its every path and quirk.

A mix of city patrol, guards, and soldiers passed them, but no one heeded Noarwin or his accessories. The men and elves were neither hostile nor friendly toward the solare who had made his mark there, though Noarwin avoided a path occupied by those from his earlier days. They skirted around a hospital and then beelined to the hut behind it. Noarwin ducked inside. Asinis and Feri hesitated but followed him down its steps, past the first level dug just below ground, and into the basement carved out of the soil.

“Wow...” Feri paused on one of the steps. Asinis, also marveling at the filled shelves balancing on each wall, didn’t notice. He bumped into her, and both stumbled down the rest of the way into the significantly colder interior onto their faces.

Noarwin swished the tails of his coat and looked down at them. “You won’t find anything useful down there. Unless you intend to disguise yourself with dirt. I won’t argue its effectiveness, but I have other—more sanitary—means if you prefer.”

Feri wriggled out from under Asinis, one long, floppy ear escaping where she’d tucked it. Noarwin tilted his head at her. She met his gaze and glared.

“What?” It sounded like she’d gargled nails or was a man trying too hard to sound like a woman. He wondered if he could mimic it. Voices came in handy, and he found hers reassuring and pleasant.

“Hm.” Noarwin let that thought rest for now and turned away, the heels of his thigh-high boots following the marks of previously indented strides. He examined a scratched up shelf nearest the back and considered a few trinkets. His elegant hand turned a bottle over. Its liquid shimmered at the disturbance. He set it aside and opened a small chest with a handful of discarded rings. “Digesting a potion won’t last long enough, and there is no amount of certainty you will be able to perfectly duplicate the original disguise. So. Though it risks someone recognizing these for what they are, they are the better bet.” He presented Feri a bronze ring and Asinis a silver one.

“What will they do?” Feri asked.

“They’re laced with magical energy. Each carries a set of disguises. Choose the one you want and stick with it.”

“How do we use them?” Asinis asked.

“As a wizard, I thought you would know,” Noarwin said. Asinis scowled, but it curiously turned into a wince. It seemed he might have a personality conflict. “Look close." Noarwin leaned over Feri to point. "There are transmutation fragments. Touch the one you want to use. Just remove the ring when you wish to release the spell, and it will reset. Go on. Try.” He gestured to a frameless, aged-spotted mirror leaning on a makeshift stand he’d crafted specifically for the treated glass.

Feri took a breath and stepped in front of the mirror, the packed soil cold on the pads of her rabbit feet. She touched the sliver of a yellow stone, and her image stretched and warped and then reassembled to show a blonde gnome girl.

“Oh!” she cried in surprise and touched her face to see if the reflection still belonged to her.

“These are fairly low-level items, so it can only alter your height a fraction. No trading rings, but play with them until you decide which of their sets you prefer,” Noarwin said.

Feri had already withdrawn the ring and reset it. She brushed the red fragment. A red-headed, male dwarf peered back, scarred, and grumpy looking until Feri smiled. Her shrill laugh burst from his chapped lips. The expression made them mad looking, and her voice all wrong, which doubled her over in laughter until she snorted.

“I can’t!” she cried on the ground.

“Probably not that one,” Noarwin said, smiling down his shoulder at her.

Feri took off the ring and then put it back on. She touched the last piece. An orange stone. Her laughter stopped. A frightened-looking goblin stared back at her. Feri swallowed. Its visage matched so close to her own, she appeared confused before realizing that a change had truly come over her appearance. Her skin had turned a gray-green. The floppy ears were stiffer and pointed. Her eyes settled too big and wide on her face, but her mouth looked the same. She covered the rows of impossibly sharp fangs and slipped off the ring.

“I think I’ll do the gnome girl,” she said.

“Of course.” Noarwin didn't intend to further upset her by asking the obvious, so he looked at Asinis expectantly.

“Must I choose while you watch?” he asked.

"I need to know the masks of my associates.”

Asinis grunted and slipped on the ring. His eyes shifted sideways onto Noarwin waiting arms crossed, and then Asinis brushed his finger over the purple stone. Noarwin’s knowing grin found his face before Asinis's dirty, orange hair swept into long raven waves. His chest filled out as his waist dipped in, and he all but fell forward for the change of gravity.

Feri, in her gnome disguise, nodded in approval. “Looking good, Asinis.” She exchanged glances with Noarwin. “I don’t think he needs to try the others.”

“I agree,” Noarwin said, pleased to find she had a sense of humor he could appreciate.

Asinis, in a busty woman’s form, glowered at them and snatched off the ring. “Sure. Laugh.” He tried the green gem. It turned him into a handsome half-elf with smartly cut blonde hair. Feri's eyes widened in admiration, but Noarwin winced.

“As useful as I have found this disguise to be, I think it best to pick something less conspicuous,” he said.

“You’ve used these, Mr. Noarwin?” Feri asked.

“Of course, my dear. I wouldn’t hand out magical, bodily transformative items to my allies unless I had tested them first.”

“Then let’s see you be the woman,” Asinis said, waving the ring at him.

“Oh, Mr. Asinis,” Noarwin cooed as he stepped forward to stroke the side of Asinis's face. “I’m afraid I don’t dare risk your infatuation, for you see. I am quite experienced in acting and am talented at matching my voice to the face.”

“You can sound like a woman?” Feri asked, her eyes round in fascination and curiosity.

Noarwin lowered to her height and tucked back a curl of her now blonde hair. “My voice can take on many forms, little sister. A woman’s is among the easiest of them,” he said, glad that her interest had begun to waver her distrust of him.

Feri gasped at the gentle alto he created. “If I hadn’t been looking at you just now, I wouldn’t believe it was you,” she said.

Noarwin chuckled. “Thank you.” He straightened. “There is one more spell in that ring, Mr. Asinis. Give it a go.”

Asinis grunted and shoved the ring back on. Then, he touched the blue and final stone. A plain, brown-haired young man stood in the mirror. He bore no resemblance to Asinis and was so average he would turn invisible among a crowd.

“I think that settles it,” Asinis said.

“Indeed, it does,” Noarwin, satisfied, agreed.

“Mr. Noarwin!” A voice called from above.

Noarwin and the others looked up, and Noarwin gestured for Asinis and Feri to stand back as he walked into the patch of light the open door sent down the stairs. “I am here,” he called.

“The report.” A runner waddled down the planked steps. Each distribution of weight puffed dust into the sun shafts, and he handed Noarwin a rolled parchment.

Noarwin, curious, flung it open with a flick of his wrist. He caught the bottom before it curled back in on itself and tilted his head to read. “Interesting. There haven’t been any new additions to the jail cells of late. Did you see this auburn bean?”

“Mr. Noarwin. He was a man. Not a bean.”

“This description clearly paints him as an innocent, naive, and good-natured bean. Is Captain Fairwind aware of his arrest?” Noarwin asked.

“No one can find him, Mr. Noarwin.”

“Of course.” Noarwin spun around and held out the parchment to Feri and Asinis. “What do you think?” he asked.

Asinis, though disguised, didn’t budge from the shadows. Feri, a little braver, tiptoed forward and read the scroll dangling from Noarwin’s hand. She gasped.

“Asinis!” She turned around. “It’s the tree keeper! He followed us,” she cried.

“What?”

“Good.” Noarwin waved off the runner. “Go on. And do try to find the captain.”

“Of course, sir.” The runner rushed up the stairs and sped off as Noarwin spun to face his companions.

“Tree Keeper, you said. As in The Guardian of the Waywin Woods?”

“That’s right. We happened upon him while escaping the guards of the Isenvel province. He saved our lives from some bandit rogues who killed the stag and—” Feri began talking all too fast. Noarwin cut her off.

“Hold on just a moment, little one," Noarwin held a hand up. "First things first. I know what the Tree Keeper is. You can tell me about your meeting later. So. Second business. Your names. The guards called you by them?”

“They did,” Asinis said, face paled as he remembered Feri shouting his name in front of the messenger.

“At least you stayed obscured, so the disguise is not wasted. Nor do I suspect Arfis noticed," he added with a glance after the messenger. "But we need to call you by different names when among others. You are Klyde,” he said pointing at Asinis. “You are Abby. Understand?”

“Klyde and Abby. Got it,” Feri said, her growling and pitch jumping tone shaking with nervousness.

Noarwin drummed his fingers on his arm. “I will look into something for your voice. For now, only speak in mine, your companion’s, or Tree Keeper’s presence. No others. It is too distinctive.” Feri’s eyes lowered, and Noarwin looked at Asinis.

“Klyde and Abby,” Asinis said to show he understood, but he paused. “Are we really going to help that creature?” he asked.

“He came looking for us!” Feri said.

“And if he finds us the guard will know who we are, disguised or no,” Asinis argued.

“Asinis. He saved our lives after losing his father to bandits. He was scared and confused. He wouldn’t have left home if he didn’t need us.”

“Can’t someone else—” Asinis paused. “If we let him take the fall—”

Feri sent him a furious glare and then faced Noarwin, who shrugged at her determined frown. “Alright then. Come with me. We have a Tree Keeper to exonerate. The last thing anyone wants to do is get caught in the crosshairs of his fury,” Noarwin said. Asinis and Feri exchanged glances, and Noarwin didn't mention that he knew they'd seen it firsthand. “Let’s go.” He waved them out, and Asinis and Feri—in their disguises—hurried up the stairs into the sunlight.