The morning following Dinara’s show promised a beautiful day. Beams of sunlight streamed in through the doorway and an easy breeze rattled the beads along the door of the old trailer. Outside, the sky was cloudless, nothing obscuring the tandem trek of Calaidia’s two suns across its blue and gold expanse.

Unfortunately, Dinara couldn’t enjoy any of it, not with the hangover she was sporting. She rolled over to face Roman, who lay quietly beside her. Without opening his eyes, he grumbled, “Go back to sleep.”

Her answering laugh immediately turned to a groan. “Oh, I feel awful. Roman, let’s get food. Something heavy— it’ll help me feel better.”

“Mmph,” Roman said.

“Then let’s do something fun.”

Roman buried his face in his pillow. After a moment’s pause, he asked, “Like what?” The words came muffled.

“Whatever we want.”

Roman stretched like a house cat before settling back into the mattress and pulling Dinara to him. “Sleep is fun.”

“No!” Dinara said, squirming out of his grip. “I’m finally free of Edith! We need to celebrate.”

“With something fun…”

“It’s spontaneous. An adventure.” Dinara kissed Roman, and he leaned into it with a contented hum. “You love adventures.”

“I do. I love adventures with you,” he said. At Dinara’s answering smile, he blushed and busied himself with flattening his hair. The humidity brought out his curls, and Dinara said a quick thanks to Atiuh for the southern climate. “Do you have any ideas for this spontaneous adventure?”

“Yes, actually. There’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and Gallontea’s perfect for it.”

“What’s that?”

“Take the demon masks from the costume trailer and go scare people in the market.”

Roman laughed, making Dinara flinch away from the loud noise. “Sorry, Di. That’s just the wickedest thing I’ve ever heard. Won’t you get in trouble?”

“If Cahrn gets upset, we’ll tell him we were…advertising the show.”

“Like he’ll believe that.”

“That’s never stopped us before.”

“You’re right.” Roman sat up. “Let’s do it.”

An hour later, they stood outside the costume trailer with full stomachs and several open crates of costumes in front of them. Explaining to the costumer why they needed the masks hadn’t been easy, but they’d eventually convinced him to look the other way.

“This one could be good.” Roman pulled something out of a crate, a flat wooden mask depicting an open-mouthed, snarling face. He slipped the strap around the back of his head and waited for Dinara to look at him.

When she did, she only giggled. “It’s powder blue, Roman. It’s smiling.”

“It’s not smiling, it’s grimacing!”

“It’s hardly terrifying.”

Roman’s hands dropped from where he’d been holding them up, his fingers hooked like claws. The mask tipped to one side as he tilted his head. “It could be if you weren’t expecting it.”

“Not really. This, though…” Dinara pulled on a devil’s mask with a protrusive snout and shadows where the eyes should be. She took a step backward into the path, lifting both arms. “…is terrifying.”

Behind his mask, Roman pouted. “Fine. Yours is better. What’s it supposed to be?”

“It’s from an old folk tale my village pashu used to tell. It’s a benevolent creature, but nobody needs to know th— oof!”

Someone slammed into Dinara, knocking her to the ground. For a moment, they were an indistinguishable tangle of limbs and curls, then the other girl rolled away, cursing and apologizing. She pushed wild blonde hair away from her face and sat up, immediately falling back again with a surprised yelp when she saw Dinara’s mask.

“It’s only a costume,” Roman said quickly, pulling his own mask up. He held out a hand for both Dinara and the girl. Dinara took it gratefully, but the girl refused, pushing herself to her feet.

She had a tail, long ears, and bold birthmarks swirling across her face. She was orinian.

A whistle blew in the distance, and the girl cast a fearful glance back in its direction. Roman followed her gaze with narrowed eyes. Just as she tried to take off running again, he caught her by the arm.

“Why the rush?” he asked.

“Roman,” Dinara scolded, “Let her go. I’m fine.”

“I just want to know who she’s running from. You are running from someone, yeah?”

The girl bared her teeth in a snarl. “It’s none of your business,” she snapped, but no amount of bravado could hide the quiver to her voice. She was covered in dirt and scrapes, and Roman was willing to bet that the dark shadows under her eyes were the result of several nights keeping watch and sleeping in small bursts. He knew all too well the look of someone who’d been living on the streets, and this girl had it.

“Unity?” Roman guessed.

The girl tried to pry Roman’s hand off her arm, without success. “Yes, alright! But I didn’t do anything, I swear!”

“It wouldn’t make a difference if you did,” Roman said. He grabbed a mask off the top of a stack of costumes and passed it to her. “Wear this. Dinara, find a cloak that’ll hide her tail.”

The orinian narrowed her eyes at Roman. It wasn’t until a whistle sounded again, much closer, that she snatched the cloak and the mask. It was more a helmet, really, painted like a smiling child’s head with red cheeks and single curl on its forehead.

Roman stepped in front of the orinian, partially blocking the view of her from the path, and laughed when he glanced back and saw it. “That’s scarier than both our masks combined, Di.”

Four officers rode up before Dinara could reply, slowing their mounts when they saw the strange group assembled around piles of bright fabrics.

“Have you seen an orinian come through here?” One asked.

Roman, the only one without a mask, feigned surprise and pointed down the street. “She ran that way, not a minute ago. Headed straight for the Island.”

The officers took off again, and that was the end of it. Behind her mask, the orinian breathed a sigh of relief.

Roman watched them go, something dark passing over his expression, before he turned back to the orinian. “Let’s get you somewhere safe.”

They hastily returned the costumes to their crates— all but the cloak they’d given the girl — then brought her back to their trailer, gave her food, a chance to bathe, and a change of clothes. Roman’s clothes fit her better than Dinara’s— she was tall and wiry, nearly as tall as Roman. She had nearly a foot on Dinara. She told them that her name was Maebhe, and that she’d recently come to Gallontea on holiday.

“I’m Roman, this is Dinara.”

“Great. Pleasure,” the girl said flatly. “Why are you helping me?”

Roman shrugged.

Dinara frowned. “He doesn’t like Unity. Don’t ask why; he won’t tell.”

Roman pursed his lips but otherwise ignored the comment. “I also believe you didn’t do anything.”

“I don’t,” Dinara said. “Four officers wouldn’t chase you like that for nothing.”

“I existed. I suppose that’s not nothing.”

“She’s an orinian in Unity’s capital at a time when the people are talking about war. The Gallontean Police have hurt people over much less,” Roman answered, his gaze far away.

“But she’s just one girl! What do they think she could do?”

“Protest. Fight. Cause trouble. Espionage and sabotage,” Roman said, ticking off the possibilities on his fingers. “It doesn’t matter, Dinara. They hate her for who she is and they’ll bend their facts to fit around that.” He fixed Maebhe with a stern look. “But then, she’s not just one girl. You didn’t come to Gallontea alone, did you, Maebhe?”

Maebhe’s eyes widened. She looked from Roman to Dinara, and all at once, started crying.

“Look what you did!” Dinara hissed at Roman as she hurried to kneel beside Maebhe.

Roman looked horrified. He knelt at Maebhe’s other side. “Come now, Ms. Cairn. I’ll help you, if I can, but I need to know what happened.”

Maebhe nodded, wiping her eyes. “Sorry, sorry. Call me Maebhe,” she said.

“Maebhe,” Roman corrected, “Who was here in Gallontea with you?”

Maebhe took a steadying breath, and then she told them about Kieran and Íde, about her escape and their capture, about how she’d spent the days since flitting from place to place, running from the police and trying to find a way onto the Island that wouldn’t get her caught and killed.

“So the police are operating under Unity’s orders,” Roman said when she’d finished, bitterness souring his voice.

Dinara sighed. “I don’t want to believe you, if means that Unity would do something like this, but…I do.”

“Thank you,” Maebhe said.

“I knew they couldn’t be diplomatic!” Roman spat. He stood swiftly and turned from Dinara and Maebhe. He seemed sharper now, like a wolf with bared fangs or a blade eased out of its sheath. “Damn them! I should have known this would happen. I’ve seen them do things like this before.”

“You have?” Dinara asked. His quiet anger scared her. It was a raised gun, a finger flirting with the trigger. It was the warning rumble before a storm, and Unity was a metal boat in the middle of a lake; knowing she stood on the shore didn’t make Dinara feel any safer.

Roman paced the length of the trailer, the room too small to hold the magnitude of him. He was a being far too large for a space like this, and the air in here felt stiflingly heavy. “How long ago were your friends arrested?”

“A couple of days.”

“How many?”

“Three.”

“We need to rescue them now,” Roman said. He added to himself, almost too quietly for the others to hear, “So much for not getting involved.”

“We?” Maebhe asked.

“I’ll help you get them back, Maebhe Cairn, and then I’ll get you all safely out of the city.”

“What?” Dinara asked. “Roman, what about Unity?”

“What about them?”

“Kono ta’hy lehah, Roman!” Dinara yelled, switching to sheman, her native tongue, so Maebhe wouldn’t understand.

Roman made the switch as well, hesitating and messy. “They can only kill me if they catch me. They won’t catch me.”

“Be reasonable! You can’t smuggle fugitives out of the capital city, Roman. It’s treason.”

Roman shrugged. “I’m not afraid. Of all the times I committed treason, they only caught me once.” He paused, frowned. “Was that right? The tense?”

“You want to talk to me about tenses? What do you mean, ‘of all the times I committed treason’?”

“Dinara, I’m not asking you to join me, but I’m getting these three home,” Roman said, switching back to a language Maebhe could understand.

“You and I have some things to discuss when this is done,” Dinara said. She made the switch too, then, adding, “But I’ll help. I’ll regret it if I don’t.”

Roman nodded, then turned to Maebhe. “Put that cloak back on. We’re going to visit a friend of mine.”