The evening passed slowly, with Nora and I eating dinner in relative silence. I half-expected Vernie to return at any moment, but whatever she was putting together seemed to take some time. Even after we cleaned up and reloaded the food cart with the remnants of our meal, Nora continued to stare absently at the walls, her face contorting slowly.

“How long before steam comes out of your ears?” I asked.

She barely glanced at me. “Huh?”

“You’re thinking about your assignment, aren’t you?”

Nora grimaced. “Yeah.”

“What part are you stuck on?” I asked, curious about what was holding her up.

“Well... Who do you think decides on an object’s ideal form? The creator? The observer? Or the object itself?”

I frowned. “If the object isn’t sentient, I don’t think that last one applies.”

Nora nodded. “Okay, let’s take you then, for example.”

I groaned. “Why me?”

“Because you’re handy,” she said with a small smile.

“Alright, fine,” I replied, spinning around slowly. “Here I am, in all my stunning glory.”

“So, what would be one thing you would change about yourself if you could?”

I stopped goofing around. So many things immediately came to mind; I wasn’t sure how to prioritize my answer. “Uh...”

Nora closed her eyes, probably to prevent herself from sighing openly at me. “Here. Let me help. You’re pretty tall, right? Would you want to be even taller? Or would you want to be shorter? Or is your height the ideal height?”

“Hmm. That depends. Am I shopping for pants that fit, or am I trying to reach something on the top shelf?”

“You’re not taking this seriously!”

I blinked. “But I am! I’ve imagined this exact scenario: taller when I need to be and short enough not to pay the tall tax!”

Nora paused, then said in a serious tone, “So you’d say your ideal form changes over time?”

“Well... Yeah. Except... I don’t think I ever have a clear picture of it, either, so...”

“So you lean towards it as an abstract concept then?”

Maybe steam would come out of my ears instead. “Uh... I think it can exist and also be abstract because it’s constantly in flux. I mean... look at demons. They don’t have any physical form of their own, but they can take on almost any form they want.”

“Are you saying no form is ideal? Or they are the ideal form?”

My eyes widened as I thought she was giving me too much credit. “I don’t think I said either—I was just saying I’m jealous!”

Nora suddenly laughed. “Don’t tell anyone else you think that way; it’ll cause all sorts of trouble.”

I sighed. “It’s true, though. If I could do that shape-shift thing, I’d use it to the best of my abilities!” I paused. “I wonder what it would be like to take a different form. Would it affect your thoughts? Or would you still be you on the inside? Like, could I transform into a cat and sleep all day? Or would I still worry like a human and find it hard to catnap?”

Nora let out a long sigh. “The more I think about this, the more complex it gets. Maybe I was wrong.”

“You? Wrong? No way; you’d never admit it.”

Nora made an indelicate noise. “I told Master Landon that everything has an ideal form, but it’s impossible to achieve. Then I said amity simply tries to close the gap while animus widens it, and the distance to or from that ideal state depends on the caster’s ability.”

“And what did he say?”

She took a deep breath and glowered over the bridge of her nose. “He said, ‘I’m so glad you cleared that all up for me; I’ve spent decades trying to work out the complexities of the theory without success. But in less than a minute, the unknown novice from another world solves it! I am more than humbled! Take my staff, awards, and office here, for you have surpassed us all! Now, I may die content in all things, knowing the answer was ever so simple.’”

“Wow, sarcastic much?”

Nora rubbed her cheek. “I... may have been causing trouble even before the discussion started.”

“But you’re making progress now. Simple things are only simple on the surface; everything gets more complicated as you look at it. And someday, I know you will surpass him, so don’t let him get to you too much. Besides, even if you do solve it, who’s he to tell you your answer is wrong? He’s not the creator of this world.”

Nora lit up, scrambling into a seat and yanking out her journal. “You’re right! I could just ask! ...but not her. Clare. Clare would probably give me a better answer.”

“It feels like cheating to me,” I warned. “You’re better off treating it as a thinking exercise, not just a ‘check-the-right-answer’ process.”

“But think about the possibilities if we had the solution!” Nora said, scribbling her inquiry. “If I could get that good at using animus, maybe I could shape-shift! Then we wouldn’t need dumb disguises and iffy illusions! You’d have been out of here days ago!”

I shivered a little. “I... I’m not sure about that. I think it’s risky. I’ll admit it’s not perfect, but this body is the only one I have! I don’t want to lose it.”

“But you want to make it better. That’s what you do when you use your amity—you’re pushing toward your ideal form, at least the one you have in mind at the moment.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a reason to say she was wrong. “Well... yeah...”

“So then, I’m practically obligated to ask for the optimal solution at this point!”

I shook my head, doubting Clare would readily hand her the keys to a mystery of the universe. “Suit yourself.”

A few hours passed, yet there was still no sign of Vernie. The girl who had brought the dinner tray had long since returned for it, and I was finding it hard to keep my eyes open despite feeling uneasy about her absence.

“Why don’t you just rest for a while?” Nora suggested. “I’m sure she’ll be back eventually.”

“Maybe I’m asking for too much...” I admitted. “I shouldn’t have involved you two.”

“So what, you’d just sneak out on your own? I don’t think you could pull it off without us.”

“That’s not... Look. I know I’m causing trouble with this... So, if we get caught—”

“You forced us to go along with you and swore us to silence,” she finished for me. “We know, we know. Gosh, it almost sounds like you’re hoping to be punished for this!”

I merely grunted as I flopped into bed. “Just wake me up when she comes back.”

He can’t avoid me forever, no matter how hard he tries.

“I’m certain the kitchen would be willing to accommodate you!” Vernie shouted mere inches away from my face. “We all know you can’t sleep on an empty stomach!”

I blinked sluggishly, still holding onto my blanket. “Whasgoin...”

Nora pulled me out of bed, declaring, “No one would deny you a late-night snack!”

“Don’t forget your sword and shield,” Vernie whispered as I made it to my feet.

“Uh huh, sword and shield,” I mumbled, following her lead out the doors where two guards waited.

“This way, Captain,” one of them advised with a bow. “It isn’t far.”

Finally awake but still confused, I followed the guard in the lead down several flights of stairs and into a wide, brightly lit hallway. After exchanging a few words back and forth with an attendant standing near the open doors, we were escorted into the vast kitchen, where several workers rushed to keep everything flowing. The scent of several savory foods assaulted my senses, and I privately admitted I really could go for a snack.

The girl from earlier ran over to greet us, deftly weaving around the staff that had frozen to gawk at us. “Oh! Chosen One! You’re here for more cookies, right? But they’re not quite ready yet...”

“Uh... I see,” I mumbled with genuine disappointment, still unsure what we were doing.

“Why don’t we take a look around?” Vernie suggested. “You’re always talking about a well-organized kitchen and how everything has its designated spot.”

I was?

I glanced at her, but she continued, “You just have to see how they stock everything, too. It’s very innovative!”

“Sure...”

Before anyone could stop us, she marched me to a gigantic storage room and pulled me around the corner. After checking that the rest of the room was empty, she rummaged behind a row of flour sacks. A moment later, she pulled out three giant wimples, a few linen dresses, and a bunch of leather aprons. “Put these over your clothes,” she instructed briskly. “The dresses are already bulky, so it won’t matter much if you look a little bigger with everything else on.”

My nose wrinkled after a whiff of body odor hit it. “They’re dirty! You should have taken them from the clean linens.”

Vernie shook her head. “No linens are clean after working a sixteen-hour shift in a kitchen. It would be too suspicious.”

Sixteen?!

I was halfway done pulling on the heavy garments when a realization slowly dawned on me. “Wait... Why did I bring my sword and shield? And Nora still has her staff... Our weapons are even more suspicious than coming out of work clean!”

“It’s up to Nora to hide them,” Vernie admitted. “I can only disguise so much, but it would be a disaster not to bring them.”

I glanced dubiously at Nora, who returned the look and said, “I’ll do my best. It was easy to disguise myself back at the castle, but I’ve never tried to include others before.” She waited until Vernie positioned my wimple. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Nora inhaled through her nostrils, held her staff out in front of her, and exclaimed, “Excaecare Peregrinus!”

Vernie and I looked each other over with deepening frowns.

“She still looks like Rae-Rae to me, just weirdly dressed,” Vernie objected. “I think you need to try again.”

“No,” Nora disagreed. “We’re not trying to fool each other; we’re trying to fool the others.”

“So we won’t know if this worked until we go back out there?” I asked nervously.

Nora nodded. “Yeah... But I’m pretty sure I got it! I saw you guys flash momentarily!”

I would rather have gotten some more obvious sign of the spell’s success.

Swallowing hard to relieve my dry throat, I started back toward the kitchen proper. “I guess I’ll go first.”

“Hey you!” someone barked before I returned to the main area.

I turned to see a menacing older man with a scarred leather apron wielding a metal ladle. “Uh, yes, sorry?”

“Don’t come out of there empty-handed!” he scolded. “I need more grains!”

That’ll do nicely!

“Uh, yes, sir!” I darted back in and grabbed a sack while my two companions stared at me. I gave them a quick shrug before continuing my newest mission. “Excuse me! Coming through,” I called out as I quickly made my way back to the man.

A distrustful frown crossed his face, and I began to sweat, fearing the spell might be wearing off. “Why are you only bringing them one at a time? You’re built to carry one on each shoulder!”

“Ah... I didn’t think of that...” And so, I found myself hauling grains back and forth for a few minutes under his watchful eye and dangerously held ladle.

“I saw those other two novices in there,” he rumbled after I delivered the sixth sack of grain to his station. “Tell your lazy friends to get back to work! Don’t pick up their slack!”

“Yes sir...” I trudged back into the storeroom. “The chef says—”

“Wait, shouldn’t we just make a break for it now?” Nora asked, obviously repulsed by the idea of hard labor. “The disguises work!”

Vernie shook her head and grabbed a grain sack. “They only let the workers out of the temple at the end of their shift,” she advised.

“And how long until then?!” Nora demanded.

“Only an hour or so,” Vernie answered cheerfully, soaking in Nora’s scowl.

I better distract you two…

“Won’t they wonder where we went?” I asked, helping Nora to pick up a sack of her own. “The real versions of us, I mean.”

“The Captain gave us her order and took off,” Vernie replied coolly, pulling out a scrap of paper. “I can’t read it though.”

“What?” I looked at it, noting that the list was quite lengthy. “It looks perfectly fine to—”

“No,” she reiterated. “You can’t read it either. None of us can because we were never taught.”

“Oh...”

Nora, still struggling, shuffled out of the storeroom and dropped it about three feet short of the chef’s designated spot. He turned and glared. “Go chop some onions!” he ordered, pointing deeper into the kitchen. “I don’t need puny peons messing up my station!”

Nora, already sweaty, inhaled sharply, but I grabbed her from behind before she erupted. “I’ll take her there, sir!”

He grunted in approval, and we both fled.

“This isn’t at all how I imagined we’d sneak out of here!” she exclaimed once we were far enough away. “This isn’t fun at all!”

I couldn’t help but giggle. “That probably means we’ll be successful, then.”

“How do you figure?”

“It would be too humiliating to be caught otherwise!”