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that stared back at me, lifeless, was my own.
    I have to return to my body , I managed to realize somewhere in my tiny bird brain. Before the Nightmare Wastes find me. I reached for my body’s tether to try to leap back inside, but I couldn’t fit into myself—my body made no room for my soul.
    That’s when I realized I was inhabiting no mere bird, but a winged monster of rotting meat. Agony rolled off me like a foul stench, eager to envelop the body on the docks. I was of two minds: the first knowingly trapped in this monster, but the second filled with blind hunger and rage.
    And just as I started to cry, fearing I would lose my soul forever inside this beast, the eyes on my human body opened, and it jerked upward, animated once more.
    But it wasn’t my soul that was inside.

Chapter Three
    The Dreamer must have blessed our voyage; it should have taken us a full day to return to Barstadt City, but the Itinerant Winds grease our course the whole way, and we reach the capital’s main harbor shortly after dawn. We pull in the sail, and our catboat drifts silently against the stream of fishing boats setting out to make their daily haul. Barstadt City engulfs the harbor with its craggy hills, buildings crammed onto them in muddled shades of cream crowned with steep black slate roofs. True to Barstadt weather, darkening rainclouds hang woolly in the sky, but I don’t mind. They’re as much a part of home to me as the Emperor’s palace to our right, and the distant towers of Banhopf University to our left. I don’t look to the eastern mountains, but I know what looms there, as dreary and constant as the clouds: Nightmare’s ragged bones.
    I never like looking at that reptilian skeleton on the mountainside, so massive we can see it all the way from the docks. But after my brush with the Nightmare Wastes yesterday, I dread it even more. The Dreamer slew Nightmare and scattered his shards to the three corners of the realms, I remind myself firmly; the Wastes are only remnants. The Dreamer wouldn’t let them devour me, just like he didn’t let Nightmare bring further harm to Barstadt all those centuries ago.
    Brandt offers me a hand out of the catboat. “Back to proper gowns for you and frock coats for me, eh?” he asks, gesturing to our carriage driver costumes.
    “Well, the comfort was nice while it lasted.”
    The comfort isn’t all I’m surrendering, though, by being back inside the Empire. Brandt will slip back into his role as House Strassbourg’s heir, and away from me. I can’t help but wonder if each mission we embark on will be our last together. Still, if I smell anything like Brandt—sweat and sea and exhaustion, all baked too long in the sun—then I welcome our return, if only for the opportunity to use the Ministry of Affairs’s indoor plumbing for a bath.
    “Master Strassbourg,” the guard greets Brandt as we reach the Ministry’s gates. Then his gaze slides to me, and he offers me a stiff nod. “Uh, miss.” He looks back to Brandt. “Minister Durst has requested a full debriefing as soon as you’ve made yourselves presentable.”
    A tide of panic rises in my gut. Ever since my testimony following the Incident, each meeting with Durst feels like another interrogation. One more mistake, and I fear he’ll tear up my temporary citizenship papers and dump me at the nearest tunnel entrance.
    Brandt catches my expression before I have a chance to rein it in. His hand darts toward mine, quick as a lash, and he squeezes my fingers. “I’ll go and present the Minister with what we found. There’s no need for you to go as well, Liv.”
    But the guard shakes his head. “The Minister requested you both.”
    Brandt’s mouth pops open, but I square my shoulders and answer before he can. “Then I guess we’ll go wash up.”
    I scrub away the Land of the Iron Winds from my skin and the crust of salt from my scalp, permitting myself a few minutes of peace before we plunge into the work ahead of us.