1 Chapter 1

The wind ruffled the red and orange leaves of the half-wire trees, and strangers walked on either side of Lysandra, keeping their heads down, never once casting a glance at her. A perfect day for masquerading. If only every day could be as perfect as this one.

Lysandra's skirts swished around her ankles, and she held them up just slightly with her hands as she ran. She parted the crowds on the street with hardly a motion, and no one even looked up to wonder why she ran when they didn't. The wind rushed through her long auburn hair, catching it on the breeze just as it caught those leaves on the trees around her, real or not. The wind did not rush through her hair when she sat in the window back at her father's house - the screen blocked it. And her father's servants seemed to think it was unbecoming of her to stare dreamily out the window in the first place.