“It’s fascinating research,” I said, “and I want to think about it but honestly, I’m really tired. Can we find some supper and just rex? Nothing else about worlds or caretakers or houses in a box or anything else big and heavy for a while?”

  “Of course we can,” Serru said. “We can go get something and come back here to eat if you want. We were going to suggest going out to a pce that Terenei says has excellent food and a good band is pying, but we don’t have to.”

  “Unless that would be a distraction that would be rexing,” Terenei said. “There are two floors, with the stage on the lower one, but a third of the upper floor is open over the stage so you can still hear the music while talking, and there’s space on the lower floor for dancing.”

  “I doubt I can dance in centaur form,” I said. “And I’d probably get overwhelmed by too much sensory stuff in felid form.”

  “Then stay in your current form. I can help with clothes more appropriate for a night out. Your colouring and how short your hair is are unusual but not impossible and we can help with that, too, with one quick trip to the right shop.”

  It would almost certainly be fun.

  And not risky, not really. It probably wouldn’t even be risky to walk around Ottermarsh in a T-shirt that said “Adult Newcomer!” The Zombie King was unlikely to be able to regroup that quickly.

  And I really, really needed to rex.

  “Let’s go out,” I said, catching my begleri toy and setting it on the nearest table.

  “I’ll go shopping,” Serru told Terenei. “You can start doing what you do best.”

  “If you’re going out,” I said, “there’s one other thing. The man I met told me that there’s a shop in town that specializes in gear for travellers and she’s recently made some improvements so she’s selling older stock cheap. I stopped in to check. She has these sets of devices that let you talk to others with one from the same set. There are four in a set and she’s selling them for half the price, and when I told her who had sent me, she insisted that she was going to give me two sets that are keyed all together, not just one, for the same price. I told her I needed to talk to you. The range is more limited than the newest version but they might help. It’s three blocks opposite direction from the stable, the sign says Marion.”

  “Those could be quite useful,” Serru said thoughtfully. “They aren’t always as durable as one could wish but if we have several extra ones, that won’t be an enormous problem. I’ll stop in there and pick those up. What else am I getting? Hair colour, I assume, and perhaps something to make it longer? I imagine in a school town we can find anything you might want without having to go in search of a hairdresser.”

  Terenei pulled his sketchbook from his backpack, and paused to tap a finger against his golden-yellow lips thoughtfully. “Nathan? What’s your favourite colour?”

  Terenei, while Serru was out, proved to be surprisingly good at eliciting information from me with the kind of skill and focus I usually associated with assessing medical symptoms. He started with questions about what I normally wore—when not at work, that was usually jeans and one of my collection of EMS, First Responder, and Paramedic T-shirts, since that required the least effort. From there he’d asked about my high school experiments, the things I’d found in thrift stores and that had meant so much to me at the time—the heeled ankle-high boots, the calf-length lightweight coat of soft knit that fred out at hip level, the blouse with the dramatic yered bell sleeves, the fringed scarf, single items I could add to my everyday look to make it less conventional. He sketched all of them on one page while I was talking, his expression thoughtful, then flipped to a new page. Three different paint boxes, the one I’d seen at sunrise and its kin, all came out, along with that jar of always-clean water; Aryennos dragged a small table over to offer a stable surface, which got him a quick smile.

  While Terenei was absorbed in that, Serru returned.

  I only winced briefly, and kept it to myself, when I needed to take off my chocote-vanil-cherry sweater and the fuchsia shirt beneath. The contents of the bottle Serru had bought were thicker than water, more like an inexpensive shampoo. With Aryennos helpfully fetching anything we needed, Serru and I worked it into my hair. It didn’t take all that long, for much the same reason I kept my hair as short as I did these days.

  “Now what?” I asked. “Does it need to be washed out?” Applying it certainly made less of a mess than my limited experience from my own world suggested.

  She shook her head. “Just give it a moment. This will be permanent unless we pick up a reversal formu, although new hair will grow in your natural colour and it can be cut normally to whatever length you prefer.”

  “All in one bottle?”

  “In most settlements, they’d be separate, and the colours avaible would simply be whatever they have in stock. Here, with a resident specialist, I only had to tell her what I wanted and she made one the colour I requested and added the growth in with it.”

  “School towns tend to have interesting things avaible,” Aryennos said. “A lot of the most devoted specialists and experts settle in school towns. Some merchants specialize in moving the things they make out into other settlements but there’s less choice and you can’t talk to the creator personally.”

  “Speaking of creators,” Serru said, “I stopped to speak to the one who creates equipment for travellers. There are a lot of tempting items in there, and I might perhaps have indulged in one or two. Or three. I did get the communicators.” She rummaged in her bag and brought out two wooden boxes, which she set on the nearest table. She flipped open the top one to show that there were four colr-like devices nestled into separate padded compartments, in a kind of overpped ring of stiff arcs. “Did she show you how they work?”

  “She showed me one and expined,” I said.

  “My grandmother has a set. She made me promise never to take it off, except when we were camped and they were charging, while she was teaching me about gathering. They do need to recharge in the box but it doesn’t take long and doesn’t need to happen often. The range is broad enough to cover a group travelling together, although I doubt they will work inside the Quincunx.”

  “If it’s impossible to talk about it,” Aryennos said, “then probably it’s not possible to eavesdrop on what’s happening at the time. That’s a shame.”

  “It is. They don’t get in the way if they’re adjusted properly, and they can tolerate most conditions. Within reason. Rain is fine but don’t go swimming wearing one.” She made sure, I noticed, that her gaze was not on Aryennos when she said that st part.

  “Understood,” I said, trying not to notice that Aryennos winced.

  “She insisted I take two sets, which she assured me are all keyed to each other, so we have extras in case one fails to charge, or one gets damaged.” She closed the box. “Your hair shouldn’t get much longer. I like it like that.”

  “What?” I reached up to check, and discovered that my hair now fell in loose waves a little past my shoulders, and when I pulled a lock around, it was a vivid candy-apple red that completely ignored how dark a brown it had been a few minutes ago. “Whoa.”

  “It looks good like that,” Terenei said, barely gncing up. “Very striking. And it will work perfectly with what I’m doing.”

  “That might take me a little time to get used to.”

  “More than being a centaur or a felid?” Aryennos asked.

  “Excellent point.” Actually, my centaur form had much longer hair, although it fell naturally back out of my way.

  Before much longer, Terenei, humming softly to himself, reached into the page in front of him and began to pull things out that he id beside him. I saw a lot of stark bck and white and red.

  “They’ll st until sunrise or so,” Terenei said, as Serru gathered up the whole armful and passed it to me. “You can get dressed without fear. The shirt with the long sleeves goes under the other one.”

  I borrowed one of the bedrooms that long. No one commented on it.

  There was no mirror in the bedroom, but there was a full-length one on the inside of the door to the little bathroom, which seemed standard.

  The mid-calf ced boots had heels but they were chunky ones and not extreme, and they were deep red; snug bck pants tucked into them, past the folded-down cuffs. There was a top that fit retively closely, silky bck, with a hint of ruffle on the chest, and long sleeves right down to a loop around my middle finger but they didn’t restrict motion at all. The other top, apparently meant to go over it, had a much more fred body, the asymmetrical hem falling anywhere between the point of my hip to my knees, and dramatically loose elbow-length sleeves with a red lining; that one was white, but when the light caught it, I saw shiny-on-matte interced five-pointed stars subtly worked into it. When I checked more closely, the red lining of the white shirt’s sleeves had the same almost-invisible effect.

  A lot of it might have counted as feminine at home, but the effect I was looking at wasn’t so much that as androgynous and creative and comfortable. And Terenei was right, with the red hair, it was perfect. All it needed was my rainbow chainmail earrings and neckce.

  Terenei looked me over thoughtfully, and smiled. “How’s that?”

  “Amazing. I wish I had you in reach forever.”

  He ughed. “For a while, at least. I love helping people try new looks. Makeup would also look good. Not a lot, just a few touches for drama and integration.”

  “Not one of my better skills.”

  “It’s art. It’s one of mine.”

  I hadn’t realized that colour was colour in this world. Pigments were non-toxic and universal, although combining them to achieve specific hues did take alchemical skill.

  There were binders one could add to make it unite permanently with fabric or hair, or you could use them wet on paper that was meant for that. Or you could apply what was basically an invisible foundation cream anywhere you expected to want colour on your face and a kind of colourless lip balm to your lips specifically, and use brushes Terenei kept for that purpose to apply literally anything from his paint boxes, gentle watercolour tints or deeper and more opaque colours or even opalescent or sparkly ones from the third box. While he did that, Serru pulled part of my hair back into a tail but left a section free on each side to frame my face, not hiding my jingly rainbow earrings.

  When I saw my own reflection, it startled me more than my centaur and felid selves had.

  That didn’t look like me.

  Except... that looked exactly like me. At least, me according to some poorly-defined-but-real image that had been lurking in the shadows, waiting to come out and explore and py, for a long time. Me with all the considerations of social consequences removed from the picture.

  I wasn’t sure why it made me ugh out loud, but just in sheer delight I spun around to seize Terenei for an impulsive hug. He snuggled into it with enthusiasm, and even stole a kiss, which I didn’t see any reason to object to.

  “That’s a good way to make Terenei feel rewarded,” Serru said in amusement.

  “Oh, it definitely is,” Terenei agreed, making absolutely no effort to escape.

  “Well-deserved too,” Aryennos said. “That will probably get attention, but it’ll be the admiring and possibly flirty kind.”

  When I let go, Terenei straightened his own golden clothes, and grinned at me. “I’ll consider that positive feedback. Serru? Aryennos? Is there anything you need before we go?”

  “I can change quickly,” Serru said.

  “I went shopping in Coppersands,” Aryennos said. “While I’d love to see what you come up with, I’m hungry, and I haven’t worn any of the new things yet.”

  Terenei nodded. “I’ll leave my paints out in case you want any fun extra touches to eyes, lips, temporary hair streaks, whatever.”

  Serru, I discovered, had other clothes tucked away in her bag. Her flowing pants were ankle-length on the inside edge but knee-length on the outside, all in a shimmery dark green with dark pinkish-red flowers on it. A matching dark green top bared both her belly, tied with a pink-red ribbon under her breasts, and her shoulders, the drawstring neck secured with another ribbon, while the long blousy sleeves fastened around her wrists with two more ribbons. Her sandals were the same pinkish-red. The dark green lining her eyes and the pinkish-red lips weren’t something I’d seen her do before but the effect was striking. She even had dangly earrings and a matching bracelet, all made of interlinked chains in pink and green and white with little sparkly stones set into occasional links.

  It was somehow more casual and more fancy and more sexy, all at the same time.

  And that st one was completely inappropriate. Things with Grace were complicated at best but I did still have hope, and besides, as far as I knew, Serru was only into women. My centaur form was, well, not really going to be useful for that. She was a good friend I cared about and depended on. So none of that!

  Aryennos looked just as good, and definitely stirred a few mental images I pointedly ignored. Those pants, in which vivid sapphire and emerald chased each other in spiralling swirls, weren’t quite tight enough to show off everything, but the drape and stretch of the heavier fabric certainly suggested it; the jacket, of the same fabric, reminded me of an 80s-style unconstructed one, loose-fitting and comfortable, though it cked pels and the sleeves stopped just below his elbows. The shirt under it was translucent and a very pale pink.

  And, of course, Terenei was downright fabulous in all that shimmery gold with red highlights, the top with loose sleeves that were open along the top seam aside from an ornate red knot at shoulder and wrist, and pants that matched, loose and fastened with the same knot at waist and ankle, something like a common felid style. The front of the top was open down the centre and held closed at the throat with, again, the same knot.

  This whole world seemed to really like colour and fir. ‘Industrial’ was definitely not an aesthetic that would go over well.

  All in all, the four of us cleaned up rather nicely.

  “Like you said,” Serru said to Aryennos, “any attention we attract will not be the sort to avoid. Shall we?”