Skinner turned out to look almost exactly as I would have expected somebody who was called ‘Skinner’ to look. He was a scrawny man, balding and only about as tall as Cassie. His left arm was covered in bandages from his shoulder to his wrist, and he seemed to be trying not to move it.

  “Hello, miss. And other miss,” he scrambled to add. He was definitely frightened, which made me wonder exactly what Cassie had done to him.

  “Hey Skinner. I believe you promised to show us to a reputable caravan, didn’t you?” Cassie asked, although she said it more as a statement than a question.

  “Yep. That’s what I did. This way, this way.” Skinner began to shamble into the street, headed in the same direction we had arrived from, which reminded me of something I’d been wondering since last night.

  “Cass,” I asked, my voice low.

  “Yeah?” She replied, leaning in a bit to better hear.

  “Do you know the way back here? Because I don’t, and we might be coming back depending on the caravan’s schedule.”

  “Kinda, yeah.”

  I was a bit confused. “Kinda? What do you mean kinda?”

  “Well, this whole market is enchanted. If you’ve been here before, all you have to go through the alley and it’ll do the rest. If you haven’t you get lost.”

  “Huh,” was all I could respond with. That definitely seemed a shady, but I truthfully hadn’t seen anything especially illegal down here. I mean, there were a couple of gambling dens, maybe some of the buildings weren’t up to code or something. Still, an enchantment like that was premium work. Not the kind of thing you set up for a mildly illegal marketplace.

  It definitely took less time for us to leave than it took for us to enter. The walk in felt like at least ten minutes of twisting alleys, but leaving had maybe three turns before we were out of the underground market and back in the aboveground.

  Skinner, who had remained silent for the entire walk, finally spoke up. “Miss, when did you say you were leaving?” He still seemed a little shaken, and kept glancing every which way as he lead us through the empty streets.

  Cassie glanced at me before answering, causing me to shrug. “Any time today or tomorrow,” she answered.

  “Right you are, miss,” Skinner replied, returning to his nervous shuffling as we finally entered some more populated streets.

  We walked past the gate we’d entered again, and I couldn’t help but look over at the building that Noren had entered when we parted ways. It appeared just as it did yesterday, which was to say that it was completely nondescript. It was made of the same bricks as the buildings either side of it, neither large enough or small enough to warrant mentioning.

  The only feature that had it standing out was that it was the only building in the area that stood separate from the others. Both of its neighbours were attached on the other side, yet for some reason this building stood apart.

  Not wanting to hold up our guide, I pulled my gaze from the building. I had the strangest feeling that there was something different about it, and not just because of Noren. Still, I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was.

  The rest of our journey through the city was fairly unexciting. People started coming out in force, the city going from largely empty in most places to the active bustle that I’d seen the day before. It was a surprisingly sudden change, almost coordinated with how many people rose and left at the same time.

  This new environment brought out a different side of our guide, too. His nervous glances had turned calculating, and he was no longer simply scanning the streets for exits. He seemed to be looking for something in particular, and it wasn’t long before he found it in a hurried man who wore a heavy overcoat.

  Skinner seemed to gain a sudden calm as he walked indirectly towards the man, who was travelling in the opposite direction to us. When he got close he affected the same attitude as the hurried man, like he had somewhere he desperately needed to be.

  Skinner tripped over his own feet and crashed into the man, recovering in record time and helping the man regain his footing. He apologised profusely to his victim, who seemed to be held back from verbally attacking Skinner by his lateness. He simply scoffed and hurried onwards. Skinner seemed strangely proud as we continued on.

  “What was that?” Cassie asked the same question that was on my mind. It wasn’t hard to tell that Skinner had intentionally bumped into that man, but I wasn’t sure why.

  In moments Skinner’s nervousness returned as he glanced back at Cassie. Reluctantly he shoved a hand in his pocket and pulled out a silver timepiece. He showed it mutely to Cassie, like he was expecting her to take it off of him.

  Instead Cassie just looked at it, turned around to see the man had already gone, and shrugged. She gestured to a surprised Skinner to put it away.

  “Miss?” He asked, although he wasn’t pressing his luck enough to keep the pocket watch out.

  “Yeah?” Cassie answered.

  “W-why are you letting me keep it?”

  “Well, the guy’s long gone already. Unless you want to go and look for him?” She turned to me, receiving another shrug in return. I wasn’t overly bothered about the fate of one random guy’s watch.

  Skinner didn’t seem to believe that answered his question, but he held his tongue as he returned to leading us through the streets. By this point the sudden influx of people had died down somewhat. While there were certainly more people than before, the crowd was thin enough to see where we were going.

  For the rest of the walk Skinner remained his nervous self, occasionally glancing back at Cassie as he absentmindedly scratched his bandaged arm. Meanwhile, Cassie and I spent the rest of the walk discussing our next move.

  “So if the caravan leaves today, we should get to Meria in… three days time?” Cassie said uncertainly.

  “I think so. Unless it leaves later today, we might end up stopping overnight and arriving early,” I added.

  “Hmm.”

  That wasn’t a good ‘Hmm’, either. That was a disgruntled ‘Hmm’. “What’s wrong?”

  Cassie hesitated before answering, looking strangely embarrassed. “Well… we’re gonna have to spend three days doing nothing.”

  I was lost. “Why? You have your guide, right? I’ve been practising my illusions. We’ll have loads to do.”

  Cassie looked at me like I was being an idiot. “What are the chances that we get an entire caravan to ourselves?”

  “Wh- Oh. Right.” We couldn’t really practice much with other people there. Well, Cassie couldn’t. Her magic was… disruptive, to say the least. I could definitely get some illusion work done though, probably a bit of shapeshifting at night too.

  “I think you mean you’ll have to spend three days doing nothing, Miss ‘all I can do is throw lightning’.” I teased.

  Cassie shot me a betrayed look, before grinning. I did not like the look of that grin. I liked it even less when she suddenly grabbed me by the arm and muttered an incantation under her breath, sending a gentle but noticeable shock into me.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Hey!” I yelped, jumping up from the shock and almost missing a step.

  Oh, two can play at that game.

  I formed a thin layer of chitin under my sleeve, covering everywhere that Cassie was touching. I immediately felt relief as the electricity from her spell failed to conduct through the new material. Of course, it didn’t take long for her to notice.

  “What did you do? You look fine, and isn’t gold… pride?” Cassie asked as she looked into my eyes. “Also… why is your arm solid?”

  Cassie slid her hand down my own, quickly finding the edge of the chitin and meeting more skin. As soon as she did my arm tensed as the electricity started flowing through me again. Even as I shifted more of my arm to chitin part of my mind was cataloguing how the muscles in my arm tensed and contracted with the surge of electricity. It was strangely fascinating.

  Cassie finally reached the edge of my sleeve, at which point absentmindedly continued to shift reactively while I catalogued what I could see of the internal changes. My senses weren’t perfect, nor were they the most precise, but I could still tell what was going on.

  While I couldn’t directly detect the electricity, I could tell where it was by the changes it wrought. I remembered something about a rare species of magical animal inventively called Thunder Ants, which capitalised on their lack of electro-conductivity to live in areas of high charge with little difficulty, which had allowed them to thrive in some of the harsher areas of the Wildlands.

  I assumed Cassie must have upped the power of her shocking touch because my arm felt… strange. It almost felt lighter, and a passing buzz travelled through the limb before settling down again, like temporary pins and needles.

  Suddenly Cassie gasped, grabbing my hand with both of hers and cancelling the spell. The feeling of her hands on mine was strangely distant, and it took me a moment to realise what I’d done.

  The base of my hand was plated in a slab of alabaster chitin, a single piece that wrapped around my hand and broke at the wrist. The joint of my wrist was still flexible, but had paled and took on a slightly rough texture.

  The changes hadn’t reached my fingers, but upon inspection my entire left arm had been shifted all the way to the shoulder. My elbow had the same rough texture as my wrist, although its range of motion was a bit wider.

  Somehow, I’d ended up changing the inside of my arm too. Apparently, the part of my brain that dictated my shapeshifting had been paying just as much attention to my biological studies as I had. The inside of my arm looked like a mix of several of the insectoid monsters and beasts I’d read about yesterday. Apparently the increased malleability of my form meant that all the intent I needed was passing curiosity and some environmental motivation. Neat, I guess.

  Where before my muscles had been banded around a central bone, they were now connected in sections to the inside of the chitin, and when the contracted they pulled on the hard substance and forced it in the chosen direction, rather than pushing against the bone. I was fairly sure that there was some kind of pressure change happening as well, although that was much harder to tell.

  There was also a second layer of muscles that performed the opposite form of contraction or relaxation, which seemed to almost cushion the movement caused by its counterpart. Thinking about it, I was pretty sure I could correlate this to human muscle as well. However, these exoskeletal muscles seemed to be less static, sliding past each other as they acted as each other’s antagonist.

  “Huh,” I said. It was strange to see, but it didn’t feel any different. This was just about the most extensive change I had made to the composition of my body. While my Fey form was a larger overall change, it was a lot simpler too, and more magic based. This was a direct change to the entire biology of my arm. Even the nerves were laid out differently.

  Out of sheer curiosity I tried to apply the same principles to my fingers. I started with the index finger, establishing a layer of chitin before shifting the insides to the same structure within my arm, layering striated muscles against the inside of my new exoskeleton. I adjusted the layout slightly to fit the smaller size, parallel muscles wound tightly against each other.

  For each joint I shifted my former skin into a thick, flexible material based on what I’d seen in ‘The Biology of Monsters and Men’, which allowed the digits a full range of movement. This to was the same colour as the chitin, so it wasn’t too noticeable.

  I tipped the topmost segment with a little spike, just because. It looked less uncanny that a rounded human finger made of white chitin, in any case. I was about to move on to the rest of my fingers, but Cassie removed her hands from mine and grabbed me by the shoulders, leaning in.

  “What are you doing!?” She hissed.

  It was only then that I realised that not only had I stopped walking, but Cassie had shepherded me into a small alley to keep me from the public eye. My face burned as it hit me just how distracted I’d gotten.

  “… Experimenting?” I mumbled.

  “I can see that,” she responded drily. “I meant, what are you doing turning into a bug in the middle of town.”

  “Uh,” I responded intelligently. “I may have gotten a bit distracted,” I admitted. It had felt good to perform such a large scale change after going cold turkey for a while, which probably didn’t help. Now that I thought about it, that was probably a factor in how extensive this change had been to begin with.

  “Really?” Cassie asked. “I never would have guessed.”

  “It’s really interesting though! Look!” I raised my exoskeletal arm, flexing my new finger. Each movement was smooth, like somebody had greased my joints. Then I realised that Cassie couldn’t feel the internal workings of my body, so to her I was just waggling my finger at her madly.

  I lowered my hand a little, unsure how to convey how exciting it was that I could do this. I’d been a bit terrified to change so much of my body like this, but now that I’d done so accidentally I could test out so much more.

  Cassie sighed. “I’m glad it’s fun. But you were the one that wanted to stay low profile as we travelled, remember?”

  “Yeah,” I said, downcast. I was a little surprised at how disappointed I was, but it was just so fascinating. Fun, too. There was no denying that I was wired to enjoy this.

  Thankfully, Cassie could read me like a book. “I know how you feel. I’m pretty sure I figured out how to add way more power to Lightning Strike yesterday, and I can’t exactly test it in the middle of a city. We just need to hold out until we reach Meria. I’m sure they’ll have some kind of training facility there or something.”

  “I know. It’s tricky though. At least your magic doesn’t cast itself.”

  Cassie seemed thoughtful as we made our way back to the street. “You know, I must have a few public incidents saved up. I mean, I keep watching out for you. You have to deal with a mess I make at some point.”

  “My messes aren’t likely to cause property damage though,” I shot back.

  “Yeah, only the psychological damage of watching someone turn into a bug,” she retorted.

  Her comment reminded me that I should probably shift back, but Cassie looped her arm through my changed one. “Keep it,” she said. “For all the weirdness, it is kinda cool too. Just keep your hand in your pocket or something. Or invest in some gloves.”

  I smiled at her, glad that I could carry on with my internal experimentation. We spent the rest of the walk arm in arm, a comfortable silence as we followed behind Skinner. There wasn’t much for me to learn about the actual biology, since subconscious or not I’d implemented it myself.

  However, it did have me wondering about ways I could change my ‘human’ form to be better internally, whilst still appearing human on the outside. I had a couple of ideas, but I had learned my lesson about experimenting in public.

  It didn’t take us long to reach the eastern gate, which Skinner lead us directly through without hesitation. The guards didn’t even give us a second glance, which was something at least.

  Unlike the southern gate where we’d entered, the eastern gate had a small building just outside the town itself. The building itself was nothing impressive, but over the door hung a sign that said ‘Bran & Sons Caravan’.

  The moment we reached the building, Skinner stopped and turned to Cassie. “Miss, we’re here. They should have a caravan for Meria leaving later today.”

  Cassie nodded. “Thank you, Skinner. Consider yourself free to go.” The moment Cassie said those words, Skinner rushed off back into the city.

  “Damn. You really did a number on him, didn’t you?” I remarked.

  Cassie shrugged. “Maybe he’ll stop mugging people. He’s a better pickpocket anyway.”

  I snorted, which drew a look from Cassie. To distract her, I gestured to the caravan service. “You first, My Lady. Apparently, our chariot awaits.”

  Cassie shook her head. “Quite. Lets,” she said with a poor noble accent, striding through the door.

  I followed after her to see a cosy waiting room, with only a few people in. One side of the room was dominated by a desk, behind which sat a rather grumpy looking older man. Cassie and I wandered over.

  “Hello,” Cassie began, only to be interrupted.

  “Here for a caravan?” Grunted the man.

  “...Yes.” Cassie relented.

  “Two silver per person, wait here until noon. Caravan route goes to Meria, then straight to Lendal. From there, it goes to Eredell, then to the capital. That work for you?”

  “Yep,” Cassie responded, handing over the four silvers with a barely concealed grimace. The man took the money and handed us two small wooden slips. Each had the words ‘Bran & Sons Caravan Pass’ engraved on them.

  “Return the passes when you get off,” the man intoned before turning his attention back to the papers on his desk.

  Cassie and I stood there for a moment before we read the dismissal in his disinterest. She turned to me and gestured at a pair of empty seats on the other side of the room from the rude man. The sun couldn’t have risen more than an hour ago, so we had to get comfortable. We were in for a bit of a wait.