It was my fifteenth birthday, and I had just been released from prison. The most gilded cage ever, honestly, but still a prison.

  I was legally an adult in this world that treated fifteen-year-olds like grown-ups. YA novel logic, that's all. I knew the truth: I'm a secret adult who is still a stupid kid who's being treated like an adult. So you see, in my case it's okay but not for anyone else, and that is not just the textbook definition of hypocrisy! Because if anyone looks at me like I am presently or potentially a subject of romantic or flirtatious attentions, they're also a weirdo!

  I'm not egotistical enough to think that my way of thinking is the only possible correct way of thinking, but until someone manages to fix human perspective I'm running the same confirmation-bias firmware as all the rest of you. I'm bringing my own prejudices but I'm at least self-aware about it.

  "Strictly speaking this city is three districts," Yheta was saying, as I hung out the window to stare at the city. "There's Cliffside, the portion at the top of the cliff. Stonewall, the portion that is mostly tunnels leading to and from the other districts, and Skyside, underneath the crystal ceiling."

  I stared upwards again. We were underground, and the Cliffside district was actually below the real sky, but I see why they call this Skyside, the glittering overhead looked like a perpetually twinkling starfield, a cloudless night sky that lasted all year round, unless you were close enough to the cave mouth to see the real sky. When I was in the tower I rarely looked up at it- a perpetual night sky is not as comforting a view as you could ask for when you're in a timeless captivity. From up there I had watched people below, bustling about on the streets that I could see. From the tower I had watched a maid that hung sheets to dry on a balcony every day. Now that I was on those streets I looked up past the balconies to the shimmering planes of enchanted crystal. They twinkled constantly, even moreso because we were in motion. The grinding wheels of the carriage carried us down block after block, and the facets far above rotated in and out of alignment.

  "Some of them are scribed to light up periodically," Yheta was saying. "The rest just have the property of catching the light and distributing it. It's what gives the whole city that diffused illumination, almost like morning sunlight but from here all the crystals just look mostly dark. I'm told that up close it is far more spectacular."

  "You're told? You haven't been to see?" I asked turning back around to look into the carriage.

  He shrugged. "I've been busy."

  "Are you busy now?"

  "As a matter of fact," he chuckled, "we need to find you living accommodations, more than one set of clothes to wear, and access to your money. Also, you'll be wanting to eat before too much longer, and if all that does not sound like too much then I have done a poor job of explaining."

  "Yes, quite," I sighed. "Sorry, it's been a while since I was able to move around. And after all these years, I still resent not being able to fly."

  He made a surprised sound from behind me, I was facing out again. "I always assumed that you chose not to," he said. "Why is it you don't?"

  "Well, to oversimplify," I said, "most sorcerers that you see flying have put their practice and efforts into building the strength of their abilities, the push and scale of it. I have invested myself into versatility, flexibility and adaptability." These were two facts that were both true but did not really cut to the matter that most sorcerers were much higher level than I was and at 3rd level I just did not have quite enough magical muscle to get me off the ground. Enough to soften my footfalls to nearly nothing, enough to walk on water for a little bit, but not to get actual lift.

  People here looked quite different from Meadowtam, but nostalgically familiar. A hundred street scenes, character models and matte paintings from Harigold Glitter were all here before me. In a lot of ways I had needed to adapt more to Meadowtam than I did this- the main game took place almost entirely in Hearstcliff, the different districts and neighborhoods that were passing all felt like driving through a neighborhood that I haven't visited in a long time but hasn't changed at all since I was last here. Only now in glorious life, moving and thriving and noisy and sometimes smelly. Before, it was beautiful artwork with a shifting texture to mimic movement.

  The fashions, accents and ebb and flow of humanity here was distinct. Less direct eye contact, but stances were more shoulder-square when addressing someone else. More gestures of the head and shoulders, less with the hands. The puffy sleeves of last month were falling out of favor already- by the time school started they would be hard to find in public. Instead bare arms were making a surge, and next would be high collars and a scooped sleeveless look, showing a bit of the shoulder blades when one took off a coat or shawl.

  Hats were far more common here, as were parasols and awnings. Most large cities had problems with birds like pigeons or doves- Skyside had bats. Night and day the thin almost-gone squeak of them could be heard, they always sounded more distant than they were and if you ever spotted a bat in the light it was always closer than you expect. I stared around, fascinated by the wildlife, the city life, and the architecture.

  "I like how much you let yourself enjoy things," Yheta said, after watching me in silence for a minute. "Everything you feel goes straight through you. Especially the good things."

  Thanks, my first family was so irony-poisoned and postmodernist that I had to unlearn sarcasm in kindergarten just to socialize with everyone else. I was raised in a hipster household, I'm a lapsed boho like some people are lapsed Catholics. I had to teach myself to like things without asking whether it was popular first. Being able to have a genuine emotion is a skill I've taught myself and I'm glad it's working.

  And now I've spent a dozen years with a family of the sweetest kindest people ever and I've spent every minute trying to appreciate them as hard as I could because simple emotional support and wholesome happiness are what drew me to this game in the first place. Don't worry about what I mean by that.

  "I should think more people would do the same if they could," I replied.

  "No, I don't think they would," he said, shrugging. "But, no matter. Do you see those flags at every intersection?"

  "Yes," I said. He wanted to show off the city, so I'd let him explain it.

  He really was excited to explain this to the provincial girl who had just arrived in the Big City. "So, nobody in Hearstcliff, or at least nobody in Skyside, has or rides a horse of their own. Honestly, one of the things I like about living here is that nobody pressures me to saddle or ride a horse. Instead, everyone hires a hack cab like this one. The rates are fixed, so it doesn't matter which one you get. When you need a ride, you put up a flag. See that chain and pulley? Just tug the chain down and the flag goes up. If you need more than one, let the driver know, they have ways of messaging each other to form up. The driver puts the flag back down with a tap of the horsewhip. Do not put up a flag unless you need a ride. Again, horsewhip."

  "Understood," I said. I doubted a scorned driver would actually beat someone with a whip in the middle of the street. But the urban legend that it happens sometimes would make sure the situation never comes up.

  "Now, up in Cliffside the situation's a bit different, no hired carriages," Yheta said. "Everything's much tighter, narrower streets. Pedestrians, or single riders. Deliveries are by handcart. But that's where all the high nobles and Houses have their manors and businesses. It's not where the work gets done. You'll likely go up to Cliffside, probably more often than I do. I believe Harigold has a few buildings up there, but my understanding is that of all the Central Houses, yours is the least... involved in Hearstcliff. Even the Greifir family is more settled here."

  "So how do I get around up in Cliffside?" I asked because I knew he wanted me to have questions for him to answer.

  He chuckled. "If you don't know where you're going already, you don't belong. Nobody in that district will give you directions or the time of day. It's the beating heart of House politics and battles for influence. Who you tip your hat to on the street is significant, wearing last year's coat can cause a wave of gossip that ends with someone's church being decommissioned. Just asking for directions there could lead to some real harm."

  "Noted."

  The streets were laid out in rigorous grids near the mouth of the vast gallery. Civic planning was strict and unflinching here. But the further back into the cavern space one would travel, the more distorted the shapes became. That area was called The Old Town, and its architecture was quite unique. Away from Old Town, though, the buildings were square-cut, quite tall, flat-roofed and many-windowed, often embellished with gaud and carvings.

  I watched one go by after another, still frames of long streets fading into the distance, cluttered with a million details that drew my eye, and then a flash of the building close-up, gingerbreaded facade whirring by. When windows caught the light the right way, I'd be pressed with my own reflection, hanging half-out the carriage window, staring wide-eyed back at myself for a startled moment before the scene changed again.

  And on and on again each time, each street flanked by a hundred mysterious doors and populated with a thousand fascinating strangers. Signs moving past, driftwood or cast-iron or baked clay. I could feel them even at a distance, their essences rang into me. All swirling like tiny bats within the ancient body of STONE, hidden in a shell of crystal that cradled an ancient sanctuary for the crawling creatures with their limbs and their lives and their hammers and chisels, an amusing diversion to the STONE.

  I shook myself as if to dry off, and receded that essence from my own. The eons of solidity were a lot, and they would make of me a mere petrifact if I did not tend to my identity. An essence that strong was always a danger, I could channel it only in small filtered doses. This would be a great place for a young sorcerer to build their affinity- if Nathan had chosen this path, there was a ledge to the far west overlooking the city where he could meld with that spirit for free, even without my Untethered Essence.

  "Are you all right?" Yheta asked. "You looked very different for a second."

  "Yeah, I'm fine. Just accidentally interacted with a spirit far vaster and more ancient than humanity was meant to touch. Is that the inn, over there?"

  The building I pointed out took up a whole block of its own, four stories high. It was the largest building I'd seen here today that wasn't a city function owned by the throne. Water poured down from above, straight towards the middle of the roof, little more could be seen but the spray of mist and water from the waterfall. The walls were brilliantly whitewashed and framed with recessed candles so that the whole building glowed vibrantly even from a distance. Signs hung at every corner of the building indicated that it was The White Waterfall.

  "Yes, it's the only inn in Skyside with the dignity and reputation appropriate to your station," Yheta said. "Seriously, what was that just now? Vast and ancient?"

  "Mystical stuff," I said vaguely. I sort of remembered the inn, but I didn't remember any plots or routes that had Nathan ever renting a room here, only meeting in the lobby area. Not every detail in the game was important enough for me to retain. Honestly, there's tons of stuff I've forgotten. I'm sure that some of it's pretty important. I'm not very good at prophetic knowledge of the future. "This city is haunted by something that will never understand life. Can they run a line of credit to my Tarratan accounts?"

  Yheta was looking a little freaked out. Some guys get lost when you stop making small talk. "Er, yes, I did ask on that in advance. I did not presume to check out a room in your absence, but if you take out lodgings anywhere else in this district it would reflect badly on your family."

  "Can't have that," I said firmly. I leaned back into the carriage. "I appreciate your assistance here, Yheta. Could you ask the driver to wait for us while we transact inside?"

  He grimaced a wry look. "I could ask, but I've never heard of a cab waiting for a fare. They're paid to drive, not to wait."

  He handed me down from the carriage, and I stayed gracious about it. He trotted ahead of me to open the door and waved me in to the main lobby. And it really was just a hotel lobby except for the staggering displays of opulence. I took a breath, closed my eyes, and centered myself.

  Be cool. This is a fantasy setting. They use magic. All of this was just created in place for the game. This game's aesthetic revolves around admiration for mind-blowing wealth, billionaire chic. In a magic setting it really is possible to create all of this without the exploitation of the underclasses.

  "Are you all right? Did you have a dizzy spell?" Yheta was asking, his hand hovering as if to hold me if I swooned.

  I forced a smile. "It's all right. There's been a lot to adjust to today."

  The floor was marble sealed with gold, with mosaic themes of water flowing, storms pouring, waves crashing. Pillars of the same swept up to the plastered ceiling painted in subtly alternating shades to look like a veil of mist and cloud overhead. Sharp-eyed guards stood around to make sure that no dirty poors snuck in to chisel a king's ransom out of the floor. I could feel magic weapons on most of them, and a few guards I could feel emanating the snap and static of active sorcery, invisible to the senses of non-sorcerers. Almost every inch of this place was scribed with something, most of it laid carefully under the marble tile or plaster or the wooden accents of the check-in counter.

  Some of the active spells here were for defense against thieves or attackers. Rather a few more were defense against fraud, counterfeiting, and running out on the check. Some would subtly encourage feelings of comfort and relaxation, others seemed to be encouraging generosity and indulgence, which I'm not sure is actually legal for them to do. There were sigils that would prevent fires, but others that would subtly check to see if you had money enough to be here and send a signal to the front desk and the security stations.

  Oh yeah, I can detect sigils now. Most folks can't. Most mages can't. But sorcerers have the ability to sense which elements in the area they could draw on, even if they don't have a curving or channeling spell active. And along the way, I finally attuned to ink's essence. In most cases it's just "hmm there's ink here" but ink that is charged to work magic feels different. Copper versus copper wiring, get it? Also, most of my sorcery senses sharpened significantly (alliteration!) when I advanced my Intellect to eleven.

  The gold and marble were expensive. The cost to get this many scriveners to work on just the lobby of this place? This much area? That was staggeringly costly, especially for quality work like this. The whole room was enmeshed in a complicated webwork of spells to gather information, which normally would not be useful, but it was also connected to sigils and scrivenings in the badges and uniforms of the hotel staff, so that they can draw on all those spells at any time. Lie detection, wealth estimation, and one tricky piece that I think is designed to tell you how gullible or easily swayed someone is.

  "We should find someplace else," I said. I didn't have anything to hide, and I could surely afford this, but that level of scrutiny is intimidating and off-putting.

  Yheta leaned in closer, speaking just to me, very quietly. "There is a big step down between this and the next-best inn. I can take out a room in one of those because I'm the son of a count and most of the way to being disinherited, I'm technically an unlanded baronet in a merchant family. You are an earl, protector, landowner, ducal princess and the heir of a Central House. If you don't rent here, your options are either to cause extreme scandal for your family and associates, or to travel up to Cliffside where the divide is even sharper, with snootier upscales and shabbier downscales. I did not pick this place at a whim."

  I pursed my lips. "All right, thank you and I apologize. I may be a bit reactive and skittish right now. All things considered."

  Ugh. I should be able to just crash overnight at my family's properties in the city. But, apparently that would qualify as supporting me and endorsing my actions. Which were justified.

  Sometimes I wanted to scream. I was exonerated for the killings and destruction! I was only jailed for being really annoying about it! - but, honestly, we all knew that was a lie. I was imprisoned because that was what was convenient to the inter-house rivalries, and I was released when I was for the same reason. Nobody is in control of their own lives, in this city, until they become stronger than the Houses themselves.

  Now there's an aspirational goal.

  I walked across the glistening waxed marble to the front desk. The clerk there went through a quick transformation- I could see him evaluate the cut and cloth of my outfit (subpar), the rank and reputation of my companion (passable), and whatever the spells in this lobby were feeding him (exemplary). He was beaming by the time I set my hands on the bleached and polished willow wood of the check-in desk.

  "Yes, my lady, how may we help you?"

  "Checking in please," I said. "Five weeks."

  "Yes, my lady. And which room would you prefer?" Damn, that's some crisp and attentive professionalism.

  I considered. "A good question. What do you recommend for a ducal princess who is going to be running a great many errands about, but will not be entertaining guests and has not brought any of her own attendants along?"

  The clerk looked intrigued, but he put his eyes down on his ledger and started flipping pages, really considering it. "Hm. We have options within that range, but your specific question brings me to the Storge Room. Third floor, a window with no view. Comfortable, all the amenities, access to the house's staff and attendants, but rather more cozy than grand, if you'll allow. If you will be making purchases in town, we may store items for you either in our depository or in the manager's vault."

  I was impressed. "That truly does sound like an exact match for my needs. I'm quite impressed!"

  He allowed a smile. "We have eighty rooms, and at most times only a quarter are filled. We are provisioned for many different specifications." He was bragging a bit there, proud of his workplace.

  This building took up a whole city block, four stories, and there were probably only twenty rooms checked out right now. I could see more than twenty hotel employees from where I was standing. I take it back, this is an offensive degree of opulence.

  "I've a line of credit to the Tawes Dome Bank, deposited by the Tarratan House in my name," I told him. "Natalie Harigold. Expenses can be drawn from that account. I will take the Storge Room from now until I take my on-site housing at the Academy. I'll be out to do a spot of shopping, before I'm settled in, if the room needs to be freshened up for me."

  "Very good, Princess Natalie," the clerk bowed. "If you will be making purchases in town, you may take this for convenience," he said, and handed me a brass card embossed with sigils and an engraved image of an elaborate key. Writing on one side explained its purpose, but so did the check-in clerk. "It demonstrates that you are a guest of the White Waterfall, and allows merchants and stores to charge your purchases to this account rather than carrying coins or opening lines of credit at each destination."

  Ah! I knew the game had something equivalent to credit cards, but it was never explained how that would work!

  "And, if anyone besides you attempts to handle it or to make purchases in your name, the card will react appropriately. Please do let us know if you will be loaning it out, in order to prevent misunderstandings," the clerk said, smiling a little wickedly.

  I think this card might also have an anti-theft bomb embedded in it. Cool.

  "I shall be certain to do that," I said, accepting the card. "Yheta? Lunch before millinery?"

  We had lunch before we went shopping for suits and sundries. There was a good variety of restaurants in the immediate area, and despite my assumptions they were not all hoity-toity expensive and snobbish. There was one place for which Yheta's baronet-level finery and my prison-issued all-purpose wear were both reasonably appropriate, and we got a table there.

  "So, you've been going to this Academy for a couple years now," I said. "About to start your senior year. Up until now my interest has been rather more academic, wondering how things affect you. But now I'm in sight of it myself, and I'm interested to know more about the school and what it is going to mean to me."

  He sipped at a bready, weak beer. "Maybe you ought not worry about that until after your entry is assured. I know that you've been denied the legacy admission, the merit admission, the open admission and the scholarship admission!"

  "True, but there's the double-secret probation admission," I said. "There's a bylaw I can exploit and force an opening for myself."

  The cafe was pretty chill. Prices were reasonable but the selection was not great. The whole place was carved straight from cavern stone, hollowed-out rather than built-up, and decorated heavily with murals on four walls and the ceiling was covered by the stretched and preserved skin of a pine drake, displayed proudly. You don't see those in Meadowtam, nobody brings exotic souvenirs to the land of farms and ranches.

  "A bylaw? And they'll let you in, just like that?" he said with a snap of his fingers.

  "Well, not like that," I admitted. "First I've got to take an exam and score higher than almost all the scholarship students, and then I need letters of recommendation from two deans."

  He looked panicked again. "Oh, that is not just nothing! Those admission exams are- wait, you're a genius."

  "Yyyyyep."

  He shook his head. "Sorry, on the one hand I know that because that's the first thing I ever learned about you, but on the other hand sometimes it's hard to keep remembering it all the time. Sometimes, you... how should I-"

  "Sometimes I don't act the way that a child prodigy is supposed to act," I helped, stirring my peas and mashed potatoes together. I used my fork to scoop out the middle and build up the outer walls.

  "Thank you. Very well, you are confident about your admissions, but the deans? I'm sure I could find someone who-"

  "House Pailser and I have a good working relationship," I interrupted. I salted my mashed-pea fortress heavily.

  He sat back, and picked up his beer. "Damn. Well in that case I suppose it's all under control. Should be no trouble getting in on schedule, if you don't waste time. So, what did you want to know about the school?"

  In Harigold Glitter, Intellect is mainly there to determine how many storylines you can open up each year. If your score is low, a 2 or 3, you get accepted as a legacy admission and put into classes that are, politely phrased, unchallenging. Maybe even remedial. With a score of 4, you are an open admission student, with basic classes. A 5 gets you a merit acceptance letter. With a 6, you're a scholarship student. Each of these levels includes story hooks that you can choose from to decide which plotlines you're going to interact with, opening up new possibilities at each level. The FAQs for the game and walkthroughs almost always consider your starting Intellect to be as important as your class choices and difficulty, for determining what you need to do to get certain endings. Raising your Intellect during gameplay can advance you to higher and harder classes, as well as influence certain unlocks based on your grades, test scores, and class ranking- but there's not much of that, it's mostly fluff. The big items are about opening those storylines up.

  As I said, a 6 makes you a scholarship entry. An 8 is an honors scholarship. 9 is salutatorian, 10 is valedictorian. I've got an 11. I'm gonna Spinal Tap the educational system.

  Yeah, I'm confident about my entrance exam. You could say that. I started pestering Yheta about the important things: which dining hall has the best food, the best hours, which conferences have the best snacks, which shortcuts are monitored by campus security, if I get the chance to switch rooms with someone which building should I try to get into? Which social events to attend, which to blow off, who's got the best game room, which athletic teams should I try out for?

  He suggested croquet. I told him that was cute, but I'm more likely to try camogie.

  "Camogie?" he blanched. "Hurling for women? The one with the clubs and the helmets?"

  "That's the one," I said. "But it's more of a racket than a club. Maybe a paddle."

  "I rather expected - well, maybe I'm projecting," he admitted, "I usually just try to take an easy credit for physical training. I tried a semester of tennis but found it rather strenuous, after that my outdoors credit was in golf. A lovely sport, golf, no running at all. But I suspected that if you would be more athletic than I, you'd take up weapons training, fencing, archery, perhaps even the joust. Meaning no offense, Lady Harigold, but you do have a certain dangerous way about you. But field sports? I just did not expect it."

  "Over the past years, I've gotten rather eager to run about in fields," I told him. "And particularly interested in strenuous physical training. Camogie is a very intense sport played on a large grass pitch. And besides, it is good training for both strength and stamina." Or rather, training for both Strength and Stamina, the game stats that can be raised with training and effort. "Also, and not insignificantly- I think that there is no chance at all that Nathan is going to take that elective."

  Yheta's eyebrows climbed in surprise. "Oh really? You think things are that bad?"

  "I think that I'd like a chance to find out how bad things are between us before I sign up any classes that might have him and I directly competing," I said. I could feel my voice falling off some, and I poured gravy to distract myself. "Things are in a strange place right now. There could be room to reconcile, or I may need to leave him space yet. But until he starts opening the letters I send him, I can only guess at his feelings."

  Yheta snorted. "Or perhaps take whatever courses you like. You've your own life, and it is a grand and important one! Powerful and brilliant! But every time your brother comes up, you throw yourself into his shadow. Surely even among the Harigold House it cannot be that significant that he is the elder?"

  I ate instead of answered, and after a minute he filled the silence by nattering on about the school, giving me little tips and notices that would be helpful later on. I watched people moving around, the way that fashionable men and hard-working women would interact, or how smaller children practiced what they would say when they got to the counter to give the order recited by their parents. Before in my life, I'd had only a few opportunities to see people going about their business. Everything tended to stop when any member of my family walked into a room.

  All these people swinging through their own trajectories, moving on the course of their lives, their clockwork. I could say a handful of words in a moderate tone, and my personal gravity would yank them all into my orbit, paying attention to my needs and wants rather than their own. And were I dressed in certain ways, in certain company, it would happen whether I wanted or not. But after fifteen years, this was one of the only chances I had ever seen to be out in public without being known as Lady Natalie Harigold the ducal princess.

  Yheta was dressed the part of an unlanded baronet of a merchant family. His clothing reflected that, with the carefully-displayed house colors, the just-fine-enough fabrics, and the businesslike gloves that were tucked though his belt. From his hat to his buckles, he was correct for his station. And through training, experience and osmosis everyone saw this and recognized it. I was dressed in a plain and clean dress, skirt and bodice over chemise, unembroidered and unadorned. Mass-produced, I looked like I might be a salaried maid or a minor functionary of one of the kingdom offices in the neighborhood. Someone comfortable and positioned enough to take lunch with a baronet. I would need to learn to look at people and see them like Hearstcliffers can see each other. It would not do for me to rely entirely on introductions and announcements to know who people are around me.

  That rust-red jerkin there, was that house colors, a fashion statement, something left over from a previous season and previous statements? I could tell that it's not actually rust through my affinity for iron, but I had no idea if this was a courier for one of the nobility, or a barber who's looking for an apprentice, or an aristocratic widower who's let himself go out of grief. These are things I should learn to see.

  "If you are quite done tessellating that pork chop, shall we see about taking you to a tailor's?"

  "Oh! Yes, of course, I said, and ate the last couple bites that I had been cutting at idly.