The first thing I noticed was the light.
It poured in through a tall, skinny window framed in dark wood, stretching across the floor in a long, pale rectangle. It was morning light—soft and slow, the kind of light that belongs to a century before things got busy. No cars outside. No hum of a fridge. The ceiling was low with heavy wooden beams, and the plaster walls were a yellowed ivory color. Across the room, a fire had burned down to glowing embers in a small stone fireplace.
I sat up slowly. Where am I?
My hands were in front of my face before I even realized I'd moved them. I turned them over, staring. They were small. Delicate. The knuckles were pale and the fingernails were neat—and I realized with a jolt that they weren't mine. My hands were a gymnast's hands: calloused, tough, and scarred from years of working the bars and the beam. These were a teenager's hands. Soft. They'd never worked a day in their life.
I swung my legs off the bed and stood up. I felt shorter than I should be, and way lighter, with that weird unsteadiness you get when you're in a body you haven't figured out yet. I walked over to a blurry, old mirror near the wardrobe.
A girl stared back. She looked fifteen, maybe sixteen. She was almost scary-thin, with long dark brown hair and green eyes that looked a little too big for her face. She was pretty, but in a way that hadn't quite finished yet. She was wearing a plain white cotton nightgown.
That old guy put me in a dream, I thought. Maybe if I just... I pinched my arm. Hard.
The pain was sharp and immediate. "Wow," I muttered, rubbing the red spot. Okay, that felt real.
I stood there for a long time, trying to wrap my head around this. I knew I was Maya. I felt like Maya. But the face in the mirror belonged to someone else, and this body had its own weight, its own hunger, and a dull morning headache behind the eyes. This wasn't a dream. Or if it was, it was the most realistic one I'd ever had.
Okay, I told myself. Breathe. The priest said I had to fix the balance. So I guess I need to figure out where I am, who I am, and what I'm supposed to stop from happening.
The door swung open without a knock.
Two teenagers burst in like they owned the place. The boy was tall and lanky with messy brown hair and a wrinkled linen shirt. The girl was smaller with a rounder face, her hair pinned up in a style that screamed "Old England." They were both grinning.
"Ava, you're awake!" the girl said. She sounded relieved, but in a "I wasn't actually that worried" kind of way.
I just stared. Ava. Right. That was me now.
"We probably shouldn't tell our parents about the window accident," the boy said, sounding like he'd already decided this for everyone.
"Yeah, why worry them?" the girl agreed.
They laughed and were halfway out the door before I could even open my mouth. I watched them go, feeling like I'd been dropped into a play without a script. Window accident?
Before I could even process that, the door opened again—this time even more abruptly. A woman in a gray dress and a white apron walked in. she looked like she'd run out of patience years ago. She dropped a pile of clothes on the bed like she was throwing laundry into an empty room and turned to leave.
"Who are you?" I asked.
She stopped and turned around slowly, looking at me like a chair had just started talking to her.
"Lady Ava," she said, her voice sharp. "Get dressed. Your parents are waiting to take you to the temple to see the Chancellor."
I could hear the total lack of respect in her voice. It wasn't quite a "fire-able offense" rude, but it was just enough to let me know she'd been talking down to me for a while. I looked at her, trying to read the room.
"Based on your clothes," I said, keeping my voice steady, "you work here. Which means you work for me. Why are you talking to me like that?"
She blinked. For a second, a look of pure shock—maybe even a little fear—flashed across her face. "I... you've never had... a problem with it before..."