Not our coach driver. Instead, he looks back at the two of us again and bursts into laughter.

Rude.

Once we’re deposited onto the outskirts of Vastwarren City with our baggage, Gwenna glares at me with anger before I can even take a good look at our surroundings. She pinches my arm, scowling the moment the coach lumbers away. “You absolute fibber! Why did you tell that man your name was Sparrow?”

Squeaker howls for attention in her carrier, the sound loud enough to make people pause in the busy street. I open the specialized satchel and heft the large orange cat into my arms. It’s like hugging a sack of flour that sheds, but my pet is mollified once she’s held in my arms like a baby. I run my fingers over her white chest fur while she purrs. Poor sweetheart. It’s been a terrible ride from home. Bad enough that I had to spend the last three days in various coaches bouncing across the countryside. My poor Squeaker had to spend them in a bag. I couldn’t leave her behind, though. She’s all I’ve got.

Well, her and Gwenna.

I frown at my maid. “I’m not a fibber. I told you before. Everyone who joins the Royal Artifactual Guild takes on a bird name. It’s to honor the first artificer, who was turned into a swan by a cursed artifact. Everyone in the guild is a bird, and the applicants are called fledglings. I’ve decided that I like the name Sparrow.” I pause and then add, “I know this isn’t your dream. It’s not too late for you to go home. We can say you were kidnapped. Better yet, I can write you a lovely letter of recommendation that would get you hired at any hold. Just say the word.”

Gwenna gives me a narrow-eyed stare. “Why are you chasing me off?”

I resist the urge to raise my fingers to my mouth so I can bite my cuticles. Grandmama thinks it’s a disgusting habit—and it is—but I can’t help myself. When I get anxious, I nip away. I scratch at them with my thumbnail instead. “I just…I appreciate your companionship, Gwenna. Truly I do. But this place isn’t for proper ladies, and I don’t want you to feel trapped into a fate not of your choosing.”

She stares ahead at the bustling street in front of us. People of all kinds crowd the cobblestone ways, and all of them look like they come from the rougher parts of the city. Then again, perhaps all of Vastwarren is rough.

“Do you remember when I was nine and you were fourteen? We were girls and my mother had just been hired into your father’s kitchens. We played in the garden together before your tutor came and found us. Remember what you said to him?” Gwenna asks.

I squint at her, because I don’t recall this day at all. Most of my days as a child were spent sitting alone in Honori Hold with a tutor, because Father would be away at court. Sometimes it would be a mathematics tutor, sometimes an etiquette tutor. The best tutor was the one who encouraged my interests in Old Prell, and the worst was the one hired by Grandmama who wanted me to sew and “work on my laugh” so I could catch a husband. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall. What did I say?”

She looks at the buildings around us, holding a hand to her eyes to shield them from the late-day sunlight. “You asked if I could take lessons with you. That you wanted a friend at your side and you liked me.”

I smile softly, because I still don’t remember, but it sounds like something I would have done. I was so lonely as a child that I was desperate for any sort of attention. “I don’t recall. Did we take lessons together, then?”

“No.” Her voice goes flat. “Your tutor said that I was a servant, and there was no point in educating someone destined for a kitchen. That educating me would be a waste.” Her jaw hardens and she meets my eyes. “I remember that, and I remember the next day that a position was found for me in the scullery, and I had no choice but to say yes, because my mother needed the coin. I think about that all the time.”

My mouth goes dry. “I’m sorry, Gwenna—”

“I’m not. His words made me angry.” She sets her shoulders back. “It made me realize I wanted more than just a job. I want to learn. I want to be something. Someone. And I’m going to make my own path if it mucking kills me.”

Her determined words send a thrill down my spine. “I love that. I’m so happy you’re here.”

She reaches for my hand and gives it a squeeze, and I hug her. Or at least, I try to hug her. But I’m juggling Squeaker, and she’s got our bags, and it all turns into a mess. She pulls away with a puzzled frown and I pretend to pick lint off her sleeve instead. It’s a shame, though. I do so love a good hug and they’re so very rare. No one likes to hug a holder’s daughter. “It’s settled, then. I shall be ‘Sparrow,’ and you shall be ‘Chickadee.’ ”

“By Hannai’s tits I will,” Gwenna declares, indignant. “That’s a terrible name.”

“Then you choose.” I shrug. “We’re assuming new identities starting today. I can’t very well go around declaring myself as Lady Aspeth Honori, heiress to Honori Hold. That’s just asking to get kidnapped and held for ransom.”

And my father can’t pay the ransom. At all. He can’t even pay for his knights. I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue if our neighboring holds knew just how stretched thin Honori Hold truly is. A hold is considered only as strong as the land it protects, and Honori is the oldest holder family. We’re thought to be strong with artifacts—undefeatable. If the truth came out, my family’s hold would be overtaken by our enemies, our lands annexed to theirs, and our entire family would be executed. And while I’m beyond frustrated with Father for gambling away our last working artifacts, the people who live on Honori lands are blameless. They don’t deserve whatever terrible fate is on its way for the hold.

It’s the lord holder’s responsibility to protect their people, and since my father cannot, it falls to me.

So no, I have to do this. When Father left for court to visit his mistress, the courtesan Liatta, I knew I had to act. I slunk out of the hold in the middle of the night, carrying a few bags with my possessions, and left a note to the staff explaining that I would be visiting my grandmother in the eastern hills.

In the meantime, I’ll become an artificer myself, find an absolute hoard of artifacts, and replenish the Honori holdings.

Aspeth Honori was left behind on the dusty roads to Vastwarren City.

Sparrow is who I am now.

Gwenna rents a luggage cart with a penny, dragging it after her. We load up the cart—or rather, she does while I juggle my cat. Then all of our gear is loaded and there’s no reason to wait any longer.

“Come along, Chickadee,” I say brightly. “The guild recruitment meeting isn’t until the morning. Shall we find lodgings?”

“Not ‘Chickadee,’ ” Gwenna protests, her hands going to her hips. “That sounds incredibly dumb.”

“Then pick a bird. What’s your favorite bird?”

“To eat? Turkey.”

“Mmm, I don’t think calling yourself ‘Turkey’ is a good idea, though I doubt it’s taken.” I purse my lips, thinking, and adjust my heavy cat in my arms. Good gods, she’s shedding like a dandelion all over my dark traveling dress. I try to put Squeaker back into her satchel but she howls with anger and digs her nails into my arm, so I sigh and heft her onto my hip like a fat orange baby. “What about ‘Blue Jay’? ‘Robin’? ‘Wren’?”

“How about I stay Gwenna for now?” She gives me an irritated look and picks up the handle to the luggage cart. “Guild first, bird name later. Lead the way, Lady Sparrow.”

“Just Sparrow,” I tell her brightly, and then breathe deep.

It’s a mistake. Vastwarren City has a peculiar smell to it. It’s a smell like a compost pile, along with unwashed bodies and a variety of other undelicious stinks. There’s a cloud of smog hanging over the city, no doubt due to several thousand hearths working all at once. I cough, juggling my heavy cat, and then wish I hadn’t laced my corset so tight this morning. “By the Lady. There’s a real stench to this place.”