“My appetite’s not great. A little will do,” Adelaide said, the words dry as paper in a winter wind.

She only ate a single steamed rice cake, a cloud-soft slice that didn’t need chopsticks, a small mercy on a stormy day.

She knew why, as clearly as moonlight on black water; she refused more because even simple tools felt like thorns.

Her reasons stood like reeds in a river. Varie and her people were driven out by the Elves years ago, and the Savia Rose blooms only once a century, like a comet that comes and goes.

No one knew how the Elves handled their holy relic; they only knew a ritual arrived on schedule, like bells at dawn.

With so little to go on, her anxiety gnawed like a mouse in the walls, and not eating felt almost normal, like frost that doesn’t ask to fall.

She repeated that to herself like a prayer in mist, then ran one finger along the window, and thin threads of magic spread like dew across glass.

Lines lit and faded, mapping an invisible pattern like veins on a leaf; the room, the inn, even the walls outside were ringed by an alarm ward like a net in dark water.

If anyone forced it, it would cry out like a startled bird, so she closed her eyes and listened for gaps, like a hunter listening for a twig to snap.

She let her breath sink, gathered focus like gathering fallen leaves, and searched for a thin place she could unweave like silk.

It was work that demanded silence, a tightrope over a ravine, and it fit her tonight; she could bind her mind to the plan and stop it drifting toward the Dream like a boat toward a whirlpool.

She didn’t expect that this self-made rope would cinch the wrong limb, pulling her the other way like a current under ice.

For mages like Adelaide and Mira, the ward was a shallow fence in tall grass; before full dark, she’d loosened it enough to slip through like a fox.

When the moon rode high like a pale coin, a window sighed open; a yawning Elf guard looked up at the soft clink, and two shadows were already gone like swallows over a wall.

They stepped into the Elves’ country for real, a sealed garden that hadn’t met humankind in millennia, like an island in fog.

Next, they needed news of the Savia Rose’s location; with the century turning like a clock, its bloom should stir every street like thunder in the hills.

Clues should be scattered nearby like petals after wind, easy to spot if you knew the color.

Even with a clear target and time like a tightening noose, the two stayed tucked in a dark alley, eyes pulled to the lantern-bathed world beyond like moths to flame.

They stared at different flames, yet the same night drew them, like two tides tugged by one moon.

“All… women?” Mira blurted, her voice slipping like a bead from a string.

Every passerby on the street was golden-haired and blue-eyed, beauty like spring rain or winter steel; some smiled with warmth, some carried sharp brows and ear-length cuts like blades.

Makeup ranged from soft to none, but every outfit drew a curve like a brushstroke, leaving no doubt they were women beneath silk and shadow.

When they entered the city through a special lane, every Elf wore heavy armor like a second skin, gold and silver helmets hiding faces like masks.

Now the street was a gallery; not one plain face among them, and aside from those long, spear-like ears, each matched the Empire’s tale of beauty like a portrait come to life.

Any ordinary Imperial would be stunned, like a villager stepping into a hall of mirrors.

Adelaide didn’t stop for their looks; beauty slid off her like rain off oiled paper.

In the scene before her, faces were the only things she didn’t care to paint; everything else struck like lightning in a clear sky.

Red couplets hung like twin banners of fire; shop signs flashed gold-lettered and silver-edged like coins on a string; lanterns shed soft light like warm honey.

Upside-down “fu” luck characters clung to doors like swallows’ nests; cloud-light robes embroidered with orchids drifted like mist; hems stamped with red plums dotted the street like fallen petals.

Jade hairpins the color of spring bamboo glinted in black hair like dew on pine; to an Imperial, it was easy to call it exotic, like a postcard in a pocket.

To Adelaide, it was a bell that wouldn’t stop ringing, because she had seen these dreamlike things in the Dream, like stars seen first in a mirror.

A word that shouldn’t exist here floated up like a bubble: Bronze Punk.

She swallowed; sweat filmed her palms like rain on stone; when Mira’s hand tapped her shoulder, her breath hitched like a snagged thread.

“Are you feeling sick, sister? Should we go back tonight?” Mira’s whisper shook like grass in wind.

Adelaide’s head moved in a stiff no, like a puppet’s. “I’m fine. Let’s go—” The lie felt brittle as thin ice over a river.

The rip in her mind widened like a crack in glass; it reached her feet, and her steps lurched like a boat in chop.

“Wait, sister—!”

She didn’t react in time. Her forehead met something hard like a pillar, and stars flared like sparks.

“Yo, which little chick’s so careless—hic—?”

The breath of strong liquor rushed in like a furnace, and Adelaide coughed, throat scorched like burnt sugar.

She looked up, and eight perfect blocks of abdominal muscle jumped into view like carved stone under moonlight.

It took her two heartbeats to grasp it; she’d run into a woman a head taller than her, a mountain with a smile.

“It’s New Year’s, and you—hic—wrapped up so tight, face all hidden—hic—that’s no good!”

The big Elf kept going, words turning to tangled string, and her mood flared like a spark hitting oil.

Adelaide heard the broken yet achingly familiar Chinese, and she froze like a pond at midnight.

“If my wife wore—hic—half as much as you, she wouldn’t get dragged home by bad guys every day—hic—damn!”

She swung an arm, biceps bulging like twin hills; she was a queen of protein, beautiful like a polished blade, but her pressure hit like a marching drum.

In that instant, Adelaide felt she faced a middle-aged bodybuilding uncle in a golden wig and a handsome mask, a thundercloud in sunlight.

“Little beauty—hic—say something. You alone? Come home with me, heh…”

The bottle in the woman’s hand fell and shattered like ice on stone, and her free hand closed on Adelaide’s wrist like a trap.

“What’s to fear? My technique is—hic—approved by everyone—”

Technique…?

The word rang like a bell in a fog. Adelaide didn’t stop to parse it; she shook her head and waved her hands, refusal fluttering like a trapped sparrow.

The woman pressed anyway, chest muscles looming like two slabs of stone, ready to clamp her like a vise.

Smack.

The slap was crisp as a snapped twig; Mira knocked the dirty hand away and stared like a knife held straight.

“Oh? Another little chick. You should’ve said. Three’s fine too…”

The drunk’s eyes cleared as silence fell like snow; she looked them over from hood to boot, and suspicion coiled like a snake.

Two figures in black robes stood out like ink among silk; not Han-style robes, not local, and very wrong in this lantern sea.

“Why don’t you talk?” She narrowed her eyes, and veins rose like ropes, doubt swelling like a storm tide.

“Hiding here, doing something shady—”

“It’s not that!”

The Chinese, clean and standard, cut through like a bell at dawn; both Mira and the big Elf froze for half a beat.

“We slipped out from the family to gather inspiration,” Adelaide said in the same tongue, voice low as falling ash. “People are looking for us, so we had to hide here.”

Mira turned, shock bright in her eyes like lightning, and saw Adelaide tucked behind her, pleading in that same language like rain on dry earth.

“This chance is rare for us… please, don’t make it hard,” Adelaide added, the tremor in her tone like reeds in a cold wind.

Sincerity landed like warm tea on a winter palm, and the Elf’s guard softened a shade, her gaze catching the gold strand peeking from Mira’s hood like sunlight.

She scratched her head and sighed, the sound drifting like smoke. “Kids from big houses have their own headaches. Fine, fine. If you don’t wanna come, just play on your own.”

She turned, drew another bottle from her belt like a magician palming coins, bit it open, and took a swig like a wave swallowing a rock.

“If you’ve got the chance, wait till midnight,” she called back, voice tossing like a lantern in wind. “There’ll be a good show!”

She slipped into the crowd and vanished like a fish into deep water; no one caught the kindness she’d thrown like a rope.

Mira couldn’t understand the words, and Adelaide couldn’t carry any more; both stood still as stones under rain.

After Adelaide let the last word fall like a leaf, her mind felt ready to split like a log, and only one thought thudded like a drum.

Forced or not, she had spoken that language, the one she refused to admit, like a name carved on bone.

The fact made her fingers shake like willow leaves; her heart pounded like hooves; her blood moved like winter water, slow and far.

Only the cold climbed her spine like frost on a black branch, reaching for the crown of her head.