“Lord Ravadh already knows I’m one of the Gray One’s tourists, and it doesn’t matter to him — he thinks I should stay here and pretend to be the princess until she gets back. And he told me to warn you that he’s got his own mage ready to stop the Gray One if he tries getting me out by magic.”

I leaned way over to get a closer look at my reflection, and suddenly there was a splash of water that blinded me for a moment, and something was grappling my arms and shoulders, pulling me down into the water.

“You’re not too uncomfortable being of the opposite sex?” Dad asked us. “My first time, I panicked when I realized I was a girl.”

Mom and Dad had tried to raise me and Taylor without gender stereotypes. They’d given both of us gender-neutral names, and had me wearing her hand-me-downs, skirts as well as pants and shirts, until I was old enough to rebel against them.

“I’m not a woman,” he said in a low voice. “I’m a man, but a wicked alchemist did this to me. Can you tell me anything about the sorcerer who did this to you?”

A haunted look came into the eyes of the women for a moment, but quickly passed. “We have ever been thus,” one of them said.

“I know what it’s like to be a slave, and I don’t want you to be slaves. But I’ve run the numbers; I can’t afford to free all of you at once...”

For himself, he didn’t mind losing a huge sum; but he knew that if he looked like he was running the organization into the ground, his lieutenants would challenge him, and sooner or later he’d lose a challenge.

Pengram ushered in a young woman, or effeminate young man, about fourteen or fifteen years old. She wore a man’s overcoat, threadbare and dirty, that concealed her figure, but the face and hands were feminine enough; her lips, cheeks and eyes were heavily made up in a way no respectable woman would decorate herself, but her hair seemed to have been recently and incompetently cut short.

Would it not work with her so far from the Gray One’s office? This place must be empty of magic, or the Gray One would have rescued her by now — perhaps the return spell would not work here.

This story is set, with Morpheus' permission, in his Travel Agency universe.

“If we can recreate this ‘Coke’ from materials to be had in our own world, we will do as much for the happiness of the speaking peoples as if we replicate a steam engine or internal combustion engine.”

This story is set, with Morpheus' permission, in his Travel Agency universe.

“We were both human. Shorter than our real selves, and with pale skin and yellow hair.” There seemed to be something he wasn’t telling, Tariq thought.

The light came back — I had almost forgotten what light and color were. I could begin to put colors to the shapes and sounds of the fish around me. And besides the many small fish, I saw larger shapes as well, swimming toward me or toward the source of the song — creatures with dolphin’s hindquarters and more or less human arms and heads.

“Most of you already know Jeffrey Sergeyev,” Ms. Turner said in a loud voice. “She will be using the girls' facilities from now on, as I explained Friday. Please be courteous to her.”

“Ignore the bit where she called me ‘she’ and ‘her’,” I said to the girls nearest me.

“I know there would be problems with you using the girls’ bathrooms or showers,” Dad said, “but — after today, there might be just as bad problems showering with the other boys.”

Dad snuggled in next to Mom on the sofa; she put aside the skirt she was working on and they hugged and kissed, but I thought I saw a little bit of hesitation, and it hurt. I knew too many kids at school whose parents were divorced, or looked like they might get a divorce any time now, and I was happy to think that my parents looked like the sticking-together kind. But when I saw her hesitate a little before letting him hug her and kiss her, it worried me. Could they still stay together after changing in such drastic and different ways? And if not, what would happen to me?