"What's your name?"
"I said stop," I answered in the dark. My voice came out small and wrong.
"What's your name?" the hoarse voice asked again. It kept asking until I woke.
"Wake up, miss. We are at the mountain gate," the coachman shouted through the curtain.
"Give me a minute." I yanked the curtain aside and saw the thousand steps of Celestvale piling into cloud and stone.
"You're trembling," Porcus said inside my head. The pig's voice was dry. He sounded bored and hungry.
"Shut up, Porcus." I slammed the curtain closed again and forced myself to breathe. One, two. Hands steady. I pulled my hair into the cheap wig I had bought in Flowerfruit the night before.
"You look like a drowned rat," Porcus commented.
"Better a drowned rat than a dead princess," I muttered. I tied the sash that disguised my chest. I had practiced the gait for three days. I had learned how to drop my voice an octave without sounding like I was trying too hard.
"Remember the plan," I said out loud. Saying it made it true to my ears. "Man. Merchant's son. Anonymous. Keep your head down."
"Or become legendary," Porcus offered. "Either way, I want points."
A laugh came from the next seat and cut through the fabric of my mask. "So dramatic," a woman said. "Who travels to Celestvale pretending to be something they are not?"
"Princesses do," I said before I could stop myself. The
