“Lucius,” Vida said, breathless. “Run away with me, please. You can leave your family, leave it all behind!” She clutched at my hands.

“I can’t,” I said to her in my deep, overexaggerated Lucius voice. “My love, I cannot leave. But you can, and you must! Only let me leave you with the memory of me…” I cupped her face and pulled her in for a long kiss. There were some awws from the audience, as well as a few more disappointed sounds when Vida pushed me away.

“I’ll always love you,” she said, her voice low but pitched to carry. “I hope you know that.”

“I do,” I said, and watched her run off the stage. Dropping my head in a pretense of anguish, a contrast to my skipping heart, I trudged off the opposite side of the stage. A breeze blew through, probably from an open door, ruffling my ponytail.

Vida met me several minutes later, grinning as she took my hands. Hers were now stained with fake blood from her Sophie’s murder of Fia’s character for his betrayal of Blythe’s Floriana. “You were wonderful, love. Nearly broke my heart, even.”

“You’re just saying that.” 

“I promise I’m not! You really were good.”

“Shh!” Dream scolded. “You’ll ruin Seren and Blythe’s final scene. It’s a tragedy for heaven’s sake.”

I glanced at Vida and managed to pull her over to the corner before dissolving into helpless laughter. Dream fixed us with a scowl. 

“Sorry,” Vida managed. “I’ll get her to shut up.” Laughing still, she kissed me.

“Oh, for… Pull yourselves together, it’ll be curtain time in a few minutes, and then time for bows.”

We were still smiling when we skipped onto the stage, Vida’s lipstick marking my cheeks and mouth, my ponytail and her careful curls slightly mussed. I darted a glance sideways and my grin grew wider at the way she beamed, practically glowing at the applause. I took a half-step sideways, linking my hand with Vida’s, and bowed again.

Dream waited offstage, notepad in hand. “Sounds like they loved you. How’d it feel?”

“Oh, exhilarating!” Vida spun in a circle, her head tilted upwards.

Dream laughed. “I know you liked it, I was talking to Destiny, it’s her first play.”

“Really nice.” I rubbed the back of my neck and my hand caught in the ribbon tying my hair back. I frowned and pulled it out, only to retie it as I said, “Kind of weird, being a boy. But it was fun.”

“Do you want to play it as a girl next time?” Pen hovered over paper, waiting to strike out and revise.

“No,” I said. “Maybe. Next time?”

“We’ll keep it on for a few months as we travel before switching it up. Easier that way. Let me know anytime you want to switch, we just have to do it between towns.”

“I can keep playing it as Lucius.” I shrugged, trying not to betray the excitement coiling in my stomach. “Like you said, easier that way.”

Dream nodded as if that was expected. “Good, good. Vida, any notes?”

“Not a one.” She grinned and hugged him, her wings fluttering into view. 

He hugged her back with a wry smile. “I’ve got one for you, both of you. Do your offstage kissing after the play next time, not during it. You know better, V.”

“Yes, Director,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. 

“Good. Now go on.” He flapped a hand at us. “You two can start heading back to the wagon, I need to talk to Seren and Blythe.”

“Not the inn?” I asked. “Aren’t we staying another few days?”

“Yes but Blythe said we’re all staying in the wagon this time. Do you want to take it up with her?”

“Point taken.” I took Vida’s hand and kissed it lightly, just as my character had to hers in their first meeting. “May I escort you to your door, my lady Sophie?”

“Oh, you two are so corny,” Dream grumbled fondly.

“I’d be honored, Lucius darling,” Vida grinned.

I glanced past her at her wings.

“Oh–” She twisted as she attempted to see over her shoulder, though her wings stayed pinned down. “I dropped the glamour? Nos a…” She trailed off, and a moment later her wings were gone again. 

“Ready?” I couldn’t help but smile at her.

“Yeah, now I am.” 

Vida chatted to me about the play as we walked, regaling me with its history– “one of the first plays to be written during the Emperor’s reign, before the war ended. You can tell how it’s a product of the time, any historical audience would have known Teodor and Floriana being called to fight on opposing sides would almost certainly have ended in both their deaths, and one potential reading is that they die at each other’s hands–”

“Sir!” a voice called behind us. “Sir, you dropped this!”

“That’s weird,” Vida said so only I could hear. “We’re the only ones going this wa– oh.”

“What?”

“She’s talking to you.” Vida kept her voice quiet. “You’re still done up as Lucius.”

“Oh.” A thrill ran through me as I turned. “Yes?” I kept my voice carefully deep.

The woman held out a blue-checkered neck kerchief. My kerchief, or rather, the pack's. Mine only for the play. “You dropped this.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Heart beating far too fast– what if she notices, what if she figures out I'm not a boy– I approached her to take the kerchief. I couldn’t meet her eyes. Don't figure it out don't say I'm a girl don't don't don't. “I'd have missed it at the next performance.”

“Oh, it's no problem at all! Glad to help. You've quite a promising future as an actor, young man, you know that?”

“I– thank you.”

“That's why we keep him with us.” Vida's arm wound suddenly around me, her chin digging into my shoulder. “He's destined for a great future, maybe touring the continent with the best of them.” She pressed a kiss to my cheek, her breath hot in the chill air. “And that pretty face doesn't hurt anything.”

“That it doesn't,” the woman laughed. “You'll have girls falling at your feet in a few years, mark my words.”

I laughed with her and Vida, then Vida said, “So sorry to cut this short, but the boss is expecting us back soon. We'll see you at the play tomorrow, yes?”

“Wouldn't miss it! My grandchildren will want to come too, it will be early enough for that?”

“Oh, yes,” Vida assured, still smiling. A hand on the small of my back turned me around. “Goodbye now!”

“That was nice,” I said softly as we walked.

“Yeah?” Vida glanced at me, her smile falling. “Even though she called you a boy? I'd have corrected her if it wouldn't get us into a stickier situation.”

“No, it's fine. I didn't mind, really.” I retied the kerchief around my neck, adjusting it the way Seren had shown me. “The makeup you did really does make me look boyish, and I was just playing a man, so it's no wonder she thought I was too.” And it was kind of nice that she thought that, I didn't say. 

I didn't say, I wish I could be a boy, or I liked playing Lucius more than I do being Destiny, or The only good part about being a girl is that you love me for it. Didn't tell her about the resistance in my mind to the idea of returning to life as a girl, or the reluctance I felt at the idea of taking off my Lucius costume and the cloth wrapped around my breasts.

I couldn't look my reflection in the eyes as I sponged off the makeup Vida had used to contour my face to make it look more masculine. Couldn't watch myself turn back into a girl.

I wore it again the next day, of course. Became a boy again for a few hours.

It didn't help. If anything, it made things worse. Intensified the wrongness I felt, the dissonance between the boy I was onstage and the girl I was everywhere else.

I didn't know what to do. How to fix it.

Maybe this was why women only played female characters and men only played male characters. Because when they switched it up, the disconnect between their real-self and their stage-self became too much to handle. Maybe I'd been stupid to think I should play a boy part. Maybe I should tell Dream to change it for the next town.

…That didn't make sense, actually. I'd seen Seren play characters who only shared a gender with him, nothing else, characters who were cruel, haughty, and cold. Fionnuala could be exuberant as one character and withdrawn and angry as the next, even in two scenes of the same play. Even offstage, all the werewolves and Vida pretended to be human in town when they weren't. Shouldn't that be at least as big a disconnect as me playing Lucius?

I didn't know what to think. I did the dishes, then read through a headache, first one of Vida's tales of epic heroism, then one of Bloom's romances, until I fell asleep.

I kept my hair in a ponytail for the rest of the play’s run. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t find an excuse to keep binding my chest offstage. But it was cold. So I wore two shirts and a loose jacket, and it didn’t feel quite right but it looked almost the same. 

Almost.

Almost was enough. Most of the time. Especially with the layers, it was easy to be taken for a man– and if anyone noticed I wasn’t, it was easy enough to pretend that wasn’t what I was trying for.

Oddly enough, I was only called a girl once while I was trying to be a boy.

I had my hood back as Fiachra and I approached the grocer’s counter, both of us laden down with supplies. My hair wasn’t tied back, it had come loose when I was busy hunting down the flour and I’d lost the ribbon. A few strands fell into my eyes as I set the bags of flour and sugar on the counter. I pushed them back. “How much for these?”

The grocer eyed me for a moment. “Er… miss, are you unwell?”

I heard the way he hesitated on miss. I could correct him, tell him it was sir. But it wasn't, not really, and Fiachra was right there. When I was only with the pack, I could play off using the deeper voice as continued practice for my masculine roles. Pretending to be a boy with Vida was so that we could be affectionate in public. But here? Now? There was no reason to be a boy here.

I shook my head and faked a cough. “Just a bit of a sore throat, I'm not used to singing so much in this weather.”

His expression changed to wonder and he looked past me at Fiachra, putting his armful on the counter. “Oh, you're one of the Cantores singers! And there's Fiachra, lad, you've grown so much!”

Fia pushed a curl out of his face and stepped closer. “Sean, is that you? Since when do you work in the grocery?” To me he added, “Sean’s an old friend, he even traveled with us for a time.”

I nodded in acknowledgement, studying Sean with interest. He looked human, with tanned skin and reddish hair. Maybe muscles, under the thick sweater, I couldn’t tell, but he lifted the flour bags like they weighed nothing.

“Since a year past!” Sean started tallying up the groceries, tapping at a clunky-looking metal machine on the counter. “Your mother doing well?”

“Oh, yeah, she was hoping to see you since we're in town, just to catch up.”

“I'll have to catch a performance, then…” I heard Sean say as I stepped away. This conversation wasn't for me. 

As I browsed a selection of candies, I wondered what Vida would think if I were really a boy, offstage as well as on. If it weren't pretend.

She wouldn't love me the same way, and that hurt. But we were friends. We could stay friends if I was a boy, even if she wouldn't be my girlfriend.

So I had three questions to figure out answers to.

First, was it possible to become a boy if you weren't born one?

Second, if it was possible, was that what I was? Or was it my magic twisting me into something horrible, ruining me forever?

Third, would I rather have Vida as a friend only, or as both a friend and girlfriend? Or… was being a boy important enough to me to lose her love?

There was a lump in my throat I didn't want to try to explain.