The overlong Sailor Moon AU that no one asked for, brought to you by midnightsnapdragon!

ACT I: SAILOR VENUS

i.

She dreamed of a white cat dashing around a summer meadow. To be more precise, it was a gentleman cat wearing a neatly pressed waistcoat, with not a speck of dust on his immaculate pelt. From time to time, he produced a pocketwatch out of thin air and peered at it with worried green eyes. Oh, dear, oh, dear, he wailed, I shall be late! And no matter how much she wanted to stop and talk to him, no matter how loudly she called out, the white cat never waited for her, and she eventually lost him to a haze of blinding sunlight.

Winter came awake gradually, the stick-on stars on her ceiling slowly coming into focus. Early sunbeams filtered through her bedroom window.

That cat had been showing up in her dreams for as long as she could remember. The first time, when she was five, she'd dreamed that she was bouncing around on the moon and he had shown up bearing the national flag; just yesterday, she'd dreamed of sitting in class and taking notes from a giant banana lecturing her on the benefits of dictatorship, and she'd turned to look behind her and found the white waistcoasted cat gazing mournfully back at her. It's almost time, he'd whispered. The bell will ring any minute now.

She had given up trying to figure it out long ago.

Winter yawned and swung her legs over the bed frame. She stood, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and folded her arms on the windowsill to peer out into the street. The sun was rising in a clear blue sky. Cars were already whooshing past her townhouse, neighbours out walking their dogs, as the city geared up for another mundane Thursday.

It was a morning just like all the thousands of others she'd woken up to for seventeen years. No explosions, no apocalypse, no void of darkness come to swallow them all.

And yet, for some reason, she suspected that this would not be an ordinary day. Some figurative ambush was waiting for her just around the corner. The strings of fate had snapped into place. Sooner or later, this peculiar sense of foreboding would flourish into something … extraordinary.

Winter turned away from the window and beamed at her reflection in the mirror. You crazy old headless chicken, she thought at herself, what would Jacin say? "Either aliens have touched down on Earth," she quipped, mimicking her friend's baritone, "or Winter is having a bad hair day for the first time in her life."

Ha. No. Aliens would blow up Beijing Tower before that happened.

When she got down to the kitchen in her school uniform, she found her dad making waffle batter by the stove, humming a show tune about going into the woods. She hugged him from behind. "Morning, Dad!"

Evret Hayle made a surprised sound and craned his head back to look at her. "Good morning, Winter. Waffles or pancakes?"

"You know me." She started to pull things for her lunch from the cupboard, but stopped short when she caught sight of the blender. It was filled with a liquid that bore a strong resemblance to gritty tar. She wrinkled her nose. "What's your latest experiment?"

"Blackberry and kale. It's healthy."

"Sure it is."

Her dad gave her a pointed look. Relenting, Winter poured herself a cup, peered inside, and gave an involuntary shudder. The smoothie looked more like extract of rotten prunes than tar, she decided. Not that she knew what extract of rotten prunes was supposed to look like.

She was spared from having to drink her father's awful concoction when her mother appeared in the kitchen doorway, already dressed for work. Solstice Hayle owned a seamstress's shop downtown, a small one, and as it had gotten popular lately, she'd started to leave the house earlier and earlier. She was as lovely as ever despite the dark smudges under her eyes from all the late nights sewing quilts and ribbons.

Their eyes met over Winter's cup of health brew.

Solstice raised her brows in a silent question. Winter gave her a pleading look.

Understanding, her mother winked, strode over to Evret and kissed him on the cheek. "Morning, dear."

"Solstice!" He turned to beam at his wife. "Waffles or pancakes?"

Winter held her breath as she watched Solstice pretend to think about it. "What about … crêpes?"

"Crêpes?"

"Mm-hmm." Solstice, unconcerned, poured herself a mug of coffee from the espresso machine. Behind the counter, Winter fidgeted with her cupful of sludge, glancing shadily back and forth as she tried to determine how best to get rid of it.

Her father rubbed the back of his neck with the hand not holding the batter-covered spatula. "I don't know. I've never made crêpes before. I could look it up tonight, if you like."

"Evret, you make wonderful pancakes. How different can they be?"

"Well, they're thinner and crinklier. It's a French recipe, you know. I'd have to find –" He started to rattle off a list of ingredients and cooking paraphernalia, but Solstice only rolled her eyes.

"Ah, shh, shh, shh." She swept her husband into a spontaneous waltz, prompting a surprised laugh, and held his spatula hand far away from them both as she sang an old French song they'd heard at the market once. «Quand on fait des crêpes chez nous, des crêpes chez nous, des crêpes chez nous, ma mère nous invite … quand on fait des crêpes chez nous … »

They bowed to each other as Winter gave them an enthusiastic round of applause. Solstice noted the impish sparkle in her daughter's eyes and, coincidentally, the purple-black goo pooling in the soil of the fat potted plant in the corner. She nodded to herself in approval. Her husband was a decent cook, but his smoothies would be healthier for vegetables than for people, anyway.

They sat down at the kitchen table while Evret busied himself at the stove. The sound of frying batter filled the air as Solstice picked up that morning's newspaper, crinkling loudly in her fingers. Winter leaned forward across the table, trying to read the headlines upside down.

"Another robbery," Solstice remarked, furrowing her brows. "Yesterday evening."

"Show me?"

Her mother spun the paper around so that Winter could see the photograph splashed across the front page. It was a little blurry – not the work of a crime scene photographer – but it was easy to discern the light of distant streetlamps illuminating the broken display window in a shop, shattered glass strewn all over the sidewalk. The caption read: Razor Quills Strike Again; Mayor Parker Says "We're Working On It".

Winter scrutinized the photo. The street shop looked familiar, though it was almost unrecognisable after being vandalized and plundered. Then she gasped. "Wait – that's the vintage dress shop on Sakura!" She looked up at her mother, eyes wide with alarm. "I was there just last week, with Meira!"

Solstice gestured at the article with her sugar spoon. "Read the rest."

Winter looked back down. Soon, she was so immersed that she didn't hear Evret slide two large plates, heaped with waffles, before them, along with a pitcher of syrup and mugs of tea.

The gang known as the Razor Quills is growing bolder.

Last night at around ten-fifteen, three masked thieves stole into St. Jude's Gravity Dress Emporium and made off with some of the most valuable articles, as well as the cash box. The Razor Quills' signature feather was found spray-painted on the wall. The shop's alarm system alerted local authorities immediately, but the officers on duty did not come in time to apprehend the thieves. "I am confident that we'll catch them before they do any more serious damage," says Sergeant Detective Sally Donovan, who has been facing increasing pressure to apprehend the gang. "It's just a matter of time." The owner of the Gravity Dress Emporium, however, disagrees. When interviewed, renowned designer Jude Ralph expressed disappointment at the police's lack of progress. "It may be petty theft by their definition," she says, "but if you pull off enough petty thefts, you make a considerable profit. St. Jude's has gotten popular enough to fall on the Razor Quills' radar, so I expect they'll try to sell those dresses on the black market."

Mayor Li Parker was not available for comment, but one of his aides told us that he is working toward the eradication of crime rings from New Beijing as hard as ever. Article continued on page 9.

Winter sighed, pressed her lips together, and laid the newspaper aside. Solstice and Evret were chatting with one another – one sipping tea, the other munching waffles – but she let it fade into background noise and mulled over her own rather dismal thoughts.

The Razor Quills had cropped up maybe half a year ago, and ever since they'd been making headlines at least once a month with news like "JEWELLERY STORE PLUNDERED, POLICE CLUELESS!" and "BREAK-IN AT BEIJING BANK; D.I. SAYS NO NEW LEADS". They fell upon wealthy establishments with no warning at all, stole whatever they could, and disappeared a couple thousand pounds richer than before.

As far as she could tell, there were four unsavoury types in New Beijing, ranging from relatively harmless to very, very dangerous. One: the lowlife, as Jacin would have put it – pickpockets, shady black market dealers, the madams and masters of the betting table. Two: the loners, making a living in numerous less-than-legal ways but associating with no one. Three: the gangs built on organized crime, some living civilian lives by day with weapons hidden under mattresses, others hiding out in various apartments mysteriously exempt to tax inspection. And then there were the true menaces – rare though they were, there had been killers in the city before, killers who were never caught. The newspaper stories alone were enough to give Winter nightmares.

In short, New Beijing was home to a thriving, festering criminal underground that alarmed her to no end. She liked to think that she didn't judge the lowlife and the loners, but the whole mess with the Razor Quills bothered her more than she could say, set an itch under her skin every time she read yet another article about the gang's heists and the injuries they left behind. If she could have done something to shed light on the investigation and make her city just a little bit safer … she would have.

But what could she do? She was just a seventeen-year-old girl, and she didn't know the first thing about police work or law or even self-defense. If New Beijing had to have a hero, it most certainly would not be Winter Hayle.

ii.

Every day, the walk to school took her through nearly a third of the city – and that was saying something, considering the sheer size of New Beijing. It was a veritable jungle of skyscrapers, apartment buildings, markets, backstreet shops and alleyways. When the sky was gloomy, it became a grim, murky stew, but then there were glorious mornings like these, when sunlight sang off the glass-and-chrome spires and fresh breezes filled the busy streets. It was the kind of day that Winter loved most.

Jacin was waiting for her in the city square, as he did every day. She paused at the edge of the plaza to pick him out from the crowd. It wasn't hard – his pale blond hair was a beacon in the crowd, not to mention the fact that he'd grown very tall in his nineteen years, robust and broad of shoulder. Within moments, she spotted him sitting on the marble bench that circled the fountain in the centre, a sizeable textbook open on his lap.

A fond smile turned her lips and she leaned against the brick wall of a café, watching him from afar. Jacin, Jacin – stern, sarcastic, pragmatic to a fault, and dearest to her heart since a time before she could remember. After a moment, she broke away from the wall and sauntered through the crowd, ignoring the heads she turned, and plonked down beside him. Jacin glanced up at her, with annoyance at first, but it vanished into a wry smile when he saw who it was.

"Hey, Trouble."

She beamed at him. "What are you reading today?"

By way of response, Jacin showed her the cover of his textbook. The Basics of Medical Training: What You Need To Know Before Starting Med School.

Winter raised an eyebrow at him. She knew this book almost as well as the back of her own hand, mostly because it had been Jacin's second-best friend since he was ten. "This is, what, your fifteenth read-through?"

"Something like that."

"I bet you're on the edge of your seat. 'What's going to happen next? Will the butterfly bacteria be defeated by Doctor So-and-so, or will it triumph over the human race?'" She threw a hand dramatically across her forehead, feigning dizziness. "Oh, the suspense! It's too much!"

She could practically hear him rolling his eyes. "I could say the same about Secrets of the Solar System."

"Between the two of us, someone has to keep their head in the clouds."

"You're not even in the clouds. More like … the exosphere."

Winter winked. "And only going further up." She bounced to her feet and beckoned down the street. "Now, up! No dawdling! Time to learn about sinusoidal functions and global warming."

"Heaven forbid they teach you something useful," he said dryly, getting to his feet, and slung a book bag over his shoulder. "Patience, Trouble. Things are bound to get interesting eventually." Seeing her hopeful look, he added, "Maybe on the day you graduate," and his lips curled into another smile at her theatrical groan.

The influx of people around them ebbed a little as they walked. Most of New Beijing's residents had already found their way to their individual workplaces. Solstice Hayle would be at her seamstress's shop by now, sitting at her sewing machine or embroidering a pair of dress gloves. Evret Hayle had an afternoon shift at the museum and wouldn't be home until around nine o'clock that evening.

"Did you hear about the dress shop on Sakura?" Winter inquired as they passed through the shadow of the Phoenix Tower Apartments.

"You mean the robbery?" Jacin wasn't really paying attention. He was struggling to fit the medical manual back into his book bag, which was loaded with textbooks on equally heavy subjects. "Dad said something about it."

She dodged a plump middle-aged man coming out of a sweetshop. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his eyes widen, heard a paper bag of muffins hit the ground, but this effect had become so commonplace that she no longer paid it any mind. "Well, it was the Razor Quills," she informed Jacin, falling back into step with him. "They made off with everything in the safe and a lot of the designer dresses. And the police haven't made any progress at all!"

"Surprise, surprise," he deadpanned.

"It's the third robbery this month," she plowed on, warming up to her subject, "and people are getting hurt. Last time – oh, good morning, Fateen!" Winter waved to the young apothecary unlocking her pharmacy. Fateen whirled, her black braid swinging in a wide arc, and when her eyes clicked on Winter she grinned and waved in response. "Last time one of the burglars broke a bank teller's ankle when she refused to give access. Why hasn't anyone done anything?"

"Maybe the Razor Quills are more intelligent than our police force," Jacin suggested, though it was clear from his tone that he didn't think there was any maybe about it. "The station is so full of idiots, it's no wonder all the smart ones go into crime."

She sighed. "Jacin."

"Trouble," he shot back, in exactly her admonishing tone.

"The police have their hands full, you know. Overflowing." She knew she was arguing against her own point, but needling Jacin was too much fun. "It's no wonder they can't keep up."

"Overflowing or not," he said crossly, "they're not doing their job."

Winter nudged his shoulder, but was momentarily diverted when they passed by her favourite pastry café. "There's Sacha! I think she's opening up. Wait for me, will you?"

"You'll be late," Jacin warned, but she was already pushing through the door. A pretty bell tinkled over her head as, behind the counter, Chang Sacha – an ageing, rotund woman – slid a batch of cookies-to-be into the oven. She straightened with an achy groan, turned to the shop entrance and broke into a wide smile. "Winter!"

"Good morning, Sacha!" Winter grinned and held out her arms. Sacha dusted her hands off on her apron, sending up a cloud of flour, before wrapping Winter into a fond, grandmotherly embrace. When they pulled away, Winter inhaled deeply and gasped. "Are you making starfruit buns?"

Sacha winked slyly. "Come here. I have something for you." She motioned for Winter to approach the counter and deftly plucked a paper bag from under one of its shelves. She pressed it into Winter's hands with a finger raised to her lips. "Now, don't go telling everyone. I get five new wrinkles every time I make a batch of those."

Winter kissed the old woman's cheek. "Thank you, Sacha. Will you come over for tea this Sunday?"

"Not a week goes by that I don't look forward to it." Sacha shooed her out the door. "Now go! Don't be late to school. I can see your young man getting impatient." She winked, making a blush rise to Winter's face.

When she emerged, Jacin looked her over from head to toe and slowly raised an eyebrow. "Why are you covered in flour?"

She glanced down at the front of her uniform, which was dusted with fine white powder. "Oh. I hugged Sacha and she had her apron on."

"Are you sure you didn't fall into the flour sacks again?"

Winter glared at him. "One time, Jacin. You're never going to let me forget it, are you?"

"Nope."

As they walked on, Jacin's eyes darted to the paper bag in her hands. She pretended not to notice as they filled with an almost childlike longing. Serves him right for teasing me. Deliberately, taking care to crinkle the bag, she reached inside and pulled out one of Chang Sacha's famed starfruit buns, humming as she took a leisurely bite.

Jacin pressed his lips together. Winter twinkled her eyes at him, mumbling through a full mouth, "Your sweet tooth will be the death of your reputation."

He scoffed and looked away, across the street, as if fascinated with the birds lined up on the electric wires overhead. "What reputation?"

"You know," she said, swallowing, "the whole Grumpy Cat Poker Face thing you've had going since you were five? You'd be ruined if everyone so much as suspected your weakness. They'd start cultivating your goodwill with Sacha's sticky buns and you would be powerless to resist."

"I wouldn't run that spiel if I were you," he said conversationally, "considering the Bakery Bribery incident a few months ago –"

"You ought to be careful, or I'll just have to eat these all by myself."

Jacin assumed his soldierly expression again, as easily as blinking. "You're welcome to them."

With a knowing look she knew he saw, she stealthily slipped the sweets into his school bag, keeping one for herself. She waited until they approached the music and record shop to break off from the sidewalk again. Ignoring Jacin's exasperated huff – he knew exactly what she was about and regularly gave her an earful about street safety and such nonsense – Winter knelt down by the heap of blankets and heat-preserving nylon in the alcove entrance of the shop. "Taz?"

A bearded face peeked out from the top of the sleeping bag and broke into a wide, yellow-toothed smile. "Hello there, miss."

"I brought you something."

"Is it an apple? I haven't had an apple for ages."

"Next time," she promised, and held the starfruit bun out in front of him, tantalizing. "But I'll bet you haven't had one of these for a while, either."

Taz's eyes widened. "Is that …" he whispered, "one of Chang Sacha's starfruit buns?"

Winter grinned. Those pastries were truly legendary. "The one and only."

"Oh my … thanks, miss, that's very kind of you." He cupped the roll in both hands, practically drooling. "Tell that Sir Clay I'm willing to fight him for the rest."

Winter glanced over her shoulder, and sure enough, there was a dusting of sugar on Jacin's cheek as he hurriedly stuffed the paper bag out of sight. Smirking, she patted Taz's hand and stepped away. "Sorry, Taz, but it seems the rest has been devoured."

"Finished?" Jacin said coolly as she joined him again. He was trying to look irritated, but the effect was rather spoiled by the pastry powder on his cheek.

Winter bit her lip to keep from smiling. "Hold still." She lifted her fingers to his face and cupped his jaw, brushing away the sugar with her thumb. He froze, caught off guard as it swept by the corner of his mouth, and she could have sworn that he stopped breathing.

"There," she said, letting her hand fall. "You shouldn't hurry with those rolls, you know. What would I do if you choked? Only one of us knows the Heimlich Manoeuvre, and it certainly isn't me."

Jacin didn't seem to have heard her. He stared at her for a moment, almost stunned, before giving himself a shake. "Right. Let's go."

Ignoring her bewildered expression, he turned abruptly and started down the sidewalk at a brisk, soldierly pace. Deciding that it would be best if she left the matter alone, Winter fell into step with him without further comment.

They settled into a contemplative silence. No way to tell what Jacin was thinking – there never was – but Winter's mind had once more fallen on New Beijing's local gangs, the Razor Quills and the Nickel Jackals and all the rest of them. It wasn't just herself and her family she was worried about – what about Sacha, Taz, all those she knew from school, everyone she cared about? What if Fateen's pharmacy was raided one day for narcotics? What if Jacin was pulled into a dark alley on his way back from university and –

Her school was in sight, a double-story building painted white with brick-red shingles. Jacin would walk on to New Beijing University (his classes started at ten) but she still had another year to finish before joining him. Winter hesitated as all her frustration, accumulated over months and months, boiled to the surface. She wanted to tell him to be careful, confide to him the way her skin writhed whenever she read a news article about the gangs' exploits.

But in this one thing, she knew she would get no sympathy from him. Jacin might have been an aspiring doctor, and he was going to make it too, but outside of that he didn't much care about The Greater Good. When she'd first brought it up in the city library during study period, he'd laughed sardonically.

"Something funny?" she'd asked, stung, her pen stalling on the essay she had nearly finished.

"You are," he had said, lips twitching as he returned to perusing the bookshelves. "Queen and country."

Another fifty steps and they arrived at the gate. The wide expanse of grass and shady trees was empty, only a couple of tenth-grade boys rushing up the stairs and through the main doors. It must have been almost nine o'clock. Winter took a breath, about to wish Jacin a good day at the university, when he halted and turned to her as if about to say something.

But he didn't. His eyes roved over her face in a curious sort of way that made her want to bring her hand to his cheek again.

"Yes, Jacin?" she asked lightly, aware that her fingers had begun twitching at her side.

He shook his head. "Nothing." Then, even though it clearly wasn't what he'd wanted to say, he rushed out: "What do you know about binary stars?"

"Binary stars?" She blinked. "Since when are you interested in space?"

"I'm not. I just want to know what you know about binary stars."

That's his story and he's sticking to it. It was strange of him to ask something like this, but Winter couldn't resist. "A binary system is a pair of stars constantly in orbit around each other." He nodded, clearly expecting her to go on. "They stay like that for eternity, give or take a few million years, and if one goes supernova or becomes a pulsar, the other is destroyed, too. That's the basics of it."

"Thank you. That's all." Jacin backed away, leaving her at the gate. "Have a good day, Trouble."

Winter frowned, giving him a you're-acting-even-weirder-than-me look, but he had already turned down the sidewalk. "Why the sudden interest in binary stars?" she called after him, dissatisfied.

The school bell drowned out her words.

iii.

"Meira, present ... Tashmi, present ... Jael, present ... Winter – where's Winter?"

Miss Haruna was met with blank faces and shrugged shoulders. A few exchanged indifferent glances: how should they know where the crazy old bat was to be found? Eccentric didn't even begin to cover it.

The teacher gave a long-suffering sigh and picked up her pencil. Just as she had put it down to mark Winter absent, the wayward student in question skidded through the door, breathing heavily, her uniform askew, coils of black hair sticking up around her head like individual springs. Even late and disheveled (and was that flour all over her front?) she was still quite stunning.

"Present!" she gasped. Giggles and whispers breezed through the room as she dragged her book bag across the floor to her desk. Not two feet away from her seat, white-haired Meira widened her eyes at Winter in silent warning.

Winter flopped into her seat and turned to face the front, only to find Miss Haruna standing with crossed arms and narrowed eyes on the other side of her desk.

"You are as good as late," Haruna snapped, tapping her foot. "This is the fifth instance in two months – oh, yes," she added upon seeing Winter's vaguely surprised expression, "I have been counting. Care to explain yourself?"

"Miss Haruna," Winter said softly, adopting the eerie cadence of a lullaby, "time has become very cross with me. I disregarded him and in retaliation, he regularly runs forward the hands of my clock. I'm not stuck in teatime or anywhere else, at least," she reflected, ignoring the nervous giggling on the edge of her hearing. "That's fortunate. But I'm always late somewhere."

"Just because we're going through Alice in Wonderland," Miss Haruna said, quite visibly irritated, "does not mean you get to exploit Lewis Carrol's personification of Time. If I weren't so tired after grading your tests last night, I'd send you to the principal's office."

Winter pressed her lips together and tried to look nonchalant. After the twentieth time some teacher on patrol duty found New Beijing Secondary School's very own mad girl wandering the hallways, having 'lost her bearings' along the way to the office, Haruna had found that it took a lot less energy to just reprimand Winter for her occasional eccentricities and leave the rest alone.

"Next time," said the teacher, turning to the blackboard, "I'll have to call your parents."

Winter flashed a bright smile at Haruna's back. "Understood."

Meira leaned closer, snowy hair falling across her face, and spoke out of the corner of her mouth. "One of these days, she's going to walk you to the office herself."

"Mm … Unlikely."

"Not that I want you to get told off, but why haven't your parents said anything?"

"Turn to page one hundred and nineteen …"

"They've sort of gotten used to it," Winter whispered back, lips curling in a mischievous half-grin. "I'm incorrigible."

Meira rolled her eyes and pulled out her textbook. "Yes, you are."

Winter did likewise, hurrying to open her notebook to a fresh page and uncap her pen without splattering ink. She snuck a glance at her friend before plunging into the lesson of the day.

The snow-white hair ran in Meira's family, as did her pale skin and chilly blue eyes. She looked like the living embodiment of winter, ghostlike in the crowded hallways, and her pallor was only accentuated next to dark, luminous Winter. Not only that, but she was built short and stocky, the baobab to Winter's willow tree. They knew perfectly well that they made a sun-and-moon pair; the irony of Winter's name and Meira's appearance never got old.

As Winter bent over her textbook and started writing the title of the day's lesson across the heading of her lined page, the nose of a paper airplane thunked silently into the back of her head. Her pen skidded across the paper, leaving a smear. Winter glanced up at Haruna, but she had bent over to pick up some broken chalk and wasn't paying attention. She reached behind her, dug the airplane from her hair, and unfolded it under her desk.

Written in a sloppy non-dominant hand was this:

CRAWL BACK INTO YOUR HOLE, ALICE

Her stomach tightened. She slipped the airplane surreptitiously into her desk.

At first, she had found her ethereal beauty to be as much a curse as a blessing in this New Beijing high school. There were blushes and stammers all around, and people gave her a wide berth in the halls, as though she were an enchantress or high priestess of old, leaving her isolated. It didn't take long for her to figure out that nobody could be in awe of someone who spouted nonsense in class and hoola-danced through the schoolyard.

Slowly, the alien light everyone saw her in died away, and Winter developed a new, reliable philosophy: when in doubt, act crazy. Lunacy did wonders when it came to distracting people.

Not that she deliberately acted crazy at school. In fact, most of it came quite naturally. What did it matter if she embellished her quirks here and there? Better that they laugh at her for concocted oddities than the real ones.

The bell rang shrilly through the school, and she became aware that her pen had stalled over the paper. The classroom arose into a bustle of students rising from their chairs, metal screeching against the floor, returning notebooks to satchels in a flurry of rustling pages. Winter hurried to join the fray, aware that being late twice in one day wasn't a good idea, no matter the perks of her "mad girl" reputation.

She and Meira emerged from the classroom and were bundled through a thick mush of students trying to walk every which way. Once they left the popular thoroughfare outside their Literature class, the going was easier to the chemistry lab, though they still had to steer clear of girl-clumps coalescing along the walls. Several were chatting excitedly about the annual Commonwealth ball, which was still four months away, in August. Winter counted at least five mentions of Prince Kai's name (usually whispered or squealed).

The two of them were in the middle of an amusing argument about the Queen of Hearts when a small girl burst from the lab-classroom door, clutching her book bag to her chest. Winter caught her by the shoulder as she hurried past. "Rain? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Rain muttered, wrenching away. She dipped her head so her long, chestnut-brown hair shielded her face, but not before Winter saw her tear-stained cheeks, and caught a faint sniffle as the girl turned the corner and vanished.

"What's ruffled her feathers?" Meira muttered as they filed into the chemistry lab. "Rain isn't a crier."

Winter's gaze fell on a towering, curly-haired young man clearing out his work space, and narrowed her eyes a little. "I have an inkling."

The meticulous young man didn't acknowledge her as she meandered up to his workstation. Even when she picked up a beaker and ran a finger around the rim, he only gave her a sidelong glance and went on cleaning up after the lab exercise of the day.

"You know," Winter said conversationally, replacing the beaker, "I don't think I've ever seen her cry before."

"If you want to lecture me, you'll have to be a little more specific," he muttered, striding away to the cupboards. Outwardly, he seemed as unperturbed as ever, but Winter detected tension in his precise movements. She followed him, undaunted, as he replaced a graduated cylinder, an Erlenmeyer flask, and a few pipettes.

"Your chemistry partner, Rain? A rather pretty girl who happens to fancy you?" Wait – oh, curse you, blabbermouth! She'd assumed that he would have noticed, given that Rain couldn't hide what she felt if her life depended on it, but he was oblivious in so many things … "You do know she fancies you, right?"

"Of course I know," he snapped into the cupboard before shutting it with forced calm. "A blind rabbit would see it."

She blinked. "Well, then. Is that why you're unkind to her? Because you don't suffer fools, or whatever it is you say to excuse your deliberate tactlessness?"

The boy rounded on her, his elongated, vaguely alien features set in annoyance – and beneath it, frustration. "I wasn't unkind. She is too sensitive."

"She's human is what she is, and you've taken her for granted one too many times." Winter took a deep breath, surprised at her own vehemence, and lowered her voice; other students were trickling into the classroom. "Was it on purpose?"

He opened his mouth – about to make a cutting retort, as was his usual way. But at the last moment, he seemed to deflate. "No," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to."

She tipped her head at him, considering the evidence. By all accounts, Sherlock was rude, unsociable, and didn't care if he made anyone cry. Surely, he didn't reciprocate Rain's feelings, could never truly appreciate her worth.

But Winter's gut told her something else.

"Apologize as soon as possible," she said under her breath. "If she forgives you" – no need to mention that Rain's forgiveness was practically guaranteed – "take her to see the photography exhibit at the museum. She's been meaning to see it for weeks."

"You meddle too much," he muttered, slinging a book bag over his shoulder, but there was a thoughtful furrow in his brow.

Winter walked him to the door. "Take my advice for once. What have you got left to lose? At this point, maybe you would do better to listen to someone else than trust your own instincts. Goodness knows where they've gotten you."

He gave her a mistrustful look, nodded once, and glided through the door and down the hallway.

Winter dashed back to her own seat just as the teacher strode in through his office door, ordering everyone to grab a pair of safety goggles. As the hustle of scraping chairs and pre-lab chatter filled the room, Meira caught her eye from across the room and raised her eyebrows, as if to say, what was that all about?

All Winter gave her in return was a cheeky smile.

As she pulled a fingerprint-coated pair of goggles down over her eyes, she made a mental note to check in with Rain tomorrow. Just in case.

iv.

Just after three o'clock, she stood waiting for Jacin outside the gates, keeping out of the way to avoid being swept up in the river of fourteen- to eighteen-year-olds pouring through. Clouds had drifted across the sky, diminishing the heat of the May afternoon. As her eyes roved over the crowd, she caught a glimpse of fair hair and craned her neck to get a better look, but it wasn't Jacin – it was a short girl with waves of burnished gold just past her chin, shoulders curved in on herself, huddling as if there was a chill in the air.

The girl glanced over her shoulder, her sky-blue eyes meeting Winter's for less than a heartbeat –

– and she disappeared in the folds of the crowd.

Winter blinked, a frisson of déja vu running up her spine. She could have sworn that they had never met before, but there was a sense of distant familiarity, as though she was a friend Winter hadn't set eyes on for ten years.

"Where's the gremlin?"

She jumped. Jacin had come to stand at her left, and she'd been too preoccupied to notice. "What?"

He tilted his chin at the ebbing exodus of students. "Normally I'd say 'You look like you've seen a ghost', but given that you would probably invite a ghost to tea if you ever met one, I assume you saw a gremlin or vampire hiding in the ranks."

Winter stared up at him, the familiar look of dry amusement in his eyes, and couldn't for the life of her think of anything snappy to say in return. She looked away, searching fruitlessly for the mysterious girl. "I … no, it wasn't a gremlin."

"Shame," Jacin said thoughtfully. "Would have made the day so much more interesting."

"Isn't that my line?"

"Well, I could wait all day for you to remember it." He followed her gaze as it swept the crowd again. "Are you all right?"

"I … I thought I saw someone familiar." She shook her head. "Never mind. I probably imagined it." She hurried to change the subject as they started on their way home. "Why are you in such a hurry to meet gremlins, anyway? They're mischievous, untrustworthy creatures who will do anything for a lemon tart."

"So are you, Trouble. You'll notice no one leaves food out in the kitchen after ten."

"Ah, but you don't have any proof, do you? Only whispers and vague allegations." She bumped his shoulder playfully with hers. "Tell you what. Holly Hill isn't too far away. Let's have a midnight picnic there sometime this summer. I can stargaze to my heart's content and you can decide for yourself whether I'm a gremlin or not."

"I've made up my mind, thank you."

"All right, then I can teach you astral navigation. You never know when you might get stranded at sea."

"I do spend a lot of time on ships with white sails these days," he deadpanned.

But the idea of a midnight picnic was becoming rather attractive, the more Winter thought about it. Stars, the absence of city lights, grass beneath her bare feet, crickets and fireflies … ah, what bliss!

"I'm serious."

"So am I. Do you know how long it would actually take to get to Holly Hill? I don't have any spare magic carpets lying around."

"We'll take our bicycles." Seeing no glimmer of sympathy in his face, she couldn't help wilting a little. "Oh, come on, Jacin, it'll be wonderful!"

"Getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, wonderful? I think not."

"What on earth do you have against midnight picnics?"

Jacin halted in his tracks just by the corner of a record shop to give her a flinty glower. "I am not going to leave the house with you in the middle of the night, and that is final."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" she inquired innocently. Truly, she knew what he meant and that he thought it was no joking matter. But was there ever a greater joy than ruffling Jacin's feathers, if only to get rid of the poker face he seemed intent on wearing?

No. There was not.

"For stars' sake, don't you read the newspaper?"

She blinked, a little thrown off. "Every day."

"Then you should know how dangerous it is to go out at night! What do you suggest we do if a couple of Dime Lions find us alone and decide to have some fun?"

Winter opened her mouth, but couldn't think what to say. She hadn't even thought about that possibility. "Well, I'd … we could …"

"We can stay within the city limits is what we can do," he said darkly. "You know I'd take a bullet for you, Trouble, but I want to go into medicine – not the military. I wouldn't know how to protect you properly."

Jacin certainly knew how to turn a cheerful mood on its head. She clamped her mouth shut and walked beside him in silence, ruminating. You know I'd take a bullet for you. Heavyweight words, yes, but there had been no hint of exaggeration in his voice. Jacin didn't do hyperbole.

Which meant that he was one hundred per cent serious about what he'd said.

Eventually, the silence between them – pressed on all sides by the noise of engines and traffic lights and two million people going about their day – verged on awkward. Shaking herself awake, Winter asked Jacin about his classes, and half paid attention as he described their visit to the university morgue, how they'd begun to study various diseases from donated cadavers.

"Cadavers?" she repeated, her interest piqued.

"That's what corpses are officially called, when used for –"

"No, I know what cadavers are. I've been borrowing the lighter of your medical books for years."

This elicited a raised eyebrow from Jacin.

"You know, in case I ever needed to impress your Professor Erland."

The eyebrow rose higher.

"My point is, you've actually seen … dead bodies? In person?"

"Don't get too excited," he said dryly, "I don't believe their spirits were around to introduce themselves."

That's not what I meant, she wanted to say, biting her lip. She found the thought of Jacin splicing open a human body acutely distressing. Still, she couldn't push away her all-pervasive curiosity. "What was it like?"

"What was what like?"

"Seeing a dead human body, of course. It's not something the average citizen does every day."

His voice was humourless. "Think of the frogs you dissected for biology last year." He waited for her to uh-huh. "Now imagine a dead person on the table instead of a frog. Pale, lifeless flesh. Your assignment is to poke around in its innards."

Unsettled, Winter snuck a sideways glance at his profile, trying to gauge whether he was speaking from dispassion or if the experience had truly disturbed him. Jacin didn't seem unnerved, but then again, he maintained a studious, imperturbable attitude in just about everything.

He caught her staring. "What?"

"Nothing," she said, quietly. "Are you going back?"

"Our classes take place there for the rest of the week." He glanced at her just as she opened her mouth. "Before you ask, no, seeing a corpse wasn't a jolly occasion. But bodies are part of the job, dead or otherwise. It's nothing." He switched his book bag to the other shoulder. "Anything interesting on your end?"

"Meaningless pleasantries aren't your strength, Jacin," she said lightly. "But I do have enough social skills to recognise that you're changing the subject and enough tact to go along with it. So. In chemistry we did this crazy thing with copper sulfate, where we stuffed it into a small cantaloupe and waited for it to –"

She was interrupted by several yelps and a few startled shrieks from the sidewalk-goers around them. There was a streak of white across her vision, followed by three passersby toppling like dominoes to the ground, and Winter's head wrenched around just as the white cat vanished into the shadowy alleyway on their left.

An inexplicable sense of familiarity – the same as when she'd glimpsed the fair-haired pixie girl – flashed like lightning through her memory, an insistent yank behind her gut. And this time, she didn't hesitate.

"What was –" Jacin started, but her satchel had already thudded to the sidewalk. He barely scooped it up in time to prevent it from being trampled by the disrupted crowd. Before he could even raise his eyes to the empty spot on the sidewalk where Winter had stood just a second before, the skirt of her school uniform had already flickered around the corner.

The passage was cluttered, strewn with trash, and poorly lit because the buildings on either side blocked the descending sun. Her feet pounded against the pavement as she hurtled through the alleyway after the cat, a graceful, loping shape in the half-shadows. It pelted around the next corner, and she after it.

Right. Left. Dodge a garbage can. Left, left again, vault over a heating box. Another right turn down the length of a long, broad alley between adjacent industrial buildings. Winter's lungs were flaring painfully, the muscles in her legs felt like scrunched-up elastic bands, and she had to call on every ounce of her energy to keep running through the maze of alleyways the white cat was leading her into, deeper and deeper.

She felt as though she was in one of her dreams – except this time, she knew she really had a chance of catching him, to give voice to the questions she had never had a chance to ask. There may not have been a stitch of clothing on that cat or any pocketwatch in sight, but she had recognised him in a heartbeat: her very own white rabbit.

But the cat was far, far ahead of her, and Winter just couldn't run any more. Her heavy footfalls petered out and she doubled over, heaving for breath, in a narrow alleyway between two brick buildings. "Wait!" she gasped out, as her quarry reached the opening to the street ahead. "Please!"

The white cat winked out of sight, leaving her alone on the pavement.

Winter bowed her head and shut her eyes as her lungs slowed their frantic pumping for air.

Okay. Now what?

She had no idea where she was. She had no idea how she'd gotten here – the sprint was a blur of corridors and multicoloured walls. Her portscreen was in the satchel she'd dropped at Jacin's feet. She couldn't even hear any cars or people in the distance. Essentially, she was stranded somewhere in New Beijing, and the sun was dipping closer to the skyline.

"Excuse me, miss …"

Winter nearly jumped out of her skin. The white cat was standing in front of her, his head tipped at an inquisitive angle, emerald-bright eyes fixed on hers with unmistakable awareness.

She squinted at him incredulously – it had sure sounded like he had spoken, which was just plain crazy, even for her – but she forgot what she meant to say the moment her eyes fell on the golden crescent moon mark on the cat's forehead, bridging the space just below his ears. It drew the eye like a spotlight in a dark room.

She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, just to be sure she wasn't hallucinating.

"Did you ... say something?"

"Why are you following me?" said the tomcat curiously, in a voice like a throaty purr. "I've no idea how you kept up with me, but I really don't appreciate being chased around the city. Declare your intentions, young lady!"

Winter's jaw fell slack. They stared intensely at each other, emerald green and molten amber, the world narrowing down to a young girl and a cat in the middle of New Beijing.

"I know you," she whispered finally.

The tomcat blinked in surprise. "Excuse me?"

"You can talk! You're –" A breathless smile lit up her face as she knelt in front of the cat, bringing them closer to eye level. The gravelly pavement dug into her knees but she barely felt a thing. "You're real. Magic is real. And I'm not crazy!"

"What on earth are you talking about? How do you know me?"

Winter shook her head, squashing an ironical laugh. "I don't know. I … dreamed of you. Over and over, for the longest time."

His green eyes widened. "… Ah."

"You were always rushing off somewhere. You had this pocketwatch and you kept checking it to make sure you weren't late."

The cat sat back on his snowy haunches to gaze up at her. "What's your name, young lady?"

"Winter. Winter Hayle."

"And you believe in magic?"

"Always have."

His whiskers twitched. "Well … that certainly makes things easier."

"I – what do you mean?"

"If you are who I think you are," he said cryptically, "I'll tell you soon enough." He dipped his head to her. "My name is Artemis."

When the white cat looked up at her again, his vivid green eyes pinned her to the spot, brimming with steely resolve. Winter caught her breath. Even though she was the one looking down at him, she got a peculiar sense of reverence, as if she were a knight receiving a command of duty from her king. As though she was on the brink of takign a quest upon her shoulders …

"I've been looking for you, Miss Hayle." Artemis tilted his head. "But I never imagined that I would find you chasing after me."

She shrugged. "Why wait for destiny?"

"Why, indeed?" Artemis glanced up at the sky. "I wonder, Miss Hayle, may I accompany you home? Your parents will be getting worried."

Winter opened her mouth to say that she would have asked him over anyway, but when she followed his gaze, she saw with a jolt that the sky was a shade of pale yellow that foretold sunset. Somehow, she'd felt like time had frozen. "Of course, be my guest. But I don't know how to get home. I didn't really pay attention to where I ran. Can you help me?"

"Oh, yes. Of course. I know this city fairly well by now." He narrowed his eyes at the passage behind her, thinking. "But you won't come home in time if you go on foot. Do you know how to hail a taxi?"

"Yes, but I don't have any –" She plunged hand into her uniform pocket, and was flabbergasted when her fingers closed around a ten-dollar bill that hadn't been there before. She pulled it out, bewildered, and shrugged. "Taxi it is, I guess."

Artemis twitched his whiskers. "Let's go." He bounded off down the alleyway, toward the street visible on the far end. "I don't mean to impose," he added as she hurried to catch up to him, "but would you happen to have any tuna in your kitchen cupboards?"

v.

Winter managed to sneak her new companion upstairs, narrowly avoiding her mother as she emerged from the kitchen. "One moment!" she yelled through her bedroom door, shooing a very disgruntled Artemis into her closet, just as Solstice came inside with an apron and a spatula.

"Winter, honey, I was just – oh!"

Winter shot to her feet and assumed a guileless smile, hoping Artemis' white tail wasn't sticking out anywhere. But Solstice was admiring the contraption on Winter's desk – a scaled-down replica of the solar system, complete with Earth's moon and poor abandoned Pluto. She spun Venus on its axis, eliciting a few notes from the inner music box.

"This is fantastic," Solstice breathed, turning to give Winter an amazed smile. "When did you start building this?"

"A few months ago. It took me a while to figure out the gears." Winter felt her cheeks go warm as she glanced at her creation. "It's going to be Jacin's birthday present."

"He'd be a fool not to love it," said Solstice, with a knowing look. Winter suspected that only her mother knew how deep her regard for Jacin went, but thankfully, Solstice had never pressed for the truth, and she didn't now. She gestured with her spatula to the kitchen downstairs. "I was just on the phone with your father. He's still at the museum and won't be home for another few hours – complications with the guard shifts. You know how it is."

Winter nodded; this was a common occurrence in their household.

"Oh, and Jacin stopped by to drop off your bag. It's downstairs on the couch. He said you dropped it and took off running somewhere?"

"Oh," said Winter, with true relief that Solstice didn't seem to want to know where she'd run off. She probably had Jacin to thank for that – he would have assured her mother that Winter was fine. "Thanks. I just don't know where my head is today."

Solstice smiled fondly, as if to say, when do you ever? "In the meantime, I thought you and I should probably discuss what you're going to do after you graduate. I know you've been looking into universities and things, but have you made any concrete decisions?"

"No," Winter admitted. "I don't know exactly what I want to do yet. I thought maybe psychology … or humanitarian aid …" With a glance at her prized solar system and a playful shrug, she added, "Perhaps I shall become a mad scientist and engineer a giant refraction device to make the sky turn green."

But even as she said it, she knew her habitual philosophy would not work on her mother, or put off important future-related questions. What regularly deceived her high school society would not give Solstice Hayle one moment's pause.

And, sure enough, her mother gazed at her with soft, perceptive eyes, like she knew exactly what Winter was about. It wasn't the first time she'd tried something like this. "But in all seriousness?" she said gently.

Winter sighed, and looked down at her feet. "I have no idea."

Solstice sat down on her daughter's bed and patted the spot next to her. "Any particular area of psychology?"

Winter hesitated, fully aware of Artemis stuffed into her closet not a metre away, and sat down beside her mother. "I was wondering about … mental health."

Solstice nodded encouragingly.

"You know … psychosis. Insanity. All the different kinds, how it happens, how it can be cured. I don't care if it's morbid – it was always incredibly interesting to me, how delicate the human mind is and how easy it is for it to snap, or something to go wrong, either from birth or later on … Maybe it's just a fledgling curiosity, but all the same, I think I might –"

A frantic BEEP-BEEP-BEEP issued from the kitchen downstairs, cutting her off. Solstice sprang to her feet. "The lasagna! I thought it wouldn't be ready for another ten minutes!"

Winter faltered, disappointed, as her mother paused by the door – "Sorry, sweetheart, just let me rescue our dinner" – and hurried out.

A muffled mew came through the closet door. Winter hastily pulled it open, and out marched Artemis, tail twitching with resentment. His white fur stuck up in all directions with static from all the blankets and clothes he'd rubbed against. Winter pressed a fist into her smile.

"That was your mother?" he inquired, leaping up to occupy Solstice's spot on the bed.

Winter crossed her legs beneath herself. "Mm-hmm. Her name is Solstice and she has her own seamstress shop, the best in New Beijing. I think you'd get along, so long as you don't sit on any of her projects."

"Do you take me for a feral cat?" Artemis said, affronted.

"Oh, no," Winter said quickly. "I think you're very, er, well-mannered … the most civilized cat I've ever met. But I'm under household obligation to warn guest felines where they could, potentially, get into trouble or –"

"Winter! Dinner!"

She broke off and called through her bedroom door, "Just a minute!" A little regretfully, she got up from the bed and gave Artemis an uncertain look, reaching for the doorknob. "I have to go. Will you be all right up here? I don't think I can get you anything to eat without having to explain to my mother."

"Never fear, Miss Hayle. I'm sure the opportunity will present itself." She watched him leap off her bed and investigate her room, poking his nose under her bedside table, slinking behind her bureau drawers and out again. He hopped lightly onto her desk chair and, squinting at the solar system contraption, nudged Saturn with a hesitant paw. The planets spun, playing a few bars of lullaby. Artemis's green eyes lit up.

Hiding a smile, she left the room, followed by the faint tinkle of music. He'd be kept occupied for a while.

vi.

"All right," said Winter, shutting her bedroom door. She was clad in pajamas and a bathrobe, having made a show of saying good night to Solstice (with a lot of yawning) to make sure she randomly wouldn't walk into Winter's bedroom that night. "Mom is asleep. Did you want a blanket? Shall I let you outside, or ...?"

Artemis appeared to be napping in a curled-up ball on her bed. When he opened his eyes, though – a startling bright green against his snow-white fur – they were perfectly alert. "Take a seat, Miss Hayle. I have something important to tell you."

Feeling like a student called in to the principal's office, she took a seat apprehensively on the bed beside him. Artemis got to his paws, stretched, and sank back on his haunches.

"I came to New Beijing with a mission."

When it appeared that he was waiting for her to say something, she nodded and said, "Okay."

"I'm looking for the Sailor Scouts, agents of justice who, I believe, can make this city safe once again." The white cat peered up at her, gauging her reaction.

Agents of justice? Her interest piqued, Winter considered it and nodded again. "Okay."

Searching her face, as if to make sure that she remembered every word, Artemis went on slowly: "A Sailor Scout's duty involves apprehending gangs, saving civilians in danger, standing up for Mother Nature, and generally fighting evil." He cast his eyes up to the ceiling, going over the list to see if he had missed anything. "Oh, and catching the odd jewel thief. Does that sound up your alley?"

It did, but she didn't have the slightest idea where he was going with this. "So … they're superheroes?"

"You could say that."

"How can they do all the things you said? Isn't it too much?"

Artemis made an indifferent motion of his head, the feline equivalent of a shrug. "Magic."

Well, that made sense. "… okay."

"No. Sorry. It's a little more complex than that." He fidgeted on the bedcovers, settling into a more comfortable position. "You see, a Sailor Scout leads a normal, civilian life most of the time, until they're called upon to pull a child from a house fire or establish peace between feuding families. Then they disguise themselves and charge into battle under a different name. For their own sake, they must not let anyone find out about their dual identity."

Disguises and secret names! A delighted grin tugged at Winter's mouth as she leaned forward, eager to hear more.

"It's a difficult responsibility," Artemis mused, "but a rewarding one too. A single Scout can do what an entire police department cannot, because she works alone, and is capable of more than a detective, spy and judo master put together. When she joins forces with other Scouts, though, they truly become a force to be reckoned with."

Winter was about to ask what marvellous creature could fit that description, but paused as a more significant question rose to the forefront of her mind. "Why hasn't anyone heard of them before? Why aren't they already out there, fighting evil and doing everything else you said?"

The white cat sighed. "Because they don't know who they are."

She blinked and drew back. They both fell quiet as that last bit sank in.

Being a staunch believer in magic and miracles, and having held one-sided conversations with the birds and squirrels of her neighbourhood since she was three, Winter had an exceptionally open mind. If cats could talk, then there might also be agents of justice with borderline superhuman powers scattered throughout New Beijing. But how could it be possible that they weren't aware of their identity? It was almost unbelievable.

Almost.

Artemis watched her chew on that for a while before breaking the silence. "I'm supposed to be their mentor, you see, but I've no idea what they look like or where they live or even what their names are. You see the difficulty of my position?"

Winter pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Who gave you this mission in the first place?"

After a moment, Artemis grudgingly admitted, "I don't know that, either." At Winter's raised eyebrow, he added, "I know my mission the same way that newborn spiders know how to spin webs even when no one taught them."

"I see."

They stared at each other for a moment. The cat started to knead her bedcovers nervously, claws sinking in and out, as he waited for her to declare that someone was playing a joke on her or simply decide that she was hallucinating.

"Where do I come in, then?" Winter finally said. "Do you want my help looking for these Sailor Scouts?"

Artemis relaxed, retracting his claws. "Actually … I think I may have already found one."

"Really? Who? How can you tell?"

"I have a question for you, first." He waited for her bewildered nod. "Miss Hayle … how do you feel about the recent crime sprees in New Beijing?"

Winter sat up at once. She was aware that he was changing the subject, but he had changed it to her favourite subject – she could put off interrogating him abotu the Sailor Scouts for a bit.

"How do I feel about it? It's infuriating! I've been following the news – a dozen new gangs and twice as many lone thieves, and the police have barely made any progress at all! Only yesterday, a vintage dress shop got raided … My mom is a seamstress with her own shop which is gaining popularity – what if the Razor Quills decide to pay her a visit?" Even as the words poured out, she was startled by how fast they came. She'd never ranted like this before. Artemis didn't interrupt her, though, so she took another breath and plowed on. "And my dad works at a museum, and you know those are always popular targets. The security wouldn't hold up against a team of skilled burglars. I'm just … worried for the city, and everyone I know. I don't like that the Razor Quills and the Dime Lions and all the rest of them are getting away with everything they do."

Artemis waited patiently throughout her uncharacteristic tirade. When it petered out, he nodded slowly, as if he'd made up his mind about something.

"If you wouldn't mind," he said, "I would like to try something."

"Go ahead," said Winter, baffled.

"Bend down a little."

She obliged, lowering her head until she was eye-to-eye with Artemis. The golden crescent moon between his ears glinted at her. She still couldn't tell if it was part of his pelt or if was a bald spot. Holding her gaze, Artemis stretched forward until his forehead – and the crescent moon – touched her brow.

Heat flared across her skin. Winter gasped and reared back, clapping a hand to her forehead as a curious tingle snaked down her spine and crept with lightning speed through her chest, as her ears filled with voices she didn't recognize and images of forgotten dreams flashed across her eyes and

– a blue-and-white planet hovers overhead, swimming in black space speckled with stars –

– running across a bare, crater-studded landscape with the others by her side, heading straight for the twisted monstrous shapes clustered together on the plain; her arms swing over her head, her left hand locking around her right elbow, as she shouts the magic words as familiar to her as her own name –

– a majestic white palace overlooks a serene fountain; Winter sees her own dark fingers dip into the cool water, and her vision snags on a tiny orange ember in the reflected sky –

– fire and ashes fill the heavens and she is screaming in fury and despair, her sisters aren't by her side anymore, they're gone, they're all dead and she alone stands between that monster and the end of all things and oh gods she can't breathe –

– pale hair falls into her eyes as he bends over her, frantic, trying to press a heartbeat back into her chest. His ice-blue eyes are not cold at all, she sees that now; beneath the chilly exterior, the wall he constructed to keep her out, is the beating heart that she recognized so long ago, the heart he only now lets her see because she won't last another minute –

She staggered off the bed and straight into a wall, her head cracking painfully against the wide mirror. Vertigo clutched at her, flipped everything upside-down, and it was a moment before Winter realized that she'd lost her balance completely and collapsed to the floor. She squeezed her eyes shut, hiding her face in the dark crook of her arms.

A soft paw prodded her back. She flinched. "Winter? Miss Hayle? Ah, stars, I shouldn't have unloaded it all so quickly …"

Against the darkness of her eyelids, she saw the flames again, the furious, malevolent flames, eating away at the once-white palace – the embodiment of all that was peaceful and serene. She saw Jacin's soot-stained face, contorted into anguish as he hovered over her, and she knew that she must be dead or dying for him to look like that. Jacin, Jacin – why was his face amid all the visions that had assaulted her?

A furry head butted against hers, gently. "Miss Hayle, please … I'm sorry, you shouldn't have seen everything all at once. Are you all right?"

She propped herself up on trembling arms, then pushed herself up until she was leaning against the wall. Only then did she dare open her eyes, fearing that her bedroom would be swirling as violently as before.

But the dizziness seemed to have passed. Her bedroom was exactly as it had been a moment before, the bedcovers no more wrinkled than usual, the planetary contraption still gleaming under the desk-lamp. The house was silent, so her mother must have been too deeply asleep to hear her crash to the floor. Nothing had changed.

Except for everything.

Winter looked down at Artemis with more than a little bit of fear. What had he done to her?

"Miss Hayle," he told her quietly in that low feline growl, "what you saw just now were glimpses of a past life."

Later, she would recall this hour in vivid detail and do a double take at Artemis's words, but with sensory overload clouding her thoughts, she barely heard him. She gulped and tentatively brushed a hand against her forehead. The skin felt smooth, unblemished, and yet it had burned upon contact with the crescent moon. With great difficulty and much wobbling, she got to her feet and, keeping one hand on the wall for support, inched over to the wide mirror above her bureau. She stared into her own wild amber eyes, before brushing aside the black curls that had fallen across her face.

On her forehead – shimmering slightly when she turned it to the light, barely visible – was a symbol.

"Do you see a mark?" Artemis' voice came from behind her, urgent now, as if he'd forgotten his initial concern. "What does it look like?"

A circle on top of a plus sign, imprinted in gold dust on her dark brown skin. It was no more than two centimetres long and across, small enough to go unnoticed unless you were really looking for it.

"The symbol of femininity," she murmured, too stunned to do anything more than stare at her forehead in the mirror. Her eyes roved across her face, searching for other changes, other minor shifts that would make her own reflection unfamiliar to her. But her face hadn't changed at all – high cheekbones, full lips, a pert, rounded nose. She was still very much herself.

Was this magic? Was Artemis a wizard trapped in animal form? Was he an extraterrestrial being in disguise?

"Of course!" he exclaimed, leaping up onto the bureau in front of her. His ears were pricked with anticipation, the emerald jewels he had for eyes alight with what she could only describe as glee. "Light and beauty. How could I not have seen it before?"

Winter tore her gaze from her reflection and frowned at him. "Artemis, what are you talking about? What did you do?"

The white cat fixed his steely gaze on her. "This will come as a shock. Perhaps you won't believe me at first, and it may take a while for you to accept it, but you must hear me out to the very end. Promise me."

Rather entranced, Winter nodded.

"All right," Artemis said. "Listen to me very carefully …"

Alas, she wouldn't get to hear his explanation for a while yet. Because at that very instant, the symbol on her forehead came to life in a blaze of heat, making her cry out and spin back to the mirror. When she pushed her hair away, she saw that it was glowing gold. Artemis looked up at her reflection and promptly hissed.

"What's happening?" Her voice went high-pitched, strained with panic.

He shook his head vigorously. "I am so very sorry, Miss Hayle. I thought I would be able to prepare you first, but there simply isn't time. You have to transform!"

"I have to what?"

"Just trust me! Put a hand in the air and shout, 'Venus power make up!'"

This day had already gone too far into the ludicrous for her to turn back now. Resigning herself to whatever fate had planned, Winter threw a hand out above her head and cried, "VENUS POWER MAKE UP!"

And vanished in a whirlwind of light.

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