Can we fight them?” Marasi said, checking her ammo.

“I’m not … natively a soldier,” Moonlight said. “I can defend myself if I have to, but…” She seemed concerned as she glanced toward the door.

Shouts came from outside. Troops arriving.

“You have another stamp,” Marasi said. “One you said can transform you.”

“Into someone else,” she said. “Someone with a different past, different training, different … talents.”

“Can that person fight?”

Moonlight took a deep breath. “Yes. Better than fighting though, she should be able to vanish. Hide. But the person I would become … she wouldn’t be me. I’ve always wanted to try this specific transformation, Marasi, which is why I have the stamp. But it’s dangerous.

“This one won’t wear off as easily as the others—it will be permanent until I decide not to maintain it. And when I’m someone else, stamped like this, I don’t think the same. One of these times, I’ll change and never come back. Yet, with the jar of pure Investiture as a power source … I can try this. I can really try it.”

Moonlight dug out the stamp, then stared at it with the same air Marasi had seen in Wax when cleaning one of his guns.

The Lost Metal Chapter 53