After some kind of miracle—and I genuinely don't know how I pulled it off, considering I can barely convince myself to do laundry on time—I managed to talk both sisters down from their "we're Targaryen princesses and we don't take orders from peasants" pedestal.
Step one: clothes.
I dug through my dresser and pulled out the least embarrassing things I owned. A plain black hoodie. A pair of dark jeans that didn't have too many holes. A gray t-shirt that was actually clean, which was honestly a minor miracle in itself.
I held them out like an offering.
Their faces said everything.
Visenya looked at the clothes like I'd handed her a pile of rotting fish. Rhaenys, to her credit, tried to hide her distaste, but I saw her nose wrinkle slightly.
"These are... your garments?" Rhaenys asked delicately.
"They're clean," I said. "I washed them last week. Actually washed, not just aired out on the chair."
Visenya didn't move.
"Look," I said, "I know they're not Valyrian silk or whatever you're used to. But you can't walk around Manhattan wearing Targaryen court gowns. People will stare. People will take pictures. People will ask questions we don't have answers to." I paused. "You need to blend in. These are blend-in clothes."
More staring. More silence.
"I will not wear a peasant's—"
"Sister." Rhaenys touched Visenya's arm. "He has a point. We cannot fulfill our purpose if we draw attention to ourselves."
Visenya's jaw worked silently. Then she snatched the clothes from my hands like she was claiming spoils of war.
"Five minutes," she said. "Then we leave."
"Five minutes. Absolutely. Take your time."
They retreated into my bedroom. I heard the click of the lock—Rhaenys must have figured it out—and then muffled voices in a language I didn't recognize. High Valyrian, maybe. I made a mental note to ask about that later.
I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face.
The mirror showed me what I already knew: tired eyes, messy hair, the general look of someone who hadn't quite caught up to the reality around him. Seventeen years old, living alone in a shoebox studio, barely scraping by on grandpa's money and grocery store wages. And now apparently hosting two displaced dragon princesses from another dimension.
Normal stuff.
I ran my fingers through my hair to push it out of my face and stopped.
There, at my temple. A single strand of silver amid the brown.
I leaned closer to the mirror, pulling at it. Definitely silver. Not white—white hair was for stressed-out middle-aged dads and my grandfather. This was pale, almost metallic, catching the fluorescent light.
"Already getting gray hairs at seventeen," I muttered. "Fantastic."
I let it go and grabbed my own clothes. Same hoodie I always wore, same jeans, same beaten-up sneakers. I looked like every other teenager in New York, which was exactly the point.
I stepped out of the bathroom and knocked on my bedroom door.
"Done yet?"
"If you take one step in, you will lose both your legs."
I sighed. "Why two legs for one step? That seems excessive."
A muffled giggle from inside. Rhaenys.
I leaned against the doorframe, propping my elbows on my knees. My brain was still trying to catch up to everything—the quiz, the explosion, the sword at my throat, the impossible fact that Visenya and Rhaenys Targaryen were currently changing into my clothes in my bedroom. It felt like a fever dream.
I really was a moron, wasn't I?
As if I needed this in my very precarious life…
"Uff—"
The door opened behind me and I fell backward, landing directly at Visenya's feet. Literally. My face was inches from her borrowed sneakers.
She looked down at me with an expression of pure disdain.
"You are very funny," Rhaenys said, appearing beside her sister. She was smiling that amused smile again. "What is your name?"
I scrambled up, face hot. "Leon." I brushed off my jeans, refused to make eye contact. "Just Leon."
"Leon," Rhaenys repeated, like she was tasting the word. "A strange name."
"It's a normal name."
"It is not Valyrian."
"Nothing about this situation is Valyrian."
Visenya made an impatient sound. "We are wasting time."
Right. Time. I needed to focus.
I went to my nightstand, opened the drawer, and pulled out the small metal box where I kept my savings. Emergency fund, technically. Rent money, technically. But this qualified as an emergency, right? Two Targaryen princesses in New York definitely qualified.
I counted the bills quickly. Not enough. Never enough.
"Okay," I said, tucking the money into my pocket. "We're going outside. Please—please—just follow me and don't do anything weird. Walk normally, don't stare at things too long, and if anyone talks to you, let me handle it."
"And what will you do if someone threatens us?" Visenya's hand drifted to her hip.
Toward where her sword usually hung.
Oh no.
"Wait—you didn't bring that—"
Her expression answered for her.
"Visenya. You cannot bring a sword outside."
"I can and I will."
"No, you literally cannot. People don't carry swords here. It's not a thing. You'll get arrested before we even reach the corner."
"A sword is not a thing?"
"It's a very illegal thing. Like, go-to-jail illegal."
She stared at me like I'd just informed her that water was dry.
"This world is absurd," she said.
"You have no idea."
Five minutes. It took five full minutes of arguing to convince her to leave Dark Sister—okay, not Dark Sister, that was a different sword, but still—to leave her sword in my apartment. I played every card I had. I appealed to her logic. I appealed to her pride. I might have accidentally implied that carrying a sword around modern Manhattan was something a lesser warrior would do, and she was clearly above such brutish displays.
That last one worked. Visenya Targaryen, first of her name, was not about to be compared to some common sellsword.
She set the sword on my nightstand with exaggerated care. The look she gave it was almost tender.
"I will return for you," she muttered.
I pretended I didn't hear that.
She was treating her sword better than me.
Next: hair.
I grabbed the only headwear I owned—a cheap winter hat I'd found on the subway and never bothered to return, plus a faded Yankees cap from my one ill-fated attempt to care about baseball.
Visenya recoiled from the winter hat like it was diseased.
"You cannot be serious."
"Your hair is silver-gold. That's not a normal hair color here. People will notice. You need to cover it."
"I will not hide my heritage."
"It's not hiding, it's... tactical discretion. You're a Targaryen princess in enemy territory. Would you fly your dragon's banners before scouting the enemy's position?"
She hated that I had a point. I could see it in the way her jaw tightened.
She took the hat.
Her braids, however, were non-negotiable. I suggested unbraiding them, and she looked at me like I'd suggested she set her own dragon on fire. I backed off immediately.
Rhaenys was more accommodating. She gathered her long, impossibly silky hair into a bun at the nape of her neck, tucking the loose strands carefully. Even with the cap on, she looked like she belonged in a magazine.
"Will this suffice?" She asked.
"Yeah. That's... yeah. That's fine."
It was more than fine. It was the opposite of fine. But I wasn't going to say that.
I took a breath, unlocked the door, and stepped into the hallway.
They followed.
The corridor looked the same as always: flickering fluorescent lights, stained carpet, the faint smell of someone else's cooking. But with Visenya and Rhaenys standing in it, everything felt different. Smaller. Dirtier.
"Such a... humble dwelling," Rhaenys said, pressing her sleeve to her nose.
"I'm not wealthy," I said. "Sorry my poverty is offensive to you."
"You are a peasant," Visenya said. Not cruelly, just factual. "We saw it immediately."
I grimaced.
"You're being mean, sister," Rhaenys said, but she was giggling.
I'd have appreciated it more if she wasn't also agreeing.
We reached the elevator. I pressed the button. The ancient machinery groaned somewhere in the walls.
"What are you doing?" Visenya demanded.
"It's a machine. It takes us down to the ground floor. Faster than stairs."
She stared at the closed doors with deep suspicion.
The elevator arrived with its usual shudder and wheeze. The doors opened slowly, like they were reconsidering their life choices. I stepped inside. After a moment, they followed.
The doors closed.
The elevator was small. My building was old, and the elevator was clearly original to the structure—barely big enough for three people, scuffed walls, a floor mat that had seen better decades. There was a mirror on one wall, streaked and spotted but still reflective.
Visenya's reflection stared back at her.
She froze.
I watched her process it. The strange woman in the mirror, wearing strange clothes, her silver hair tucked beneath an ugly winter hat. The same sharp features, the same proud bearing, but... wrong. Displaced.
She didn't look like a Targaryen princess. She looked like someone playing dress-up in a foreign world.
I shouldn't have smiled. But I did. Just a little.
Then the elevator lurched.
It wasn't a dramatic lurch—this building's elevator did this constantly, old cables and worn mechanics complaining about the weight. But to someone who'd never experienced it before, it must have felt like the floor was falling away.
"What—what is happening?" Rhaenys's voice pitched up. She stumbled sideways, off-balance, and then her hands were gripping my chest, her body pressed against mine, her face inches from my collarbone.
I stopped breathing.
She was warm. She was soft. She smelled like something I couldn't identify—flowers, maybe, or something older, something that reminded me of smoke and open sky. Her fingers curled into the fabric of my hoodie like she was afraid she'd fall if she let go.
Oh fuck.
"I should have taken my sword!" Visenya was braced against the wall, one hand flat on the mirror, her expression caught somewhere between anger and genuine panic.
"For what exactly?" My voice came out strangled. "What are you going to do, stab the elevator?"
She glared at me. I shut up.
The elevator lurched again. Rhaenys made a small sound and pressed closer.
Shit!
I stared straight ahead at the doors and tried very, very hard to think about literally anything else. Dead puppies. Tax forms. That one math problem I'd never been able to solve. The ceiling collapse that was definitely going to kill me someday.
None of it helped.
Her body against mine. Her breath warm through my shirt. The slight tremor in her hands.
This was fine. This was completely fine. I was totally calm and not at all losing my mind.
The elevator dinged.
The doors opened.
Rhaenys stepped back immediately, smoothing her borrowed shirt like nothing had happened. Her cheeks were slightly pink in embarrassment at the awkward display. "An interesting machine," she said lightly.
"Something like that," I managed.
Visenya pushed past both of us, eager to escape the confined space. I followed, grateful for the excuse to move, to breathe, to pretend my heart wasn't trying to break my ribs from the inside.
The lobby was empty. Fluorescent lights. Faded mailboxes. The front door glowed with gray morning light.
I pushed it open.
Manhattan spread out before us—taxis and buses, crowds and noise, skyscrapers stretching up into a pale winter sky. The city that never sleeps, roaring and chaotic and utterly indifferent to the two dragon queens standing at its threshold.
Rhaenys stepped out first. She tilted her face up toward the buildings, toward the gray sky, and for a moment she looked so small. So lost.
"So this is your world," she said quietly.
"Yeah," I said. "Welcome to New York."