“We don’t have to have them right away. You already take the anys,” he said, referring to the herb Raven gave me monthly to prevent pregnancy. It was illegal in the Ward, where the prevention or termination of pregnancy resulted in prison, but I couldn’t imagine having a child, especially not when children could be snatched in the night.
“What if I never want one?” I said.
He waved a dismissive hand. “All women want children at some point. You’ll make a wonderful mother. Our babies will have your beautiful green eyes.”
“Aden, I came here to tell you that I’m leaving the Ward.” I explained quickly, my voice rising as though I were trying to talk over him, but he was silent, face growing stony with displeasure.
“A month,” he repeated. “In the High quarter. With that foreign woman.”
“It’s the chance of a lifetime.”
He shook his head, looking out a window at the wall. In the sun it looked as white as salt. “You already think you’re too good for me.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I just asked you to marry me, and it’s like I said nothing at all. Can you imagine how that feels? Gods, Nirrim, why don’t you think about someone other than yourself for once?”
That felt unfair, but I couldn’t explain why, especially when his accusation sounded reasonable. I felt a twinge of guilt. I knew what it was like to want someone who didn’t want me back. I would feel so wounded, so small if I were him. “I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.
“Have you even rationally considered this? You will be completely at that woman’s mercy.”
“She’s not a monster. She just needs a servant.”
“And out of all the people in this city, she chooses you. Isn’t that odd?”
I felt my jaw get tight and stubborn. “No.”
“Think, Nirrim. She can cast you into prison with one word.”
So can you, I thought.
Aden said, “What will happen when she tries to make you do something you don’t want to do?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, though I knew exactly what he meant.
“I saw how she looked at you.”
My face flushed again, this time with shame for how much I wished he were right. “You’re mistaken.”
“The High Kith have no morals. All they care about is decadence. Nothing matters except what they want. Wait and see. She will try to use you.”
I want her to, I almost said. Then I saw, as clearly as a god’s prophecy, everything that would happen after. His look of horror, maybe even hate. The disgusted words that would fall from his mouth. I saw how he would see me, which would be how other people would see me, too. It filled me with fear. I reached for him and kissed him hard and deep, my hands in his hair, his chest flat against mine. “Don’t worry,” I murmured into his mouth.
“Of course I worry.” He stroked hair from my face. “You’ll have no one to protect you in the High quarter. If you step out of line with that woman … Nirrim, even if it’s something small—a ribbon crookedly tied, a disobedient look—she can have you punished in ways you can’t even imagine.”
She could have me thrown into prison with the slightest word. Sid, who hedged around questions like they might expose some enormous secret. Sid, who had already shown that she could be unkind, as she had been toward Raven. No soldier, no judge would believe a Half Kith over someone of her status. Cold worry seeped into me.
Aden must have seen it. His expression grew comforting. He touched my lips with one finger. “I have an idea.” He left me and disappeared into another room. He returned with a small paper packet in his hand.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Poison.”
The blood drained from my face. “I’m not going to use that on her.”
“It’s gentle. Whoever takes it will fall into a long sleep and never wake up.”
“Aden, I don’t want this. This isn’t necessary. She is not a threat. You’re acting like she is a villain in a story.”
“And what about the rest of the High Kith? You think you will be safe among them? All of them? Take it, for my sake. So I know you have something to protect you when I can’t be there.”
Uneasily, I slipped the packet into my dress pocket.
“Maybe it will be good for you to disappear from the Ward for a month,” he said. “If you’re not here, the militia can’t question you. They are still going door to door, asking about the night of the moon festival, and that soldier’s murder.” He saw me twitch at the word murder. “Don’t worry, Nirrim. This will all blow over. There is no proof the man didn’t just fall to his death.”
“Except the testimony of your friend.”
“Let me deal with him.” He kissed me again. “Nirrim, I want you to miss me.”
I took a breath. “I will miss you. And I’ll return with enough money for us to start a life together.”
His smile was broad. “Is that a yes? Are you saying yes, you will marry me?”
I swallowed hard. Sid would leave this city and I would stay. It was so easy to disappoint Raven. What if she tired of me? What home would I have then? Aden was ready to be with me always. “Yes,” I said, and meant it.
Although all the other girls thought he was the best boy in the Ward, I knew he was the best I could do.
He picked me up and whirled me around the room.
* * *
As I approached Sid, who stood outside the gate to the Middling quarter, she made a show of taking a little gold watch out of her pocket. It was a man’s watch, to match her man’s clothes. She opened the watch and widened her eyes in comic disbelief at the time she saw there. She squinted at the watch, looked at me, looked back at her watch, letting her full mouth part in mock outrage.
“All right, all right,” I said.
“Took your sweet time,” she said.
“Let’s go.”
“And was it? Sweet, that is?” She flicked a lock of hair away from my neck and saw a mark that Aden’s kisses had left. “Ah, I see it was.”
I batted away her hand.
“Ooh, touchy,” she said. She looked me over, noting the knapsack I carried. “That’s it?”
“Not all of us need an entire wardrobe of women’s and men’s clothes.”
“May I peek?” She reached for the knapsack.
“No.” I pulled it out of reach.
“What’s in there?”
Two dresses. A set of tools for forging. Sid’s letter written in her language. And a little packet of poison.
“You don’t want to say?” Sid said. “Keep your secrets then, dear Nirrim.” She closed the pocket watch with a quick clasp of one hand, but not before I glimpsed that the watch’s face looked bizarre, containing no numbers, but rather words. Though she closed the watch too quickly for me to read the words in that very moment, I could see the watch’s face in my mind, and realized with wonder—and then, quickly, extreme embarrassment—that she had not lied in the prison. There was a watch that could read someone else’s heart. Words for different emotions ringed the dial. The word that had glowed as the watch’s hand pointed to me was desire.
“He must be very special to you,” Sid said, and I didn’t know how to correct her mistake without telling her the truth.
What if she guessed that what I felt for her grew stronger every day? That my desire was for her, not Aden?
She might laugh at me, like she did at everything else.
I strode ahead of her toward the gate. She tagged along at my heels, strolling with deliberate ease.
“Do you know the way?” she asked.
“To the gate right in front of our faces? Yes, I think so.” I reached into my dress pocket for my passport.
“Hmm,” she said. “Well, the gate would work, if you wanted to go to the Middling quarter.”
I stopped midstride. “Don’t you have to go through the Middling quarter to reach the High quarter?”
“Some people do
.”
“And other people?”
“Other people—let us say, very important people—get to take the shortcut. Why don’t you let me go through the gate first?”
I swept an exaggerated hand in front of me to indicate that she should go ahead. When she did, she approached the guard and showed him a tiny gold key on the palm of her hand. He barely even glanced at my passport after that, but stepped aside and gestured at the blank stone wall behind him, the thick spine of the wall. As I watched in wonder, a glowing outline of a door appeared. The stone door slid aside, revealing a tunnel.
The wall, which looked so thick on the outside, was hollow inside.
The gate to the Middling quarter disguised another gate. There was the gate through the wall, and then the gate into the wall.
Sid looked over her shoulder at me and grinned.
“You’re going to have to stop that,” I said.
She made innocent eyes. “Stop what?”
“Being so smug.”
“Why would I,” she said, “when you love it?”
She disappeared into the tunnel, and I followed.
33
THOUGH AT FIRST THE TUNNEL appeared almost entirely dark, a greenish-blue fluid ahead of us glowed from the tunnel’s floor, flowing like lovely sewage into the darkness.
“You have to walk through the river,” Sid said. “Are you squeamish? Easily frightened? Maybe you should hold my hand.”
I gave her a flat look and unstrapped my sandals, carrying them as I stepped toward the little river and then, defiantly, without testing it with a tentative toe, stepped right into the luminous sludge.
I nearly fell. As soon as my feet sank into the water—if it was water—cool pleasure traveled up my calves, creeping up under my dress. I heard Sid’s laugh but didn’t see her, because the river was already carrying me forward, though I took no further steps. Its current pulled me, the strong tide flowing around my ankles as thick as velvet.
“Do you like it?” I heard Sid beside me as the river carried us through the darkness. The liquid caressed my feet, tickling my toes. It smelled floral, though not like any flower I knew. “Don’t drink the water,” she said. “Some people do, and wander through the tunnel for days, drunk and giddy and singing.”
I couldn’t see Sid, but my hip brushed her side. I felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the river. I asked, “Have you tasted it?”
“Of course.”
The tunnel slid past. The current grew stronger. Her fingers curled into mine. “I don’t want to get separated,” she said. The river grew loud with its rushing. I nearly lost my footing. I held more tightly on to Sid.
“Here,” she said, and pulled me toward a door whose outline glowed up ahead on the right. She wrenched it open and spilled us into sunshine.
Then I did fall, blinded by the sudden brightness. Sid came down with me, her limbs tangled with mine, the weight of her on me, the hilt of her hidden dagger jabbing into my side. She slid to my side onto the grassy lawn beneath us, one leg still trapped between the sodden skirts of my dress, laughing, lying back on the lawn, her eyes closed against the sunlight but her face tilted up toward it, luxuriating in the light.
My pulse was jumpy, but I couldn’t make myself pull away from her. I hated how easy everything was for her, how she could lie so close to me, her leg between mine, and show no sign that she was even aware of this—or of the people, I now realized, who were picnicking on blankets of vibrantly colored silk, their faces shadowed by lace parasols, crystal glasses of green sparkling liquid raised to their lips. Exquisitely tiny pastries adorned silver platters like jewels. The High Kith murmured, peering at us.
“They’re staring.” The High Kith were out of earshot, but I whispered anyway.
Sid opened her eyes. “Let them stare.” She shifted onto her side to look at me better, propping herself up on her elbow. She studied me—waiting, maybe, for me to notice that her leg was still languidly between mine. When I said nothing, her expression got slow and searching.
“Won’t we … get in trouble?” I asked.
“For what?”
I shifted my body away from hers.
“Oh,” she said. “For that.” She stood abruptly and offered a hand to help me up. Her touch was capable and brief. “You needn’t worry. People get spat out of this gate all the time. It’s entertaining to watch. The High Kith are staring because they are amused at our awkward tumble.”
“That’s all?”
“Well, and because of how you’re dressed.”
I glanced down at my earth-colored clothes.
“Many of them have never seen a Half Kith before,” Sid said. “I doubt they even believe you are one. They probably think you are disguised as one for fun. Sometimes that happens here.”
“Why would anyone look poor for fun?”
Sid shrugged. “They get bored with being rich.”
I shook my head. It wasn’t that Sid was wrong, but that what she had said made me realize a more complete answer. “Dressing up as someone like me makes them feel even richer,” I said, “because they are not me.”
Birdsong floated across the lawn. Crystal glasses tinkled. Someone giggled, the sound softened by the wind. Trees were everywhere: immense clouds of pink flowers, green-and-yellow-striped blades, branches lush with leaves and trailing white veils of creeping flowering ivy. I knew that trees were quiet things. But I had seen only one before, and the sight of so many was overwhelming. They clamored for my attention. They were a gorgeous roar of color.
I looked behind me for the white familiarity of the wall. It steadied me. Its height comforted, its stony length. The wall held my home. I fought the impulse to reach for it, to lay a palm against its solid warmth. It would be hot in the sunshine. But I was afraid that Sid would tease me … or worse, pity me.
I turned back toward the park and its host of lords and ladies. A child played, pulling at the grass, her fanned skirts lavender tulle, her dark hair curled into long, bouncing coils.
No one was watching us anymore.
Sid tipped her chin in the direction of the hill. “Come on. I want you to see something before I take you to my place.”
“I meant something else.” Nervousness raced through my chest. “When I asked whether we would get in trouble.”
“Oh?” She lifted her brows in pretend surprise. “Were you worried that we looked … inappropriate?”
“I would have gotten in trouble, in the Ward. I might have been tithed.”
She stopped looking amused.
“It’s against the law,” I said.
“I see,” she said slowly. “Why?”
“Because it’s wrong.”
She blinked. “Is it?”
“I don’t think it is.”
“Such a relief,” she said dryly. “It’d be a little late for you to decide I’m immoral. Are we done talking about me? Because I want to show you something.”
“But I need to know the rules.”
“Rules?” She widened her eyes. Laughing, she said, “Are you asking for a handbook on the seduction of women? It is an art, Nirrim, not a science. Oh, you didn’t like that. Such a scowl! Are you going to stamp your foot?”
“You make light of everything.”
“I make nothing too heavy to bear.”
“I am not asking how you make women love you.”
“Who said anything about love?”
“I need to know the rules here in the High quarter. If they’re different from what I grew up with. All the rules.”
“Well, all the rules is quite a tall order. Let’s start with the one you keep tiptoeing around so delicately, like you’re going to offend me, which you won’t, probably, unless you do decide I am a deviant monster, which some people do, but none whose company I care to keep. It is not against the law in the High quarter for a woman to be with a woman or for a man to be with a man. No one is going to prison for it. I’m not sure why it’s different in the Ward, except tha
t the Council wants the Half Kith to make babies. To build up the workforce, I imagine. Here, beyond your wall, the High Kith are concerned with concentrating wealth within families, which means having one or—at most—two children. And the High Kith care most about pleasure, so they don’t mind others seeking it. Are there some who might look at me with dislike? Yes. Will they get in my way? They had better not. Even that lord who had me arrested for thievery probably cared less that I was a woman than that his wife had played him for a fool. Now. Are the rules clear? Need we talk about people hating me?” Her tone was airy, but her dark eyes now had a hard, lacquered look to them. “We can do that if you want, but it’s an ugly topic for a pretty day.”
“No.” It hurt to think of anyone hating her. “I want to see what you want to show me.”
It was a tree, set apart from the others, smaller, wizened—and, oddly, with patches of gold on its trunk. I walked barefoot across the grass to it, sandals still dangling from my hand.
Grass. I scrunched my toes in it. It prickled against my heels. I had never seen so much grass—just stray pale strands creeping up from the dirt between the Ward’s cobblestones. The lawn felt cool and plush. Its green looked deep and inevitable. It smelled like rain’s sister. I wanted to bury my face in it.
The tree’s leaves swam in the wind. The trunk’s gold patches gleamed in the shifting light.
“This tree,” Sid said, “will tell your fortune.”
I looked into her face to see if she was joking, but her expression was serious. She was cast in roving leaf shadows, her skin honeyed in the dappled sunlight.
“So there is magic,” I said. “Like in the tunnel.”
“Not sure. That river is essentially a potent liqueur. The picnickers are drinking a version of it. It alters your perception. A magic river that carries you along without dragging you under?” She lifted one hand, palm up. “Or”—she lifted the other hand—“a conveyer belt operated by hidden machinery and shallowly covered with an intoxicating liquid that, even if you don’t drink it, might nevertheless affect you? Take this tree. Maybe it’s being tended to by an artist—horticulturist?—who writes fortunes on strips of bark and seals them back onto the tree. Do you want to have your fortune told by a tree? Tear a bit of bark away.”
The Midnight Lie Page 17