“Some old maps did mark this area,” Sid said, “but as a vanishing point. A place of shipwrecks, where sailors were lost.”

“And you sailed here anyway.”

“Impressed by my bravery?”

“Struck by your foolhardiness.”

“There were rumors of an island. I wanted to know the truth. Maybe,” he mused, “what made your island so hard to find is connected to what brings travelers here now.”

“What do you mean?”

“This country has something that no other country does, not in the whole world, so far as we know.”

I said, “What do we have?”

“Well, not you. Not the Half Kith.”

Of course not. Frustrated misery made my throat close. If there was ever anything to have we would not have it. And of course Sid would say it so airily. I found myself hating him. I hated his blithe carelessness. I opened my mouth to tell him so when a door down the hall opened with a metallic bark.

It was a soldier, a blood vial in his hand, its thin tubing wrapped around his wrist. He came to my cell. “Arm,” he ordered. When I approached the bars, I could not see Sid beyond the soldier’s body, and was grateful that this must mean Sid did not have the satisfaction of seeing me. I slipped the arm that hadn’t been pricked yesterday through the bars. The soldier was not fastidious in finding a vein. He jabbed away, muttering to himself as I flinched, until the needle slid in properly. I couldn’t see the blood flow through the tubing, not in that dim light, but I felt it leave me.

After the soldier had left, I sat in silence. My hand twitched lightly against my knee: a sign of oncoming sleep. I had a near dream: an illusion of a glowing creature the shape of a person but far larger. It had many small hands all over its body, opening and closing in panic.

“Nirrim, are you all right?”

I shook away the illusion. “Just sleepy.”

“How much blood did they take from you?”

“A vial.”

There was a moment of silence. “That should not be enough to make you sleepy.”

“It is as it is.”

“I would like never to hear you say that again.”

Surprise at his anger cut through my drowsiness, but before I could say anything he said, “Why are there kiths? Why are some people made to live behind a wall?”

I hunted in my mind for the answer, but hit only blank resistance, as smooth and blind as stone. “I don’t know.”

“It’s strange that you don’t know.”

“It is?”

“Yes. You should know your own country’s history.”

“You know yours?”

“All too well,” he said. “Don’t you want to understand why you live the way you do?”

Did I? Sid’s questions stirred a sheer, shallow fear within me. I thought about moments when I made a passport for someone else and contemplated making mine. I thought about when I had decided to return the Elysium. Each time, it felt like I might turn into smoke. Like if I took a step that I could not take back, the person I knew myself to be would evaporate. I would no longer recognize myself.

“Never mind.” Sid sighed. “Close your eyes.”

“Wait,” I said, though I was near sleep. “What is it, that Herrath has? That travelers have come here for?”

“Magic,” he said.

13

WHEN I WOKE, I THOUGHT maybe I had dreamed the last thing he had said. “Sid?” I whispered, in case he had fallen asleep.

“Here,” he said cheerfully. “Still locked up nice and tight.”

“Have you slept at all?”

“Grumpy, Nirrim? No need to be.”

“You haven’t.” I did sound accusing.

“Not since you arrived, no.”

“How is that possible?”

“A Valorian trick.”

“Valorian?”

“Yes, from the old Empire.” When I stayed silent, he said, “The Empire used to encompass much of the known world through a series of conquests, save the eastern kingdom of Dacra. Twenty-so years ago there was a war. The Empire crumbled. Valoria still exists as a country, but it is greatly reduced.”

“Are you from there?”

“No.”

“Sid—”

“You have a pretty voice, did you know that? Soft but earnest. Warm, too. Like a steady candle flame.”

I ignored the flirtation. He would have flirted with the bars of his cell if I weren’t a slightly better option. “You said this city has magic.”

“I did.”

“Like in stories.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of magic?”

“As far as I can tell, magic that allows you to create fabulous things, like pocket watches that don’t tell the time but rather tell you the emotions of the people standing around you. Had I one now, you would be at about the midday point of my pocket watch, and the glowing color at that marking would tell me that you were experiencing a slow but serious and completely understandable attraction to my very self. Of course,” he continued over my annoyed sputter, “it is hard to know what magic here could do. The focus here is on the production of toys and giddy experiences. I love it.”

“And that’s why you’re here.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a pleasure seeker.”

“Such disdain! You make pleasure sound so wrong.”

They say that there was magic in this city when the gods still walked among us, that some people were god-touched. They had the favor of those beings, and a shadow of their power. These were vague stories, with the quality of a dream that begins to escape you the moment you describe it. I didn’t know how much to trust Sid’s words.

But if I had such power, I wouldn’t squander it on pocket watches.

It was as if he had read my mind. “Maybe magic could be harnessed to do more worthy things,” he said. “Hard to tell. Despite all my winsome sleuthing, I have as of yet been unable to tell how magic works here. Even who does it seems a carefully guarded secret.”

“And it really exists nowhere else in the world?” Though I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, magic didn’t exist behind the wall.

“It does not.” Then he paused, considering. “Well. There have been rumors.” He dismissed whatever he had been thinking. “Nothing proven. Nothing I’ve seen. What would you do, Nirrim, with a special gift?”