“I should have known better.”

“You were a child.”

“I shouldn’t have trusted her when she said that she was all right.”

He was frustrated. “You trusted her because she was your friend and we believe what friends tell us. Trust me, Nirrim.”

I couldn’t expect him to understand. I hadn’t told him about my visions.

“I’m sorry you lost your friend,” he said. “I’m sorry you miss her. But I want you to trust me when I tell you that you did nothing wrong.”

“You warned me that you’re a liar,” I reminded him.

“Not about this.”

I didn’t believe him. It was such a relief, though, to imagine the possibility that I could, so I said nothing to contradict him. I said nothing about the signatures I had forged, the legitimate documents whose words I made fade, then overwrote with new names, new physical descriptions. I said nothing about hearing the body’s fall, or how blood leaked from it like thick red ink. It was so nice to accept, even if only for the moment, Sid’s impression of me. Kind. Blameless. I liked his image of me so much I wanted to let it grow like a small fire.

He said, “May I tell you a secret?”

“What if I say no?”

“Unacceptable. I hate the thought of you saying no to me.”

There were no windows to the outside. I had no idea whether it was night or day, or what the weather was like beyond cold. But his lowered voice made me imagine snow falling outside the prison, dusting lightly over stone. I imagined sitting beside him, my shoulder brushing his.

“It’s not allowed, you see,” he said. “You must always say yes.”

He talked the way I bet Aden wanted to talk, but Aden would mean it and Sid didn’t. Sid spoke lightly, as though he wanted his words to be easy for me to shrug away if I didn’t like them.

Sid was entitled and nosy. And kind. Ready to laugh, even at himself. I didn’t like everything that he said, but I liked him.

“What if,” he said, “you agree to say yes to me three times only. A mere three times! In return, I shall do something for you.”

Warily, I said, “What?”

“A favor.”

“A favor?”

“I give very good favors.”

Since I wouldn’t see him again outside of this prison and there was little I could say yes to inside of it that I would regret, I said, “Yes, I agree to your bargain, which is already one time, and yes, I agree that you can tell me your secret, which makes twice.”

He made an amused sound. “I had better cherish my last yes. I had better use it wisely.”

“Go on, tell me your secret.”

“I ran away from home.”

“Why?”

“I suffered terribly there.”

“Suffered! You are a liar.” He hadn’t suffered a day in his life.

“You have no idea,” he said, “what a delight it is to annoy you. I could annoy you all day.”

“That I believe.”

“You see,” he said, “my parents thought it was time that I should marry. They said, When will you be serious?”

“My guess is never.”

“Exactly. When will you grow up? Also never.”

“Do they have someone in mind?”

“Oh yes.”

“Someone you like?”

“Oh no.”

“Someone you despise?”

“I don’t despise anybody. I am simply not made for marrying.”

I almost asked that he describe the woman his parents wanted for him, but a small, ugly feeling stopped me. I became aware again of the perfume on his coat. “You would seduce women anyway, even if you were married.”

He sighed. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

“Does your family know where you are?”

“Not yet. I hope to keep it that way.”

“Maybe you should just marry,” I said. “Make them happy.”

“But I can’t.” He sounded perplexed. “You must understand why I can’t.”

“I would make my parents happy, if I had parents.”

“You would marry a man your parents had chosen? Someone you didn’t love, and never could?”

I shrugged. “Yes.”

“I thought—”

“What?”

“I thought you and I had more in common than we do.”

“We have nothing in common.”

“All right,” he said. “If you say so.”

“Honestly, your dislike of marriage is an excuse.”

“Really.” For the first time he sounded prickly. “In what way, pray tell?”

“Everything to you is an adventure. Being in prison is one. You wanted an excuse to run away.”

He started to speak, but the gated door at the end of the hall clanked and creaked. Sid said something swift and angry under his breath in his language, but kept silent when the guard came to collect my blood. Swiftly, I took off Sid’s coat so that the guard wouldn’t notice I was wearing something beyond my kith. I offered my arm through the bars. The needle went right into the bruise that had already formed on my inner right elbow.

“Leeches,” Sid muttered after the guard left with a vial of my blood. “And now you’ll sleep, and I won’t be able to argue with you.”

It was true; I was instantly drowsy. Shivering, I tucked myself back into Sid’s coat. “My sentence is for a month. Maybe yours is, too, and we can argue until we are released.”

“A month? They are going to drain your blood every day for a month?”

“I hope so. Sometimes they keep prisoners longer than they say they will. Some people never come out of prison.”

His silence seemed stunned. I closed my eyes. I curled into his coat and drifted toward sleep.

“I want you to think that what my parents would force me to do is wrong,” I heard him say.

We are all forced to do things, I almost told him, but I felt too tired.

It occurred to me, belatedly, that Sid had sensed that sturdy bowl of grief inside me when I told him about Helin. Maybe everything that came after—the flirtation, the silly bargain, the secret—had been to distract me when he saw that he couldn’t take away my sadness.

I thought I heard him call to the guard.