“It is wrong,” I murmured to Sid. I didn’t mean it. I would do anything for a mother, a father. But I said it again, deciding that I would believe it was wrong, for his sake.

16

“NIRRIM, WAKE UP.”

There was urgency in Sid’s voice. I heard footfalls coming down the hall. I got to my feet. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“We’re leaving,” he said.

I was confused. “To go where? A different part of the prison?” Fear rose within me. “Why? What will they do?”

“Nothing. Don’t be afraid. They are letting us go.”

The footfalls came closer.

“That’s not right.” I began to doubt whether I was awake or had somehow slept for nearly a month. “How long have I been here?”

“Three days.”

“Then my sentence isn’t over.”

“Now it is. I promised you a favor.”

A pair of guards unlocked our cells and we were led through the prison’s maze to a dimly lit office that seemed out of place: the size of a large cell, but with a thick rug on the floor, its pattern like interlaced fingers of many colors, and a tiny man behind a desk with a sputtering oil lamp. I wasn’t sure where to rest my eyes. I could feel Sid beside me, taut with energy. Behind the tiny man at the desk, a window glowed silver. It was the moonlight. It was like mercury. It was so strong that I finally believed Sid: it had truly been only three days since the full moon and the festival celebrating its god, one of the few gods this city remembered.

The man at the desk looked through my passport and stamped one of the booklet’s pages with a T for Tybir, the name of the prison. Sid had no documents, which was strange to see. I had never met anyone with no documents. There was, however, a letter that the man behind the desk read several times, looking up occasionally at Sid. Finally, the man scrawled something at the bottom of the page but did not stamp it. He folded the single page along its already creased lines and rose from his seat to hand it carefully to Sid. The man said, “Your—”

“None of that,” Sid said. “My stay here was delightful, I assure you.”

The man seemed flustered. Belatedly, I realized I was wearing Sid’s coat. Worried I would be punished, my gaze darted between the man behind the desk and the guards, but they paid no attention to me. They stared at Sid. The air prickled with their fascination.

Sid strode past the desk to the door beyond it. He pulled it open. Warm night air wafted in, fragrant with flowers. The ice wind had broken. “After you, Nirrim.”

“Really? We’re leaving?”

“Yes. I’ve had enough.”

The prison door shut behind us. The night was still. The moon was a large mirror, its light so bright that when I pushed up the sleeve of my—Sid’s—coat, I could see the bruises on my inner arm. The wall was as white as polished marble in this light, though I knew by day it was pocked gray granite. A gate in the wall was flanked by guards, but I was already in the Ward. It was Sid who would pass through the gate to the rest of the city. “What did you do,” I asked him, “to get them to release me early?”

“Isn’t it more fun to guess than to know?” he said, and I finally turned to look at him.

I could see Sid more clearly now. I saw the mistake I had made.

Sid’s face was even more striking in the moonlight: severe cheekbones set in an unexpectedly soft face with a softly lined mouth, and eyes so dark they must be black. Short fair hair, which I had never seen before—no Herrath had light hair. Sid was a little taller than me, but not if I were to stand on tiptoe. I was struck, as I had been before, by Sid’s beauty, but it wasn’t that which stole my breath. It was the tunic Sid wore: sleeveless, as I had noticed before in the prison, showing bare, slender arms. What I had not seen then, and could see now, was that the tunic was tight enough that it showed the curve of her breasts.

“Oh,” I said.

She lifted her brows.

My mind scurried back through our conversations. “I thought you…” I couldn’t finish my sentence.

“You thought what?” She frowned, studying my face. Then her expression eased—not in a relaxed way, but rather into tired lines. “I see,” she said. “Well, that’s no fault of mine.”

“I didn’t say—”

“I can’t help what you assumed. Did I say I was a man?”

“No.” My face grew hot as I newly understood things she had said.

“Disappointed?”

“No,” I said hastily. “Why would I be?”

“Indeed, why.” Her shrug was extravagant, her long hands unfurling as if flicking away water after washing. Her black eyes strayed from mine to the wall. I had the impression that I had vanished, or diminished. I felt the impulse to apologize but sensed that the apology might grate more than the mistake, which seemed less to offend than to disappoint her, as though I had become suddenly far less intriguing. There was a pain in my chest, small and sharp as the snap of fingers.

It wasn’t normal to feel pain at any of this.

It wasn’t normal to feel drawn to her—not in the way I now knew I had been.

I started to shrug out of her coat. “Here,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Keep it. I don’t need it now.”

The warm night air was as soft as suede, salty from the harbor I had never seen.

“The ice wind might come again,” I said.

“I’ll be gone before it does.” Then, with a twist of her mouth that seemed decided to be amused, she brushed my shoulders and tugged at the hem of the coat to straighten any wrinkles. The gesture felt at once affectionate and dismissive. “It suits you. Even if it’s a little big.” She placed a palm against my cheek. I started at her touch. She dropped her hand.

Later, I wished that I had called to her, that I had said I missed her as soon as she turned to walk away. I wished she had seen how I brought my hand to my cheek. Her touch shivered down my back.

It lingered long after she passed through the wall’s gate.

17

THE INSIDE OF THE TAVERN was darker than the moonlit night. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and when I did I saw Annin asleep at a table, hair spilling over her arm. I was surprised to find her there, and wondered if she had been too tired from work that night to return to her room. I tried to shut the door quietly behind me, but the iron bolt was heavy. It thunked into place.