I looked High Kith, too.

I came to Raven when I was twelve. “Difficult,” she called me then, though I followed all her rules. When I cried out at night, she came to my bed, stroked my brow, and told me that it was all right.

She cut my hair and said, Isn’t this neat and clean, isn’t it better? I said yes, though my long black hair had been my pride. Helin had envied it. It shines like paint, she had said. Raven told me to sweep the shorn hair and said, Now you’ll be sure to stay out of trouble.

Girls in the Ward usually kept their hair long. Hair was the easiest thing to give up when the militia arrested you. They could choose any tithe they like. Blood was the most common tithe, drawn with a needle and syringe. People released from prison spoke of the blood tithe with relief. Blood loss made you feel like a phantom, but not forever. It was not so bad. Giving up your hair was even better. They took your hair if they were feeling nice, and it was sewn into the natural hair of High-Kith ladies to make what they had seem fuller.

Men inside the wall kept their hair short out of pride. They wanted to show that they were not afraid of paying a higher price. This was a pride they could afford. The militia could take things from women they didn’t usually take from men.

By cutting my hair, Raven took away my easiest tithe. I want to keep you safe, she said. Don’t trust they will take something easy. Follow my advice, my lamb. Act as though you obey every law. Make the militia never doubt you, for now you know the truth: you can afford to lose nothing.

Raven was good to me in other ways, too. When she saw my first printed bread she did not scold me for being fanciful. She grew quiet and said, There’s money in this … and more.

She gave me a set of pencils and asked to see what I could do.

I sketched her face.

This is better than good, she said. This is me. This is my very face in a mirror.

Can you imitate this? She signed her name.

I could.

Perfect, she said.

She taught me how to remove oil from her greased apron. When my blood first came and spotted the sheets and she caught me trying to launder them with hot water, she said, Cold water, my girl, not hot, and gave me a block of soap that made my sheets smell like indi flowers. That day she let me keep one soft, sugared biscuit that I had made. She cut and buttered it. As I ate this treat, so unexpected, given to me when I had been ready for punishment, she said, Would you like to learn how to remove stains from paper?

Ink stains? I asked.

Yes, she said.

The headmistress at the orphanage had taught me how to read and write. It was not a common skill for any of us to learn, but the headmistress saw something in me that made her set aside time, curl my fingers around a pencil, and be patient. I could copy each letter perfectly the first time after being shown. I never forgot a spelling. Sometimes, however, I might write a phrase that I regretted. She taught me to cross a line through it, or to blot it very darkly with ink, if I wanted to make sure that no one could read what I had written. I hadn’t known there was a way to make ink vanish.

Vinegar, Raven said. Lemon juice.

It was magic, to see the ink disintegrate.

I thought: I wish.

How easy. Everything done became undone. If I didn’t want to see something, I had the power to make it go away.

Show me more, I told Raven, and when she showed me all she knew, I asked for different kinds of paper, different kinds of ink. It took her a while to procure them. Such things are a luxury in the Ward. A Half Kith possessed paper and ink only to produce something worth selling beyond the wall, such as a printed book. Paper and ink were not for our own use. But Raven smiled when she gave them to me, and nodded with approval when I experimented with them in my room. I became very good at making ink vanish.

Nirrim, she said one day. What you are doing is a secret. You cannot tell anyone.

Who would I tell? I said. Raven had made clear to the Ward that I was under her protection, which meant that no one troubled me when I walked in the streets, but it also meant that few were friendly with me.

Ever, she said. This is our secret.

I agreed. I was twelve, then. It was my name day. My first name day was perhaps a year after I had been left at the orphanage as a new infant, small and large eyed. I seemed no different from the other infants who arrived and grew and sometimes died. A fever. A fading. Thinning down to the bones for no reason I knew besides neglect. But a year of life meant stubbornness, a will that had to be acknowledged, so the headmistress decided I was likely to live and therefore should be named the word that had been pinned to my swaddling cloths when I was abandoned: Nirrim, a type of cloud that is rosy, lined with gold, and predicts good fortune.

For your name day, Raven said, I would like to teach you something new.

What is it? I said. I liked being good at what she asked me to do. It pleased her. It made me feel safe.

To be quiet, she said. We were alone in the kitchen, seated at the table, which was pale from age and scored by knives. I was sucking a sugar cube she had given me. I shifted the cube into my cheek so that I could speak.

I can be quiet, I said.

I know, my girl. She tucked a lock of my chin-length hair into my cap. She said, But you can become even better at it. You could become the best. And if you do, I can teach you other things.

What kind of things?

Ah, she said. I cannot tell you yet.

What do I need to do? I asked. The sweetness of the sugar drizzled down my throat. The sharp edges of the cube dissolved against my gums.

We will start with something small, she said.

All right.

She said, Put your hand on the floor, palm down.

I did. I had to get down on my hands and knees to do it the way she wanted: palm fully flat, the fingers spread. The sugar cube had dissolved. My mouth was full of sweetness.

She got out of her chair, and I was confused. I thought that she would leave me in the kitchen, perhaps for hours on end, that solitude would be how she would teach me silence. But she did not leave. She positioned her chair so that the tip of one leg rested on the web between my thumb and index finger. It didn’t hurt, but I saw right away how it soon would.

Now, my girl, not a sound.

She lowered her weight onto the chair.

5

ON THE DAY THE ELYSIUM BIRD came to the Ward, Raven sent me on an errand. She had me tuck a printed bread into a muslin drawstring bag that had been deftly embroidered by Annin to display the tavern’s insignia: a lit oil lamp. Raven buttoned the top button of my coat, which was her coat and made with cloth finer than anything I owned, but its dark brown was discreet enough for a Half Kith to wear. “There will be a lot of nonsense in the streets,” she said, “what with this wind and the festival and that godsforsaken bird. You keep your head.”