Morah snipped the twine. “I meant, look how eager you are to obey.”

A too-large quantity of flour slid all at once into the bowl. A white cloud billowed up. Stiffly, I asked, “Do you think I should shirk my duties?”

“No.”

“The High-Kith lady will leave in two days, and then my life will be exactly as it was before.”

“I know.”

I swallowed the tightness in my throat. “So in the meantime am I supposed to ignore what I need to do to help Raven earn the money that feeds us? Am I supposed to let you and Annin do twice the work to make up for what I neglect?”

Slowly, she said, “I know you love her.”

My chest raged with sudden fear. I opened my mouth, ready to deny it. I didn’t love Sid. I barely knew her. What had Morah seen, what could she have seen that would make her say that? It was an attraction, nothing more. Plus, it was understandable. Surely it was. Sid represented so much of what someone like me would long to have: wealth, comfort, status, confidence. It was that that drew me, I was sure of it. Not love. Love wasn’t possible between women, and although I knew from the way Sid talked that other things were possible, they were not possible for me.

But when I saw how surprised Morah was by what must have been a vehemence in my expression, I realized what she had really meant. My fear flowed away. “Of course I love Raven. Of course I work hard for her. She works hard for us.”

“Does she?” Morah tilted her head. “Where is she now?”

“Running errands, I suppose, beyond the wall.”

“That’s what she says.”

“Then it must be true. She is not a liar.”

“You don’t launder her clothes,” Morah said. “I do.”

I didn’t see what that had to do with anything. “So?”

“Sometimes her skirts twinkle with glitter after she goes beyond the wall. Her pockets have empty packets of pleasure dust.”

“I don’t know what pleasure dust is.”

“You don’t know anything.” She thumped the trussed loin into a roasting pan. “Raven has kept you and Annin so innocent. She learned her lesson after what happened with me.”

You must be careful around Raven, Aden had said. Ask Morah. She knows better than anyone.

“She has given you a home,” I said to Morah. “She has been like a mother to us.”

Morah wiped her meat-bloodied hands on her apron. Though the window to the kitchen was small, the sunlight coming through it was strong. It burned through the room. She said, “You think that only because you don’t know what it means to be a mother.”

“Why don’t you like her?” The question burst from me. I heard how wounded it sounded.

“Nirrim, I hate her.”

“Why?” As soon as I asked I wished I hadn’t. I suddenly dreaded the answer.

“She took something from me.”

“Well,” I said, relieved that the reason was so small, “you should ask for it back. If she understands how much it means to you, she will return it. Then you will feel better.”

“You don’t understand.”

“She probably didn’t even know it was yours.”

“There you go,” Morah said, “always making excuses for her. Even when she smashes a lantern against your face and scars you for life.”

“She didn’t mean to hurt me.”

“But she did hurt you.” Morah’s hands, still bloodied around the knuckles, clenched into fists. “She hurt me. She is a thief.”

“She has given you so much. A home. Good work. Food. A family.”

She shook her head. “I haven’t wanted to say anything because I know how important all of that is to you. You looked so lost when you came here. You were thirteen but seemed so much younger. Your hands could never be empty. You always had to hold something, to cuddle it to your chest. You had a small rag. Do you remember?”

I did, but I didn’t want to think about that. It had been a scrap of cloth from Helin’s dress. In the orphanage, we had only two sets of clothes: a work dress and a nightdress. Helin’s body had been taken away in her nightdress. In the night, I had found her other dress hanging beside mine in the wardrobe. My hands shaking, I had cut a thin ribbon from the hem. I would bundle it in my hand at night. It helped me sleep. She had been my only friend.

“Raven burned it,” Morah said.

I remembered the raw pain in my throat when I couldn’t find it. My cheeks wet. How I had sobbed and Raven had comforted me, saying that she would help me find it. Chin up, she said. It is just a dirty old rag, she said. What could I have wanted with it anyway?

“No,” I said. “She looked everywhere for it.”

“I saw her burn it, in this very stove.”

I felt like I was groping for familiar things in an unfamiliar darkness. “Well,” I said, “if she did it’s because she didn’t know what it was.”

“She knew. I knew. It was a little strip of gray wincey.”

“Then,” I said, “she didn’t understand what it meant to me.”

“She did it because she understood what it meant to you. That was why she took my baby.”

I remembered my illusion of a baby in Morah’s arms. Of a child standing near her, growing older as the years passed until my eyes refused to see the little boy, before I became successful at banishing most of the strange visions that afflicted me.

Morah’s face was wooden, her expression set as if pins held her features in place. “Nirrim, she tried the same things on me that she always uses on you. She told me it was for my own good. That she cared about me, that I was like a daughter to her. She was looking out for me, even if I couldn’t see it. What good would it do to keep the child? The father was gone. He was so young. He had tried to climb over the wall. I had been so sick, early in the pregnancy. I couldn’t stop vomiting. I hid my sickness from Raven, hid my growing belly. My sweetheart thought that surely there would be medicine in the Middling quarter for me. He tried to climb the wall during the night, and fell, and died. So I told Raven everything because, like you, I believed in her. I thought she cared about me. And at first, it seemed that way. She gave me the best foods. She held my hair when I vomited. She never let me rest from my work, but I believed her when she said it was for my own benefit, that work would distract me from my sickness and keep me fit for when the baby came. And when my baby came he was so sweet. His nose and mouth and fingers were so small, his hair so dark. I missed his father but thought I was strong enough to make a home for my baby, to raise him alone, because I was not truly alone. I had someone who loved me like a daughter. Someone who would love my child like a grandson. But she took him while I was sleeping.”