My hand that held the folded page lowered.

“Nirrim, what exactly do you want me to do with you?”

The question hung in the air, soft and dense and dangerous.

I swallowed. Does a coward always have to be a coward? Was it so wrong to want something, whether I deserved it or not? I said, “I want you to stay in the city for a month.”

“Why?”

Because I would miss you. Because I am not ready to let you go.

“Because I think you are giving up too easily,” I said.

“A month,” she repeated. “That’s a terrible idea for me.”

“I want you to hire me as your Middling maid for that month. I want you to take me into the High quarter. Maybe I’m not magic, but I can be useful. I have a skill you don’t, and even if you are right—that everything I remember about the past has a reasonable explanation—those memories might help you. I might remember more. You said yourself that there is no magic in the Ward. It’s all beyond the wall, and concentrated in the High quarter. So take me there, and I’ll help you find what you need, like we agreed before.”

“And then what?”

“You go home with your leverage. Just as you planned.”

She tapped a finger against her lips, considering. “And you?”

“I will come home, too.”

“Home,” she repeated.

“Here,” I said.

She made a face. “So you want … a month’s vacation in the High quarter.”

“An adventure,” I reminded her.

“And then you’ll come right back here and bake for your mistress and kiss that very tall man you love.” She sounded mocking. “Like nothing ever happened, no matter what happens.”

“It’s just a month,” I said defensively, unsure of what else to say. “This is what I want.”

“Why do you want this?”

The answer was too big and frightening to explain, even to myself. “I just do.”

“Well,” she said, “I do like giving women what they want.”

“Is that a yes?”

She let out a sigh through her teeth. “Yes, that’s a yes. Gods help me.”

“Thank you,” I said, and she laughed. “So prim,” she said, “for someone so demanding. Now. I’ll have that back.” She reached for the letter.

I pulled it away. “It’s mine now.”

“Oh no.” She wagged a finger at me. “No, no, no.”

“You said you wouldn’t send the letter anyway. And I don’t understand its language. You should have no problem giving it to me.”

She scrunched up her brow. “Why do you want a letter you can’t read?”

Because it’s written in your hand, I wanted to say. Because it will be a piece of you I can keep when you eventually do leave. “Because you were rude to me, and I claim it as payment.”

“Rude?” She grimaced. “I was horrible.”

“The worst.”

“I was the worst!”

“Like a nasty, cold queen.”

“King, dear Nirrim.”

“I’m not going to forgive you.”

She caught my empty hand. “Please.” She was serious now. “Forgive me. I was angry.”

She held my hand a little too hard, but I liked it. I curled my fingers around hers. And that was all right. A woman could hold a woman’s hand. Friends did that in the Ward all the time, and no one looked at them with reproach. Sid’s skin was soft, her hand warmer than mine. Looking at my fingers entwined with hers, I asked, “Why were you angry?”

“I was angry at myself.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s all the answer you’ll get.” She opened my hand and studied the well of my palm. She ran a thumb over it. I felt the echo of her touch travel up my back. She brought my hand to her mouth. She kissed my palm, then closed my hand around the ghost of her kiss, which sang into my closed fingers. Pleasure poured down my wrist.

She dropped my hand.

“That’s a custom,” she said breezily, “in my country. It’s a way of saying thank you for being forgiven.”

It sounded believable. What did I know, anyway, of her country, except what she had told me? But something made me say, “Is that a lie?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Will you help me pack?”

So I did. Together we settled her gorgeous clothes into the trunk as though putting them to bed, tucking them in gently. I was glad to busy my hands. I needed to ignore my singing skin, to ignore that kiss, which had no meaning, or only the meaning that Sid gave it.

But:

She was staying in the city.

She was taking me up quarter, even if it was only because of what she thought I could do for her.

31

“YOU WANT TO LEAVE ME?” Tears welled in Raven’s eyes.

“No,” I said, “of course not. It is only for a month. Then I will come home.”

“Don’t you love me? How can you leave me alone?”

I knelt beside her chair. Sid, who had insisted on being present when I told Raven, looked on, her expression closed. I took Raven’s hands, which were folded limply in her lap. I pressed them to my cheek. A thick sludge of guilt bubbled up. I remembered what Morah had told me about her baby, but maybe Morah didn’t understand Raven like I did, how much emotion the older woman had within her, how important it was to hold her three girls close, as she would any children. She made mistakes, but no one could doubt her affection, not when tears were slipping down her face and loneliness aged her face. “I love you so much,” I told her. “You won’t be alone. You have Morah and Annin.”

“They are not you.”

Her words glowed within me. It was selfish, I knew, to be so happy to be her favorite. And it was wrong (I knew this, too), but I couldn’t help thinking that what had happened with Morah could never happen with me. I was Raven’s special girl. When I gazed upon her, I saw the worn face that I loved and the glint of a golden chain at her throat, half hidden by her dress, that reminded me of the moon necklace my mother had worn. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of Raven’s delicate chain, and I would pretend that if only she untucked the necklace from her dress I would see the crescent-moon pendant dangling from it. I would pretend that she was my mother. Raven had always promised to protect me, to care for me, to make certain I wanted for nothing. “I will be back, Ama,” I said, using the word for mother, “I promise.”