“For now.”

“Everything is for now,” I said, and didn’t know how to explain to her the feeling I had always lived with, which was as old as the memory of the cold orphanage box: that anything could be taken from me at any time. I said, “We want the same thing.”

“Do we?”

“We want answers,” I said, because it was true but also because I wanted to turn the conversation to the reason we were in this house together to begin with, and away from last night and her rejection, which she seemed to be trying to explain, with an awkwardness unlike herself, and which I didn’t feel needed any more explanation. Things were clear. She would regret taking me to bed. She was trying to explain that anything between us would bring me pain, because she was not someone who stayed. That she cared about me, which I could see, plain on her worried face, and which was a bitter comfort. I didn’t want her to worry. I put my hand on her oiled and bloodied one, the grit of the spices and salt like sand against my skin. “I haven’t changed my mind,” I said. She looked at me, and I faltered, because I didn’t want last night to happen all over again, to ask for what she didn’t want to give, or to think about how her wet mouth had skimmed my neck. I said, my voice clear, “I haven’t changed my mind about our plan.”

She nodded. “All right.”

“And I have some information for you.”

She lifted a brow. She looked more like herself. “Do you?”

“Doesn’t it embarrass you to find that a lowly underling has discovered something a queen’s spy hasn’t?”

“You are not a lowly underling.”

“Dodging the question as always, I see, which must mean that I am right.”

“You are wrong. I am not embarrassed.” Sid turned her hand, which lay beneath mine, and held my fingers. “I am impressed. But not surprised.”

“Why aren’t you surprised?”

“You’re resourceful. Strong.”

“Resourceful…,” I said. “Maybe. Strong?” I shook my head. “Sometimes I miss the wall. I miss being behind it.” I knew it wasn’t safe there, but it was my home. Even an unsafe home can feel safe.

“But you’re not behind it,” Sid said. “You’re here. You are at risk, so much more than I am, yet you keep risking yourself. I wish you could see yourself like I see you.”

“How do you see me?”

“You’re like those flowers that grow along the walls. The indi flowers. The ones that freeze and come back to life. They dig themselves into any little crack.”

“They’re destructive.”

“Yes. And beautiful.”

I slid my hand from hers. I didn’t like how warm her words made me, and how they felt, again, like bitter comfort, like the wound and the balm at the same time. She was trying to console me after she had rejected me, which was the very thing I had done with Aden the first time I broke things off with him: told him he was handsome, he was resourceful and talented and as good at capturing hearts as he was at catching people’s images on a tin plate. So many girls in the Ward loved him. He just wasn’t right for me.

“Your scar is back.” She lifted a finger to touch my burn, but then didn’t. “Where did you get that? You never said. You didn’t have it when we first met.”

“An accident,” I said. “Let me tell you what I discovered today.”

“I am not the only one who dodges,” she said, but she didn’t press, only listened to what the dressmaker had told me.

“We need to infiltrate the Council,” Sid said.

“You have used your status in so many ways. To get us out of prison. To live here and get invited to High-Kith parties. To get dresses made. Why can’t you be invited into the Keepers Hall?”

She shook her head. “The fact that I’m close to the Herrani queen will, in this case, make them only more unwilling to give me access to a place that might house what seems to be a state secret. And I can’t sneak inside, because I look like one of the very few foreigners who have been to this island. Nor do I have the right documents. Councilmembers have an extra page in their High-Kith passports that has a special Council stamp to show their status.”

“I could sneak in. I look High Herrath.”

“No. I don’t want to risk you. And we’d still have a problem regarding the documents.”

“Well,” I said, “not really.”

She gave me a narrow look. “Would the person who forged your Middling passport be able to get you access to a Council stamp?”

“That person,” I said, “is me.”

“You,” she said.

I explained how I used my skill at memory to forge passports. She stared. “Surprised?” I said.

“Yes, at how blind I’ve been. Why haven’t you told me this before?”

“I didn’t trust you.”

“And now you do?”

I thought about last night. How worried she had been a moment ago that I had left for good. Her flat dismissal of the idea of me sneaking into the Keepers Hall. “I trust that you wouldn’t denounce me to the militia. I trust that you don’t want me to get hurt.”

“I don’t,” she said. “You can’t. It would hurt me if you got hurt.”

“You are kinder than I have sometimes thought you to be.”

“Ah, yes. You did accuse me once of being heartless.” She studied me, then said slowly, “Is your forging … connected at all to Raven? She was entirely too anxious about losing you for a month. There was all that talk about a project you were working on. Was this it? I thought she was just being manipulative. That she was making excuses to control you and keep you by her side.”

“She isn’t manipulative. She was worried about how many people would have to wait for a passport because I was leaving the tavern. You’re right: we work together to give forged passports to people who need them. She has a good heart. She has helped so many people. Aden has, too.”

“Oh.” Her face closed. “Right. Your young man.”

“If you knew how much good Raven does—and Aden, too—you wouldn’t be so cold about them.”

“You might have decided that I’m kind enough to trust with your secret, Nirrim, and I suppose I am, but don’t expect me to warm suddenly toward your handsome young sweetheart.”