“Daughter?” I said numbly as the young woman scuttled from the room.

“Well, no, not really, but in a manner of speaking, are you not? Didn’t I raise you and make you everything that you are? Look at how lovely you are. High living suits you, I must say. It would suit me, too, with a bit of your help. But no more of that! Pleasure before business! Have some of these sugared flowers. I know my girl has a sweet tooth. I’ve kept these on hand, just for you, for the day that you would finally see your new home. I wasn’t quite prepared for today to be the day, but no matter.”

Feeling as though I were made of stone, I put a flower into my mouth. Obedience was a familiar act in a deeply unfamiliar situation. The flower crumbled and melted. I felt an urge to spit it out, to vomit it onto my lap, but Raven was looking at me so expectantly, so proudly. “Thank you,” I managed.

“That is my good girl. I don’t suppose that High lady gave you what she promised me.”

“Promised?”

“Now, Nirrim, don’t be daft. The gold, my girl.”

“I have this.” I offered her the small purse of gold. “I won it for you.”

“This is but a fraction of what she promised! That sneaking foreign cheat. She had best have left Ethin already, or we shall have our revenge, shall we not? No need to tell me how it was in her service, my lamb. I will never ask. No, no. I respect your privacy. I understand what we must sometimes do for money. If she made you do things you did not want, why, how could you refuse? Forget it all. You are with me now. I will take care of you.”

“You will?”

“Of course! Nirrim, what is wrong with you? You are acting like someone has knocked all the brains out of your head. Do try to keep up.”

“You lied to me,” I choked out.

“Lied? I did no such thing.”

“You told me we were helping people.”

She spread her hands in helpless impatience. “We did help people.”

“You took their money.”

“Well, of course. I have to live, don’t I?”

“You don’t have to live like this.”

“I don’t like your tone. Who are you to judge me? You never had to worry about anything. Without me, you would have become Un-Kith. Who raised you? Me. Who put food on your plate? Me. Who saved you from the orphanage? Me. I didn’t expect such a lack of gratitude from you.” She placed a hand on her heart. “It cuts me to the quick.”

“Stop,” I said. “Stop it! You’re acting like you didn’t make me believe for years that we were forging passports only out of kindness.”

“It was a kindness, and we got paid for it. I see no wrong in that.”

“There is no we. You have been taking the money.”

“Oh, I see. You want a cut of it. Well.” She busied herself pouring a cup of pink tea. “I can’t say that I am pleased by your greed. My plan was always to share everything with you. There is no need to be so demanding. Here.” She offered me the cup.

I dashed it from her hand.

“Nirrim!”

“That’s blood. You are drinking someone’s blood!”

“You are completely hysterical. Calm yourself right now, or you will answer to my hand. Blood! Nonsense. It is simply a drink that will make you prettier. I am being nice to you, and this is the thanks I get.”

“I am telling you the truth.”

She sighed impatiently. “Need we worry about everything? Am I supposed to never eat, out of pity for all the poor animals and plants that must die to feed me? Am I supposed to give everything I have to people who have less? Am I supposed to work for free? If there is blood in the tea, it surely can’t be much, given the color. It’s not as if someone died.”

“I don’t want any.”

“More for me, then.” She poured herself another cup. “Why don’t you lie down in your bedroom, dear? The sheets have been laundered with that soap you like, and I’ll have the maid bring you a cup of cold, honeyed milk. You’ll have a nice rest, and when you wake we will plan our future together.”

“My room,” I said.

“There you go again, repeating things like one of those pea-brained ithya birds. Yes, your room. Nirrim, I always planned to bring you here one day. You are my best girl.”

“Why should I believe you? You have done nothing but lie.”

Her smile was small, hard, appraising. She set aside her cup. “That is the question of someone grown. Not a child anymore, are you? Follow me, and you will see what I’ve done for you.” She took my hand. Hers blazed with heat. Mine must have felt like a block of ice as she led me upstairs and unlocked a door with a porcelain handle painted blue, in a pattern of one of my printed breads. She pushed open the door.

The bed was sweetly made, the counterpane embroidered with sprays of roses, a flower I had never seen before I left the Ward. The wardrobe, when I opened it, was full of dresses tailored to my size, the cotton soft. A beveled mirror set inside the wardrobe door showed my pale face. There were sandals, the leather stiffly new.

“And see.” Raven opened a jewelry box that sat on the vanity. Inside was a necklace of seed pearls. She lifted the strand of tiny beads from the box and strung them around my wooden neck. The pearls were luminous drops of moonlight, but all I could think of was the tortoises I had skinned for their nacreous shells, their thick bodies trying to blunder out of my grasp.

“There,” Raven said, satisfied. “And we shall have better than that, when we come up in the world.”

I touched the cool little beads. Pansies nodded at me from the green window box. This room was all I could have wanted. It was a room not for a servant, but for a daughter.

“Nirrim, I understand that you are surprised, but my generosity warrants some thanks, I think.”

“What about Morah and Annin? Do they have rooms here?”

“That’s hardly necessary, is it?”

“So you want me to live here with you.”

“Of course, my girl.”

“Without them.”

“Someone must manage the tavern.” She saw my face and leaned forward to clasp my hands. “You have always known that you were my favorite. Look at everything I have built for us. Imagine everything we can do together. Why do you think I allowed you to go to the High quarter with that imperious foreigner? Because I trusted my clever Nirrim. I knew you would gain access to a High-Kith passport and forge one perfectly, and you have, haven’t you? If I turned such a tidy profit on Middling passports, just think what I could get for selling High passports to Middlings. And you’ll forge one for me, of course.”