“And if I say yes?”

“You might find,” he said gently, “that it is easier to live without a heart.”

I longed for Sid. I wished she were here to help me. She would say, No. Don’t surrender yourself. Your goodness, your light, everything that makes me love you.

But she was not here. She never would be. And I would miss her always, would reach for her in my sleep, would weep for never having told her that I loved her with all my heart. I make nothing too heavy to bear, she had once said, and I wanted her to take my loss of her and make me able to bear it.

Time would heal nothing for me. Each kiss would feel fresh on my mouth.

What good was a heart, if it hurt so much?

“I want to make the city remember,” I told the god of thieves, “and then I agree to your bargain.”

His bland face became suddenly beautiful, suffused as it was with joy. “Quickly,” he begged.

Could I make an entire city remember its past? I felt how the memory shared by the god filled me, how if I focused on it, it swelled large enough to spill out of me like blood. And I became afraid of it, of its trembling size, how it bulged against my insides. How maybe releasing it would take all of me away with it. But I remembered how I had thought my sadness at Helin’s death was like a bowl always replenished, how my love for Sid was like that, too, how grief and love have a magic of their own because they can be never-ending.

I poured the city’s memory out of me. I imagined it spilling out over its streets, its people.

The face of the god looked pleased, even proud. “Well done,” he said.

Then he leaned toward me, placed his mouth on mine, and sucked all the breath from me.

EPILOGUE

I SEE THIS STORY PERFECTLY, its moments cut crystal in my mind. I remember how this story, like a great, sheer bowl, bore a sea of emotion—my guilt, my loneliness, my longing. I remember little rivulets of delight, the warmth of love.

But I do not feel it anymore. I feel light. Empty. Pure.

Sid’s letter rests in my pocket, but it is mere paper. I carry its copy in my mind. I see its foreign script written in her hand, but what it might say, and how I will never understand it, is as meaningless as her absence.

The god is gone, too, to wherever gods go.

His bird is on my shoulder. I have no fondness for it, but I do not mind it. Its beauty enhances my own. Its talons pierce the skin a little, but when I hiss, it learns quickly to stop. It would be nothing for me to wring its pretty little neck.

I remember the people who once troubled me, who wrung my heart, who stitched me up tightly with little black threads of guilt, who made me wish and cherish and smile and weep.

I know they once touched me, but I no longer feel it.

Wonderful. It is almost as good as having no memory at all.

The Elysium bird on my shoulder, I walk through the stunned city. I stare back at the people who stare at me, daring them to cross me. None of them do. I wish they would. They call out questions as though it is evident by my face that I have the answers. Maybe they are not so stupid after all, yet none is worthy of my reply.

I make my way through them and into the Ward.

The Half Kith have come into the streets. They see me arrive and they are eager. Many of them know now what they are. I see Aden, sunlight dancing down his arms, ready to twist the light in his control and use it as he wills. I see Morah and Annin at the fringes of the crowd, how Annin starts toward me. Morah, wise to whatever expression is on my face, claws her back.

Even the god-blooded ones don’t approach me. And I am not interested in the others, like Morah and Annin, who might as well be made from sticks and cloth. There is no power in them, not like there is in me.

Finally a god-blood dares to approach me. It is one-eyed Sirah, creeping up on her feeble old legs. “Nirrim, child, look.” She holds out her hand. “I can make it rain.” A little thunderstorm erupts on her palm.

A nice trick, and it could be useful to me, but she is weak and worn. I need powerful allies for what I want to accomplish. I push past her.

“Nirrim,” she says, shocked, “who do you think you are?”

I say it loud enough for all to hear: “I am a god,” I tell them, “and I am your queen.”