The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(13)

“True, they are not used in Ethin. But you seem different from other people here, so I thought maybe you were different in other ways, too.”

I didn’t want to ask how he found me different. I didn’t like that he knew that I was. I had tried so hard, since what had happened to Helin, not to be different. I said, “I have never heard of a last name.”

“In other places, in some countries, people have last names.”

“What other places?”

“Do you want me to tell you about them?”

I felt ashamed that I knew so little of anything outside the Ward, and that a Middling knew so much more than I did of the world. He wasn’t even High Kith. “No,” I said.

“All right,” he said easily. “Nirrim.” His voice grew conspiratorial. “What did you do to be here?”

It was my turn to be silent. I remembered the militiaman falling to the pavement below. I remembered the exact cadence of his cry.

“Is it that bad?” Sid said.

“No,” I said immediately. “It’s not that bad.”

“I believe you.”

“I am not a bad person.”

“Nirrim.” There was surprise in Sid’s voice. I had spoken loudly, with enough vehemence that I wanted to clap a hand over my mouth. Slowly, he said, “I never thought you were a bad person.”

My good girl, Raven sometimes called me, and I was always so proud, and thought that maybe if I was good enough, she would adopt me as her true daughter.

Sid said, “Never mind, if you don’t want to say.”

“I stole a bird.”

“A bird?” I couldn’t see the expression on his face, but imagined his brows lifting.

“Not stole. Not really. I found it. I gave it back.” I explained as best as I could.

“I’m not sure I understand,” he said.

“You should. You’re a thief yourself.”

“I’m not.”

“No?”

“No,” he said. “I was accused of theft.”

His tone made me doubt he was completely innocent. “What did you really do?”

“Are you easily shocked?”

“I don’t know.”

He was amused. “Will you tell me if I shock you?”

“Why would you care,” I said, “if you shock a Half Kith?”

“It’s important to me to know.”

“Did you murder someone?”

“No! What kind of person do you think I am?”

I was quiet at that.

He said, “I took a lord’s lady to bed.”

“Oh.”

“The husband came home. He got quite an eyeful. He wanted to punish me, and I can hardly blame him. It was quite obvious that she liked what I was doing far better than whatever he typically did for her. Now, he didn’t want what I had done to be widely known. It would shame him, you see. How to solve his dilemma? Accuse me of theft, clap me in the local prison, and there I am punished and gotten well rid of.”

“You didn’t tell the militia the truth.”

“I would never.”

“To protect the lady’s honor?”

“I am not interested in honor.”

“Then why not?”

He thought about it. “I wanted to see what she would do.”

“And she said nothing.”

“Nothing at all.”

“Did that hurt you?”

“No,” he said, but I didn’t quite believe him.

“Did you love her?”

“I am not interested in love. I did what I did with her because I wanted her and she wanted me.” He seemed to mull it over. “I suppose I am disappointed. She could have told the truth. She didn’t. I thought her more courageous than that. Oh, well.”

“Oh, well?”

“So I have shocked you.”

“You let yourself be thrown in prison.”

“It’s not so bad. I have you.”

“I don’t think you realize how serious your situation is.”

“To tell the truth, I was tempted to see what prison was like.”

Disbelief and anger knitted into a ball in my belly. “What was your sentence? Your tithe?”

“Tithe?”

“The fine.”

“There was no fine.”

I hadn’t realized that only Half Kith had to pay for a crime. The ball in my belly hardened to stone.

He said, “I saw them take your blood.”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” he repeated, drawing out the words, a question in his tone. “That’s what you mean by a tithe.”

“I was lucky.”

“It could have been worse?”

“Much worse.” I thought of the guard in my cell and perhaps Sid did, too, because he said, “I see. The law here is strange.”

“It is as it is.”

“You people always say that. Such an empty thing to say. What does it even mean, really?”

You people. And he was only Middling, not even High Kith. I was sick of the differences that ruled my life. I was sick of his arrogance, his curiosity, his light, fluid voice. I was sick of a world that would keep me in this cell, blood drained every day, when he would probably go free with everything that belonged to him still in his possession.