The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(22)

Sid strode past the desk to the door beyond it. He pulled it open. Warm night air wafted in, fragrant with flowers. The ice wind had broken. “After you, Nirrim.”

“Really? We’re leaving?”

“Yes. I’ve had enough.”

The prison door shut behind us. The night was still. The moon was a large mirror, its light so bright that when I pushed up the sleeve of my—Sid’s—coat, I could see the bruises on my inner arm. The wall was as white as polished marble in this light, though I knew by day it was pocked gray granite. A gate in the wall was flanked by guards, but I was already in the Ward. It was Sid who would pass through the gate to the rest of the city. “What did you do,” I asked him, “to get them to release me early?”

“Isn’t it more fun to guess than to know?” he said, and I finally turned to look at him.

I could see Sid more clearly now. I saw the mistake I had made.

Sid’s face was even more striking in the moonlight: severe cheekbones set in an unexpectedly soft face with a softly lined mouth, and eyes so dark they must be black. Short fair hair, which I had never seen before—no Herrath had light hair. Sid was a little taller than me, but not if I were to stand on tiptoe. I was struck, as I had been before, by Sid’s beauty, but it wasn’t that which stole my breath. It was the tunic Sid wore: sleeveless, as I had noticed before in the prison, showing bare, slender arms. What I had not seen then, and could see now, was that the tunic was tight enough that it showed the curve of her breasts.

“Oh,” I said.

She lifted her brows.

My mind scurried back through our conversations. “I thought you…” I couldn’t finish my sentence.

“You thought what?” She frowned, studying my face. Then her expression eased—not in a relaxed way, but rather into tired lines. “I see,” she said. “Well, that’s no fault of mine.”

“I didn’t say—”

“I can’t help what you assumed. Did I say I was a man?”

“No.” My face grew hot as I newly understood things she had said.

“Disappointed?”

“No,” I said hastily. “Why would I be?”

“Indeed, why.” Her shrug was extravagant, her long hands unfurling as if flicking away water after washing. Her black eyes strayed from mine to the wall. I had the impression that I had vanished, or diminished. I felt the impulse to apologize but sensed that the apology might grate more than the mistake, which seemed less to offend than to disappoint her, as though I had become suddenly far less intriguing. There was a pain in my chest, small and sharp as the snap of fingers.

It wasn’t normal to feel pain at any of this.

It wasn’t normal to feel drawn to her—not in the way I now knew I had been.

I started to shrug out of her coat. “Here,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Keep it. I don’t need it now.”

The warm night air was as soft as suede, salty from the harbor I had never seen.

“The ice wind might come again,” I said.

“I’ll be gone before it does.” Then, with a twist of her mouth that seemed decided to be amused, she brushed my shoulders and tugged at the hem of the coat to straighten any wrinkles. The gesture felt at once affectionate and dismissive. “It suits you. Even if it’s a little big.” She placed a palm against my cheek. I started at her touch. She dropped her hand.

Later, I wished that I had called to her, that I had said I missed her as soon as she turned to walk away. I wished she had seen how I brought my hand to my cheek. Her touch shivered down my back.

It lingered long after she passed through the wall’s gate.





17


THE INSIDE OF THE TAVERN was darker than the moonlit night. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and when I did I saw Annin asleep at a table, hair spilling over her arm. I was surprised to find her there, and wondered if she had been too tired from work that night to return to her room. I tried to shut the door quietly behind me, but the iron bolt was heavy. It thunked into place.

Annin stirred. She lifted her head from the table, rubbing her mouth. Then she saw me and stared. “Nirrim? Is that really you?”

“Shh,” I said, but she bounded from the table to pull me into her arms.

“We were so worried.” She pressed her hands to my cheeks, searching my face. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” When she hugged me again, her face brushing mine was wet with tears. Was it wrong to feel a small pleasure? I hadn’t known she cared so much.

“What did they take?”

“Just my blood. You must be quiet. You will wake—”

“You’re here, you’re safe! They will want to know.” She called for Raven and Morah. There came the sound of stumbling, the thin complaint of wooden doors. A nimbus of lamplight floated down the stairs before I saw any feet. Morah’s first—bare, like Annin’s—then Raven’s slippers.

Morah stared when she saw me. “Three days only? Your face … where did you pay?” She looked ready to open my coat, to rummage over my body until she found the damage she was sure they must have left.

Raven approached me, her slippered tread heavy.

I thought of you, I wanted to tell her, when I was in prison. I thought of how afraid you must be.