The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(24)

The feather seemed to glow. Its quill was opalescent. I tucked it into my shirt, right above my heart. It tingled against my skin.

I lay back down and drew Sid’s coat over my chest like a blanket. I wondered where she was. I tried to picture what she was doing beyond the wall, and couldn’t. I remembered her voice and her face and her scent, though the coat didn’t smell like her, not anymore.





18


“THAT WILL LEAVE A SCAR,” Morah said in the morning when she dressed the burn.

“It’s not so bad.” I could feel it. The hot oil had left a thin streak down the hollow of my cheek.

She shook her head. “You can’t see how it looks.” We didn’t really have mirrors in the Ward, except when we stole a glance in a polished steel plate or visited Terrin, who made lavish mirrors to sell beyond the wall. Some were so large they looked like sheets of still water. It was unsettling to visit Terrin’s shop, to see myself refracted. I didn’t like being surrounded by myself. Raven had little business with her, so I had been sent there only once to barter for a handheld dressing mirror, which was Raven’s right as Middling to own. I offered what Raven had suggested: four blue duck eggs, which seemed too small a price to me. I could see, reflected all around me, embarrassment creeping pink into my cheeks. Terrin didn’t even let me finish. Of course, she said, and gave me the palm-sized mirror backed with green velvet. She refused to take anything for it. What Raven wants, she gets, Terrin said, and I flushed again, this time with pride, to see how much someone admired and loved my mistress.

Morah said, “There is a red stripe from your cheekbone to your jaw. You will have it forever.”

“It will fade.” I didn’t like Morah’s hard look. She respected Raven and obeyed her, but she didn’t care for her. Morah didn’t know, any more than Annin did, that Raven and I forged documents to help Half Kith leave the Ward, so I couldn’t expect her to understand Raven’s reaction.

I touched my chest above my heart, where the Elysium feather lay hidden beneath my shirt. The feather seemed to thrill beneath my touch. “Morah, why does a Lord Protector rule Herrath?”

She capped the pot of salve. “What do you mean, why?”

“How did that come to be?”

She looked at me strangely. “We have always had a Lord Protector.”

“But not the same one.”

“Of course not. When one dies, he is replaced.”

“By the Council.”

“Yes. You know this. Nirrim, you are worrying me. What happened to you in prison?”

I thought of Sid’s questions, her frustration with It is as it is. “I am just thinking. There must have been a first Lord Protector. How was he chosen? And why Protector? To protect us against what? The rest of the world?”

Confusion crossed her face. “There is only Herrath. There is the Ward and the city and the island and the sea.”

“That is not true. There are other countries across the sea. There have been wars.”

“War.” Morah said the word as if she didn’t understand it. “There is no war. There has never been a war. You are making my head hurt.”

“But—”

The door to the tavern opened, dumping sunshine across the floor. “Finally up, I see.” Raven smiled, a heavy basket slung over each arm. She must have gone to the morning market, which was usually my task. “Little slugabed,” she said.

I got to my feet to help her. “I’m sorry.”

“Not at all! You needed your rest. Morah.” Raven looked at her. Morah hadn’t moved from the table where we had sat. Displeasure played along Raven’s mouth, but she said only, “No need to rush to help your old mistress. Run to the kitchens. Annin will need help with the day’s bread.” Once we were alone, she said to me, “Since you’ve been gone, we’ve fallen behind on fulfilling our requests. Go to the printer’s. He has agreed to loan you his press for a few hours.” She slipped a folded piece of paper into my pocket. “Here are the instructions.” Her eyes scanned my face. “Are you well enough? I hate to ask you, but we must make haste.”

“I want to go.” I was eager to feel useful. It was always good to hold the finished documents in my hands. “I want to be outside.” That was true, too. Fresh air had crept into the tavern with Raven like the delicate green tendrils of a vine.

Raven smiled and she tipped my chin up. “That burn is coming along very nicely indeed. Soon you won’t even know it was ever there.”

“Are you sure I should go to the printer’s?”

Raven’s head reared back. She stared. I had never questioned her before.

“I mean,” I said quickly, “it is so soon after my arrest. What if the militia is watching?” I didn’t think that the soldier’s death would be traced back to me, but I worried.

Her lips thinned. “Are you afraid? Remember: there are people who need our help.”

“I know.” I felt haunted by the heliographs I had dropped into the cistern the night of the Elysium and later retrieved. I had given them to Raven, but I kept seeing the faces, especially those of the children. I wanted them to have the chance to grow up beyond the wall.

“Risk is part of what we do,” Raven said.