The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(27)

A sea of tents and stands clustered together in a labyrinth just beyond the gate. I felt small and easily lost, like a bead dropped to a cluttered floor. Lamps with stained glass in Middling shades of blue swung from ropes that zigzagged overhead. Middlings cried their wares.

Tables were heaped with fruit whose names I did not know. I had never seen their shapes. A woman near me, wearing a dress with a bit of embroidery on the sleeves that marked her as Middling, touched a yellow fruit and smelled it, so I dared to do the same to one with a satiny purple surface that dented beneath my thumb. It smelled dusky and tangy.

“Mind your kith,” the fruit seller said.

I quickly set the fruit down.

“Perrins are not for the likes of you,” he said. “You know as well as I do that no Middling can eat these. Unless you work for a family in the High quarter and have a writ to prove you’re shopping for their kitchens, you have no business even touching this fruit.”

“I’m sorry. Please—”

“Ah, child.” He smiled a little. “I don’t blame you for being curious. I can’t eat a perrin, either. Now, these are perfectly ripe and just your kith.” He gestured at the pile of yellow, oblong fruits that the Middling woman in the embroidered dress had been examining, but I darted away.

There were bolts of cloth whose shades I had never seen, piles of rugs whose intricate patterns overwhelmed my sight. I felt dizzy, like I might lose my way looking at the twists and turns of the woven designs.

I recognized Ward-made wares. I was astonished to pass by a stall laden with children’s wooden toys and to see their labeled price. I knew the woman in the Ward who made those. She likely received no more than the barest fraction of the marked price.

At first I worried that someone would look closely and question the coat I wore, or would somehow be able to guess I wasn’t the right kith. But everyone was preoccupied with selling and buying. The streets here, I could tell, were newer than in the Ward. The cobblestones were not as worn as behind the wall. At the outskirts of the market square I saw a rank of buildings, higher than anything in the Ward, with diamond-paned windows, flower-twisted balconies, and peaked roofs shingled in dusty red ceramic tiles. My nerves settled somewhat as I walked, and I gave myself over to fascination. If this was how the Middling quarter looked, what would it be like where the High Kith lived?

The city rippled up over the gentle hills around me, a dense patchwork of stone and brick and green vines and, far away, in the High quarter, kaleidoscopic colored glass and the gloss of marble shining in light cast by pink lanterns.

Ethin was vast.

I realized, in the crush of people, that it had been foolish even to hope that I might find Sid. Still, I retraced my steps to the fruit seller, who had seemed kind.

“Oh, you again,” he said, friendly enough. “The shy girl in the boy’s coat. I thought I had scared you off.”

“I wonder,” I said, “if you can help me. I’m looking for someone.”

He lifted his brows. “A merchant?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t think so.”

“Your sweetheart?”

I flushed. “No.”

His smile became wise. “I know that look on your face. Go on. Describe him.”

“Her.” When he seemed surprised, I added, “She’s a friend,” though the word felt like it didn’t fit. “She’s my age, I think.”

His brow crinkled. “She’s your friend, and you don’t know her age?”

“About my height, but a little taller. Large, black eyes. Her hair is short, cut like a boy’s, light brown, maybe, or dark gold.”

“No one looks like that.”

“She’s a traveler.”

He shook his head. “Those are just rumors. There are no travelers. There is nothing beyond the sea.”

I started to argue with him, but a Middling woman in dark green trousers and a green tunic edged with a finger’s-width of lace approached and produced a writ fragrant with perfume and latticed with elegant handwriting. The purse that dangled from her wrist was heavy. He immediately turned his attention to her. I left the stand, and wandered.

“Dreams!” someone called. “Dreams for sale!”

I traced the cry to a booth densely surrounded by people.

“Your most deeply held desire! Or a dream of flight? A sweet cat-nap for the timid! A nightmare for the brave! One vial of dream vial for one hundred god-crowns.”

“Who would buy a nightmare?” I murmured to myself.

“They would,” said a voice behind me.

I turned to see a boy, a Middling child whose dark head barely reached my shoulder. His light eyes looked up into mine, then flicked left. I followed his gaze to see two young men approaching the stall.

High Kith. One wore close-fitting trousers in Elysium crimson; the other’s hand flashed with a large emerald ring. Though I was far away, I could tell that his ear glinted with more jewels, and his black hair gleamed with intricate braids. Even if the men’s dress hadn’t marked their kith, their expressions would have made it obvious: the dreamy disdain as they made their way through the Middling crowd, the manner in which people stepped to the side to let them pass, as though each person in the crowd were a pleat on a fan rapidly folded. Faded amusement floated across the expressions of the High-Kith men.