The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(31)

Tell me, the girl said. Do I grow up happy?

It seemed wrong to lie and cruel to tell the truth. I said, Not everyone needs to be happy.

Her firm mouth flattened to a line. She said, Yes, they do.

I was going to say that she was a child and so could not possibly understand how the world gets in the way of happiness. I was going to say that hoping to be happy is a kind of greed. It should be enough to feel safe.

But as I started to speak, I realized that I no longer believed this.

It did not matter, however, what I thought or wanted to say, because I was pulled abruptly from the dream.

A hand yanked me awake, ripping the hair from my head.





21


I CRIED OUT, REACHING UP to grab a strong wrist and firm fingers, trying to slacken the hold on my hair.

“Finally awake, are you.” Raven released me.

“I’m so sorry,” I gasped. I felt sick with guilt. I had been caught. She had seen me somehow, going through the wall’s gate. She knew—

“Where is it?”

My trembling hands tried to smooth my hair. I glanced up at the ceiling where my passport nestled in the crack alongside a beam. “I—I—” I tried to scrape together the right words to tell Raven the truth but in a way she would accept. Of course she was upset. I had betrayed her, I had touched her things without asking …

“Speak, damn the gods.” Strands of my black hair trailed from her lifted hand. “Where is the heliograph?”

All the words I had been trying to find floated away. “Do you mean … my heliograph?”

“My heliograph, you stupid girl.”

I blinked back sudden, hot tears. She had never called me that. “The picture of you? With the ones I hid in the cistern the night of the Elysium? I got them back. I gave them to you.”

“No. You gave me a stack of heliographs that I did not count and did not even look at until now, because I trusted you.”

Dread swelled inside me. “It’s lost?”

“You lost it.”

“It can be replaced.” I was shaken by her fury, unsure why this mistake was unforgivable. I wasn’t thinking straight. I couldn’t see the true problem. “We can make another one.”

“Don’t you think I know that? I’m not worried about it being lost. I’m worried about it being found.”

There was a horrible silence as we both thought about what would happen if the militia discovered a heliograph in the Ward the exact shape and size of a passport image. They would find the face that matched the image. They would ask questions. Tithes would be taken.

“I must have missed it when I searched the cistern,” I said, hoping it was true. “It must still be there.”

Raven lowered her hand, shaking it free of the strands of my hair. “Get it. Make this right.”



* * *



But it wasn’t there.

This time I didn’t even notice my fear of heights, I was already so afraid. I plunged my hands again and again into the cistern, swiping my fingers along the slimy bottom, the water up to my shoulders, splashing my chin. I had scoured the ground below, ignoring the curiosity of passersby, some of whom stopped to gape when I began to climb the gutter pipe. I had peered carefully through the greenery of indi vines as I climbed. I had paced the entire roof, staring down at its plastered surface. I had dug dead vegetation crisped by the sun out of the gutter.

Nothing.

I stared out at the vast city. At its edges twinkled the green-blue sea. Sunshine poured down on my hot head and jeweled the water dripping from me.

Maybe the heliograph had snagged somehow on the coat I had been wearing. Maybe it was still embedded its collar.

Raven’s coat.

Which had been taken from me by the militiamen.

I placed a wet palm on my face.

If I had bothered to look, really look at the heliographs when I collected them from the cistern, I would have known right away that one was missing. I would have known exactly which one.

How could I have been so careless? The heliograph was gone. Raven would be so angry.

What do you do when you can’t make something right?

When you know you won’t be forgiven?

You lie.



* * *



“This is why you’re here?” Aden’s brow wrinkled with unmistakable hurt and offense. I quickly saw the need to repair the situation, but before I could speak he stated what I should have realized before I brought my problem to him. “I was sick with worry,” he said. “You disappeared. Then I hear that you were released from prison and back at the tavern for two days. You didn’t even spare a thought for me, did you? I began to think you’d never come by.”

I felt a prickle of irritation. He could have come to me.

I wouldn’t have had such a thought even a few days ago. Instead I would have felt rightly accused. I would have felt the truth of it: I hadn’t thought about him, not at all, and he was so sincerely wounded that I would have assumed this must mean I had done something wrong. I would have rushed to apologize.

Which is in fact what I decided to do, because I would get nowhere with him otherwise.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He softened. “I shouldn’t have waited,” he said. “I should have come to the tavern. I guess I was too proud.”