The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(43)

“You’re prancing around the Ward like you’re that lady’s pet.” His blue eyes were bright with disgust. “Everyone’s been talking.”

“It’s a job. I’m her escort.”

“I don’t care how she’s dressed. She’s not High. She’s not even Herrath. A traveler, they say. Maybe so, maybe there are other countries across the sea, but if she is from one of them all that means is that she can tell whatever lies she likes and her countrymen aren’t here to prove her wrong.”

“She paid,” I said. “In gold coins.”

“So what? People fake their kith all the time. You know that. You help them do that. Gold coins and a fancy dress and a fancy attitude don’t mean anything.”

“Why are you so angry? This has nothing to do with you.”

“I don’t like how she looks.”

“She can’t help being born High Kith any more than we can help being born Half Kith.”

He snorted. “If you don’t see what I mean, then maybe it’s for the best.”

But I did see what he meant. He could have meant that she looked foreign, but there was another possible meaning to his words. I became uncomfortably aware of all the times Sid had mentioned being with women. I knew what she was. Did Aden somehow know, too?

Was it something you could see on a person’s face?

I felt myself flush. “Did you come find me just because the Ward is gossiping and you wanted to yell at me about a bored foreigner with money to spend?”

“I came here for you. I came because I care about you.” He took my shoulders in his large hands.

I stepped back.

“Nirrim, did you hunt the Elysium the night you were arrested?”

Raven had said we should keep what had happened with the Elysium secret. “No, of course not.”

“A soldier died that night.”

Dread crept through my belly. “So?”

“The militia think it wasn’t an accident. They think it was murder.”

I glanced across the street to where Sid waited, her right hand at her waist. I said, “That has nothing to do with me.”

“Except that Annin said you caught the bird and turned it in.”

“Why did you ask me a question you knew the answer to?”

“Why did you lie? You lied to me, Nirrim.” His expression grew wounded. I felt instantly guilty but also angry, because he wanted me to feel guilty, and his question had never been a question. It had been a test.

He said, “My friend Darin saw a girl climbing to the roof to catch the bird. The soldier climbed after her.”

I felt instantly cold despite the heat.

“He described her to me,” Aden said. “He said it was you.”

“She wasn’t me,” I whispered.

“She kicked the soldier to his death.”

“I didn’t.”

“The militia found black hair stuck to the building’s fresh paint. Like yours.”

I remembered how, that night, a lock of my hair had gotten matted with paint. “Lots of people have black hair. It’s common.” But my voice trembled.

Aden touched my cheek. His hands fell to my shoulders again, and this time I allowed it. I had no choice. I let him pull me into his arms.

“You lied to me because you were afraid,” he said.

I was afraid. I was afraid of him. He could so easily ruin my life.

“You don’t need to be,” he said. “I told Darin not to talk about what he saw. I’ll protect you.” I looked up at him. He brushed the hair from my face. “I love you,” he said. He kissed my cold mouth.

“I love you, too,” I said, because there was nothing else I could say.

He let me go then, reassured, the anxiety that had been sparking all around him soothed now into satisfaction. He glanced across the street at Sid with something like disdain, or disinterest, or pity, before he kissed me again, deeply, and left, promising to come to the tavern as soon as he could.

When I walked toward Sid, I saw that her hand was on the hilt of a large knife I had never noticed before. It seemed to be belted beneath her dress, hidden under the fabric, its hilt now showing through a slit in the side. Sid shifted her hand and the dagger disappeared again beneath the fabric. Her expression was neutral yet closed. Everything felt huge inside me. I wanted to explain everything that had happened with Aden. I wanted it to spill out like a confession, like milk from a broken jug. But then I remembered Aden suggesting that Sid was faking her kith, and even though I didn’t care if she was faking it, not exactly, I became frighteningly aware of how little I knew about her.

Aden, at least, I knew. Aden, I could trust.

What would Sid think, if she knew I had killed someone?

What would she do?

“I suppose that’s your sweetheart.” Sid’s voice was cool.

“No.”

“Ah, Nirrim. It’s never wise to lie when no one will believe you.”





27


“WHY DON’T YOU LEAD ME to the red paint you found,” Sid said, “beneath the coat of white.” Her voice sounded friendly enough, but too perfectly calibrated to be truly friendly. She was like that the whole way to the building, commenting on the surprising charm of the Ward. “Not bad, for a prison,” she said.