The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(45)

Sid’s mouth had twisted ruefully when she said adore. I asked, “Do you not like the Herrani rulers?”

She shrugged. “They are a problem. They had a chance to remake the world. All they did was reestablish the Herrani monarchy with themselves as the rulers.”

“What are they like?”

“Oh, I don’t really know them.” Thunder rumbled again, louder this time. She looked up and seemed to speak her words toward the sky. “They’re smart. Scary. Benevolent, I guess. Kind to their people. But you definitely don’t want to cross them.”

“It sounds as if you do know them.”

“Well,” she said reluctantly, “I worked for the queen.”

“Really? What did you do?”

“A little bit of this, a little bit of that.”

“Straight answers, Sid.”

“I ran her errands.”

“You don’t seem like a runner of errands.”

“And yet it was so,” Sid said. “The queen’s wish was my command.”

“Did you enjoy working for her?”

“It was interesting work. A good position for someone like me.” But there was a stiffness to the way Sid said it.

“Was it,” I guessed, “something your parents made you do?”

“Yes.” She smiled, a little sadly. “Exactly. Now it’s my turn to question and yours to answer. Tell me, have you told that young man of yours yet that you love him?”

I paused on the cobblestones.

“Why have you stopped?” she asked.

“We’re here.” I crouched by the white wall I had scratched at yesterday. I couldn’t see the red paint anymore.

“A straight answer, Nirrim. As we agreed.”

I ran a hand over the wall. It was perfectly white and smooth. Had I imagined scraping paint off the wall? Had it even happened? I was so confused, and Sid was waiting for an answer that I didn’t want to give. “It’s complicated,” I said.

“Yes or no.”

I wanted to tell her that sometimes you can’t explain one thing without explaining everything. Sometimes an answer is not as easy as yes or no. Sometimes the truth gets lost even as you tell the truth. “Yes,” I said, “but—”

“That’s what I thought.”

Thunder cracked the sky. Rain darted down. It pelted my head, my shoulders. It dropped like pebbles. I knelt before the white wall. I forgot about Aden. Panic grew inside me as I searched for where I had scraped away the white paint. The scratched-off patch was gone.

“Nirrim, what are you doing?”

“It was here.” My voice rose. “The red paint.” I dug at the white wall with my wet nails.

“Stop that,” Sid said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“I swear it was here.” The rain fell harder, blurring my vision. “I’m not making it up.”

“I believe you.”

“Lend me your dagger. I’ll show you. The red paint is there.”

“You don’t have to show me.”

I looked up at her. Rain dripped from her eyelashes. It dripped from her full mouth. It had already soaked her thin dress, darkening its hue. I could see clearly the shape of her narrow body, the little dip of her navel, the rigid outline of the dagger and its leather belt beneath the wet silk. She pulled me to my feet. I was so unprepared for that—or maybe she had tugged harder than she intended—that I wobbled on my feet. I swayed too close to her, to her rain-wet mouth. My hand went to her shoulder. I didn’t mean to do it. It was instinct, to steady myself. For a moment, she allowed the touch, then stepped back. My hand skidded down the sodden, rumpled silk of her arm and fell away.

I had regained my balance, but inside I was still unsteady. My fingers were alive, feeling strangely as though they had brushed against something rough that pricked my skin with splinters of pleasure. I tucked my fingers into my hand. The rain helped the feeling go away.

Her eyes narrowed in what looked like caution. She kept a clear distance between us. She wiped water from her face, and said, “If you say you saw it, it was there.”

“You don’t think I imagined it? You don’t think I’m crazy?”

“No. I think the Ward is hiding something.”





28


THE RAIN STOPPED AND THE sun came out again, but gently, so that the white wall glowed like a slick pearl. We retraced our steps to the tavern. Everything seemed new. The alleys smelled as fresh as clay. The sky was clear. Water dripped brightly from the fragrant indi flowers.

“Someone painted over the wall,” Sid said. “Someone who doesn’t want anyone here to know the Ward’s past. When was the Ward built?”

“I don’t know.”

“I have seen all the quarters of Ethin. The Ward is its oldest section. It is the heart of the rest of the city, which has grown around it like rings around the core of a tree. Why was the wall built?”

I thought at least that answer was obvious. “To keep the Half Kith where we belong.”

“But why?”

“It has always been so.”

“There is no such thing,” she said, “as always. But I suppose it doesn’t matter.” She shrugged. “Sometimes it’s best to let people and cities keep their secrets. It takes so long to ferret them out.”