The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(53)

Sid didn’t like that. “We didn’t discuss payment.”

“Well, now I come at a price.”

“Fine,” Sid said. “Service rendered deserves fair pay. But I have hired you, not your mistress.”

“It’s one and the same. I would give everything to Raven anyway.”

Raven gave me a tiny, proud smile. Sid looked furious. Her eyes were black fire. She reached inside her jacket, pulled a small leather purse from an inner pocket, and handed it to Raven. I could see the rich luster of gold peeking from the purse when Raven opened it. Her face grew peaceful for a moment, then almost instantly tight and worried again. “That’s all?” she said. “For a whole month?”

“I’ll give you twice that,” Sid said. “You’ll receive the second half upon her return to the tavern.”

“Oh, I know how it will be,” Raven muttered to me. “She will turn you against me. You will never come home. I know this woman’s ways. I see what she wants. She will keep you for herself.”

“I will do no such thing.” Sid sounded disgusted.

“One day I will be gone,” Raven said to me, “and you will remember this. You never forget anything. You will remember how I begged and you abandoned me.”

“Oh, please,” Sid said.

“You’re heartless,” I told her.

“Thank the gods I am.” She offered more gold. “Here. For your pains.”

Raven took the money and folded her hand quickly around it, probably because the offer shamed her even though she needed it. “Well.” Raven gave me a brave little smile. “I suppose I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“It’s only for a little while,” I promised.

Raven nodded slowly to herself, but she looked so much older, with a quiver to her chin. She got to her feet unsteadily, patted my cheek, and shuffled from the room. When she had gone, Sid took one look at my face and said impatiently, “For gods’ sake. It’s not like she is going to die without you.”

“It’s hard for her to give me up. She loves me.”

“She sold you,” Sid snapped. I said nothing in reply, because it was clear that she didn’t understand, and didn’t want to.



* * *



“I am so jealous,” Annin said. She had burst into my room telling me that she wanted to help me pack, then looked at my clothes and told me that if I took them with me she would kill me, they were so impoverished of any beauty, any joy, any life.

“I wear them every day,” I said.

“Not one day more! You can’t wear this in the High quarter. You would look like a stillborn mouse. Like a sick wren. Like an old woman! Like Sirah the rain-sayer. Please, Nirrim. For my sake. Promise that you will wear gorgeous clothes and think of me. Your mistress will give them to you. She is so kind.”

“Is she?” I wondered out loud, remembering how cold she had been to Raven.

“Of course! Look.” From her pocket Annin pulled the pink lace scarf I had seen earlier in Sid’s trunk.

“Oh,” I said.

“Don’t you think it’s beautiful?”

Sid barely knew Annin, yet she had given a gift perfectly suited to please her. I felt an unpleasant, jealous twinge. I looked into Annin’s eager, pretty face. “You can’t wear it,” I told her. “It’s High.”

Her face fell a little, but she just stroked the scarf and said, “I can wear it in my room.”

“What’s the point if no one will see you?”

“I will see.”

“You don’t have a mirror.”

“I will know I am wearing it,” she insisted, clutching the scarf, and it reminded me of the rag I had cherished once, the one from Helin’s dress. I brushed a loose tendril out of Annin’s face. “You’re right,” I said. “Of course you will. It’s the perfect color for you.”

She beamed. “Isn’t it?”

I removed two dresses from my wardrobe, a sleeveless one for hot weather, and one for cooler weather, just in case an ice wind came. The dresses were made of good, sturdy cloth—a little rough, and in shades of taupe and dark brown, but I was used to them, and I didn’t want to have to ask Sid for anything.

“Nirrim, no. They make you look like you’ve been molded out of clay!”

“They suit me.” I folded them into a large satchel.

She blew out a wistful breath. “I wish I were going.”

I looked up in surprise from my task, though I shouldn’t have been surprised, because I had always believed that out of all of us who worked in the tavern, she wanted the impossible the most. Maybe what surprised me was that it had turned out that I was the one. I had wanted the impossible—to go into the High quarter—and I was getting it. And it wasn’t the only impossible thing I wanted. Maybe what made me pause was the realization that wanting one impossible thing and achieving it is only a little satisfying, because then you are encouraged to want more. I touched the Elysium feather hidden above my heart. I remembered how I had wondered whether the feather drew me to Sid, or Sid to me.

“I want you to have something,” I told Annin, and withdrew the feather from my dress.

She gasped. “Is that—?”