The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(71)

I was startled to hear these words coming from the mouth of a High Kith, uttered in that same blank tone I had heard Morah use, and Annin, and even myself. I had always assumed that only people behind the wall talked like that, and that everyone who lived beyond it had the answers to all our questions, just like they had everything else, even the ability to defy age.

“It is as it is,” said Madame Mere, settling her empty cup in its saucer.

But nothing is as it is. Everything comes from something. There is nothing and no one without a past. I thought about the fortune-telling tree. It had not always been a tree. Once, it had been a sapling that threaded greenly out of the dirt. Once, it had been a seed.

“I don’t believe you,” I told Madame Mere, not because I thought she was lying, but because I wasn’t sure that anyone in Ethin knew the truth.



* * *



Sid looked tired when I returned to the house. She wore a marigold silk dress as she busied herself in the kitchen, taking no care to protect the delicate cloth from the oil she rubbed into a shank of lamb, or the spices she liberally shook all over it, or the fresh red currants she plucked from their frail stems. It was as if she secretly—or not so secretly—wished to ruin the dress. Her face was drawn and unhappy, her eyes avoiding mine.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“Upholding my end of our bargain.”

“Oh.” She looked at her oiled hands, at the mess on the table.

“You left the house first,” I pointed out, since she seemed inexplicably dissatisfied with my answer. “Why are you wearing that?”

She looked down at the stained dress. Her mouth curled in distaste. “I thought I should.”

“Why?”

“‘Why?’” she repeated. “You are asking none of the questions I thought you would.”

But I didn’t want to talk about last night. I didn’t want to talk about how the only way I’d been able to sleep was to keep my hands beneath my pillow, so that I wouldn’t be tempted to touch myself, which would only remind me of how I wanted her hands, not mine.

She said, “I am wearing this dress because I thought it would be an appropriate choice when I attempted to use my status to get into the Keepers Hall.”

“It didn’t work,” I guessed, based on her general mood.

“No.” She glanced again at the seasoned meat. “There’s only enough for one.”

Affronted, I said, “I don’t expect you to cook for me.”

“I mean, we will have to share.” She looked up at me. “I thought you weren’t coming back. I found the house empty when I returned. I thought you had left for good.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“But I will.”

“I know you will.”

She got very quiet. “I didn’t like the thought that you had left. I was afraid I had made you go.”

“But I’m here,” I said. “You are here.”

“For now.”

“Everything is for now,” I said, and didn’t know how to explain to her the feeling I had always lived with, which was as old as the memory of the cold orphanage box: that anything could be taken from me at any time. I said, “We want the same thing.”

“Do we?”

“We want answers,” I said, because it was true but also because I wanted to turn the conversation to the reason we were in this house together to begin with, and away from last night and her rejection, which she seemed to be trying to explain, with an awkwardness unlike herself, and which I didn’t feel needed any more explanation. Things were clear. She would regret taking me to bed. She was trying to explain that anything between us would bring me pain, because she was not someone who stayed. That she cared about me, which I could see, plain on her worried face, and which was a bitter comfort. I didn’t want her to worry. I put my hand on her oiled and bloodied one, the grit of the spices and salt like sand against my skin. “I haven’t changed my mind,” I said. She looked at me, and I faltered, because I didn’t want last night to happen all over again, to ask for what she didn’t want to give, or to think about how her wet mouth had skimmed my neck. I said, my voice clear, “I haven’t changed my mind about our plan.”

She nodded. “All right.”

“And I have some information for you.”

She lifted a brow. She looked more like herself. “Do you?”

“Doesn’t it embarrass you to find that a lowly underling has discovered something a queen’s spy hasn’t?”

“You are not a lowly underling.”

“Dodging the question as always, I see, which must mean that I am right.”

“You are wrong. I am not embarrassed.” Sid turned her hand, which lay beneath mine, and held my fingers. “I am impressed. But not surprised.”

“Why aren’t you surprised?”

“You’re resourceful. Strong.”

“Resourceful…,” I said. “Maybe. Strong?” I shook my head. “Sometimes I miss the wall. I miss being behind it.” I knew it wasn’t safe there, but it was my home. Even an unsafe home can feel safe.

“But you’re not behind it,” Sid said. “You’re here. You are at risk, so much more than I am, yet you keep risking yourself. I wish you could see yourself like I see you.”