The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(91)

Her expression changed, losing its hesitation. She reached for me, her lips touching my tears. “Don’t cry,” she said. “Come with me.”

I went still. I drew slightly back.

“Won’t you?” she said.

“What would I be there? A servant to the princess?”

“No,” she said with a flash of frustration. “Have I ever treated you like one?”

“Then what?”

“My…” Her frustration grew as I saw that she didn’t have any ready words to answer me. “My honored guest.”

“Everyone will know exactly what we are.”

“Let them. I want them to.”

“So I would be there as your lover.”

“Yes.” Her voice was firm.

“In a country I have never seen.”

“Herran is beautiful. You will love it as I do.”

“I don’t know the language.”

“Your memory will help you. You will learn quickly.”

“Your parents want you to marry a man. They won’t want me there.”

“I want you.”

“I will have no place. I will know no one and nothing. I will have nothing to call mine.”

“You will have me.”

My eyes were dry now. They ached. I stepped away. Her hands fell from me, and she lifted her stubborn chin. She said, “You owe me a yes.”

“No,” I said. “I can’t.”

“Why?” she demanded. “You have been treated terribly here. One way or another, you have lived your life imprisoned. The people who should protect and care for you have failed you. I will never do that.”

“Won’t you? What will you do when your parents pressure you to marry?”

She hesitated, then said, “I will refuse.”

She had reckoned with the lies she had told me, but even now I am not sure if she recognized the lies she told herself. You will change your mind, I thought. You have other loyalties.

As I do, I thought reluctantly.

“I think all the magic is coming from the Ward,” I said. “I think the Council milks Half-Kith bodies of powers people don’t even know they have. The children who have gone missing, where are they? Dead? Kept like calves in stalls, forced to give their blood? I told you I would find a way to give magic back to the Ward. I am going to keep my promise.”

Helplessly, she said, “It’s not your duty to change the world. It’s dangerous to try.”

You are dangerous.

“Be with me,” she said.

Slowly, I shook my head at the impossibility of it, at the sure future I had seen written on the tree bark’s inner skin. I saw how alone and friendless I would be in Sid’s country. I would be her novelty. She loved me now. How long would it be before she grew tired of me, before she left me like she had left her own country, like she was leaving mine now, like she had left the Ward after one day when she had said she would stay three? I saw myself: abandoned in a land with unfamiliar birdsong, whose city never became suddenly encased in ice, where they did not salt bread, where I would never taste honey made by sea bees. I would hear the alien tones of a language I didn’t know, and miss Morah’s wisdom, Annin’s hope, my only sisters. I would know no one there except Sid. I would depend on her for everything.

Her voice small, she asked, “Do you not love me like I love you? Won’t you come with me?”

Yes, I thought. I love my blithe scoundrel. I love your good heart.

“No,” I said. “I can’t come with you.”

“Oh,” she said, the sound low and blunt. I realized I had unintentionally done to her what she had done to me so many times, which was to tell a misleading truth. She had asked two questions, I had answered one, and she thought my answer served for both.

“I see,” she said.

“Sid,” I said, and would have explained, but she lifted a hand to stop me.

She said, “An apology will make it worse.”

“I don’t want to apologize.”

“Good. There is no need.”

Then she left, quickly, even as I called her name, then stopped calling. I did not, in the end, want to share the truth, because the words of love inside me felt like the only part of her that could ever remain mine.



* * *



Night fell. There was no moon. The stars were painfully bright.

I stood on the balcony, looking at the harbor, the sea.

It was too dark to see her ship set sail.





50


MADAME MERE SHOWED DISCOMFORT at my request, but she was tempted when I promised her a rare elixir. “I haven’t seen it used at any party.” I offered the dressmaker the little stoppered vial I had won at Pantheon. This time, it was filled with my own watered-down blood. I’d had to guess at the ratio of blood to water. “I don’t know how strong it is.”

“What will it do?”

“It will make you remember something you have forgotten.”

She gave the vial a wary glance, but curiosity eventually stole over her features. “Indeed, I have never heard of such an elixir,” she said. “Fascinating.” Her hand claimed the vial. She gave me the address, then said, “Councilmen have been asking about a girl who looks like you.”