The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(4)

Vinegar, Raven said. Lemon juice.

It was magic, to see the ink disintegrate.

I thought: I wish.

How easy. Everything done became undone. If I didn’t want to see something, I had the power to make it go away.

Show me more, I told Raven, and when she showed me all she knew, I asked for different kinds of paper, different kinds of ink. It took her a while to procure them. Such things are a luxury in the Ward. A Half Kith possessed paper and ink only to produce something worth selling beyond the wall, such as a printed book. Paper and ink were not for our own use. But Raven smiled when she gave them to me, and nodded with approval when I experimented with them in my room. I became very good at making ink vanish.

Nirrim, she said one day. What you are doing is a secret. You cannot tell anyone.

Who would I tell? I said. Raven had made clear to the Ward that I was under her protection, which meant that no one troubled me when I walked in the streets, but it also meant that few were friendly with me.

Ever, she said. This is our secret.

I agreed. I was twelve, then. It was my name day. My first name day was perhaps a year after I had been left at the orphanage as a new infant, small and large eyed. I seemed no different from the other infants who arrived and grew and sometimes died. A fever. A fading. Thinning down to the bones for no reason I knew besides neglect. But a year of life meant stubbornness, a will that had to be acknowledged, so the headmistress decided I was likely to live and therefore should be named the word that had been pinned to my swaddling cloths when I was abandoned: Nirrim, a type of cloud that is rosy, lined with gold, and predicts good fortune.

For your name day, Raven said, I would like to teach you something new.

What is it? I said. I liked being good at what she asked me to do. It pleased her. It made me feel safe.

To be quiet, she said. We were alone in the kitchen, seated at the table, which was pale from age and scored by knives. I was sucking a sugar cube she had given me. I shifted the cube into my cheek so that I could speak.

I can be quiet, I said.

I know, my girl. She tucked a lock of my chin-length hair into my cap. She said, But you can become even better at it. You could become the best. And if you do, I can teach you other things.

What kind of things?

Ah, she said. I cannot tell you yet.

What do I need to do? I asked. The sweetness of the sugar drizzled down my throat. The sharp edges of the cube dissolved against my gums.

We will start with something small, she said.

All right.

She said, Put your hand on the floor, palm down.

I did. I had to get down on my hands and knees to do it the way she wanted: palm fully flat, the fingers spread. The sugar cube had dissolved. My mouth was full of sweetness.

She got out of her chair, and I was confused. I thought that she would leave me in the kitchen, perhaps for hours on end, that solitude would be how she would teach me silence. But she did not leave. She positioned her chair so that the tip of one leg rested on the web between my thumb and index finger. It didn’t hurt, but I saw right away how it soon would.

Now, my girl, not a sound.

She lowered her weight onto the chair.





5


ON THE DAY THE ELYSIUM BIRD came to the Ward, Raven sent me on an errand. She had me tuck a printed bread into a muslin drawstring bag that had been deftly embroidered by Annin to display the tavern’s insignia: a lit oil lamp. Raven buttoned the top button of my coat, which was her coat and made with cloth finer than anything I owned, but its dark brown was discreet enough for a Half Kith to wear. “There will be a lot of nonsense in the streets,” she said, “what with this wind and the festival and that godsforsaken bird. You keep your head.”

“But Annin.”

“Annin! She is made of dreams, that one.”

“She wants the bird.”

“She’d get herself killed going after it. You think I will let her out of my sight? I’ll tie her up if I have to.”

I nodded, but I felt a small sadness. I remembered Annin when she first came here. She was careless. She let food burn on the stove. She forgot to change the sheets of a paying guest, a Middling merchant. I once found Annin asleep in the kitchen, head pillowed on her arms at the table, knife nearby, onion skins floating to the floor, sandal untied. I brushed the dark reddish hair away from her face. Soft round cheeks. A doll’s face. She drooled a little: a wet shine on her mouth. I knelt beside her and tied her sandal.

“Bring me back something nice.” Raven patted my cheek. She gave me a little push, and I was gone.



* * *



When an ice wind comes to the city, indi flowers freeze along the white walls. Purple enameled petals chatter in the wind. Then the cold snap passes. Petals melt and fall from their stems. New flowers grow, fluffy and thick. I love the flowers. They are so strong. Really, they are a weed, and destructive. The vines cannot easily be ripped out. They must be chopped. Over time, they can crack and crumble a wall. But I love them for that, too.

The Ward is a puzzle of skinny streets that turn an ice wind into pure malice. A wind will gust through tall buildings, kick sand in your eyes, freeze your fingers into claws. They say more murders happen during an ice wind. Maybe it’s because of the cold, but I think it’s because the cold is temporary. People get the sense that everything is, and that there are no consequences.

I passed members of the militia, usually in pairs, men stiff in their starched red uniforms, a stripe of dark blue across the chest to indicate their Middling kith. I kept my head down.