“But just in case, I brought this.” She showed him the glass vial.

“What is that for?”

“Watch.” She put Zizi on the ground near the hole so Himil could watch. Cooing gently, she gently grasped Zizi’s stinger from between her tail feathers and hooked it over the lip of the glass vial. Golden venom dripped into the vial until it slowed to nothing. Yuna corked it, pocketed the vial, then placed Zizi into the little hole in the wall.

“There. You may pet her now. It’s safe.”

Himil gently stroked Zizi’s back. Zizi cooed and leaned into a scratch. “Hard to believe something so beautiful can be lethal.”

“Ugly things are lethal too,” Yuna murmured. “Most creatures can be, if you provoke them.”

“You would know, I suppose.”

Yuna startled at his words. Again, with the myth. Yuna was so tired of being the poisonous girl. Of being so unlike the other Silendars, of being considered so very unbeautiful. She’d never done anything to make anyone think she would hurt a mosquito, and yet the stories went on. Zizi noted her tenseness, and fluffed her feathers in anxiousness.

“I’m not poisonous,” Yuna said, nearly hissing.

“No! I meant, I meant . . . you know so much. About the plants and animals on your farm.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, I figured that you weren’t poisonous. My hand didn’t fall off after I touched you.”

“Did you really think it would?”

“I wasn’t sure. I’m not sure what to think when there’s nothing but people saying the same thing all the time.”

“Lies turn into truth when faced with silence,” Yuna said. “Father has told some people the truth, that we’re not poisonous ourselves, but he always said that it helped business to keep the lie going. So I never say anything.”

“Does it help you?” Himil asked.

Yuna was silent—always silent. She was usually too shy to speak to anyone in town, and people avoided her, so it seemed like destiny that she’d live in a void. But the void was so very lonely.

“Well, the truth is out now,” Himil said. “I’ll ruin your father’s business! Except that no one ever listens to survivors of the poxplague, so I guess your business is still safe.”

“Between no one speaking to you, and me not speaking to anyone, we might as well be invisible.”

Himil laughed quietly. It sounded like a warm fire crackling. He reached through the hole to pet Zizi again, and their hands brushed each other as Zizi hopped back to Yuna. “I should go. I’ll get a thrashing if I don’t stoke the night fires soon.”

“So you’re to be a smith someday?” Yuna asked.

“No. Not with this skin, I won’t. I run errands and work as a cook. I like cooking more than forge work anyway.”