“Fine,” she gasped. “You’re a bad person, then. The worst. A piece of garbage, a rat who kills children, and . . . and no one will ever love you.”

The man staggered back, dropping her. Ai Ling had struck at something the assassin believed already, tripling her Hallow’s power. She stared up at him from the ground, tears of pity pooling in her wide-spaced eyes. But she wiped her cheeks and plowed on. “Admit it. No one cares about you. The people who say they do are lying, probably. So why go through all this trouble, when you’re going to die alone? You don’t want to be here.” She glanced at Dayo, who stood frozen and vulnerable behind her. Then she turned back to the intruder and delivered the death blow. “I think . . . you don’t want to be anywhere.”

Then the whole room watched, dumbstruck, as the assassin nodded, sobbed . . . and plunged the knife into his own stomach.

The next day, Dayo anointed Ai Ling into his council. We had celebrated with a party, but from then on, the other candidates had shivered at the sight of her, covering their ears with whispers of eviltongue and murmurwitch.

“While we’re confessing morbid secrets,” Ai Ling told me airily, hair feathered out against the tasseled pillows as she reclined. “I had sex for the first time in a tent just like this one.”

“Oh.” A piece of braised goat froze on its way to my mouth. “Really? But—when? With whom?” I knew many council siblings had dalliances. But we were constantly together, and our schedules had always been so strict. When would Ai Ling have snuck away for an affair?

“Our last year in the Children’s Palace.” She stared up at the sky-blue canvas, rolling a tassel thread hard between her fingers until her skin turned white. “His name was Omar. He wasn’t a candidate—just one of the temple boys who helped the griot priests during catechism. Goofy smile. Training to be a priest for the Wing, sworn to purity and all that. Anyway, I was impressed, and before we knew it . . . we were sneaking down to the gardens after dark. The sex was boring, really. Messy at first. And painful when he didn’t do it right. Mostly, I did it to feel like the empire didn’t own me. But I liked him a lot. He smelled too sweet, but in a good way, like incense. And I liked”—she ripped the thread from its tassel—“I liked that he called me silvertongue instead of murmurwitch. We got caught, of course. It’s not hard to follow a boy who sneaks through the palace gates every night. But when the priests found us in the act, Omar . . . He shoved me away. Shook himself off, and shuddered like I was—was some dirty animal.” She gave a hoarse little laugh. “Then he said I forced him to do it.”

I gasped. “Ai Ling. The bastard.”