“I didn’t say that. Leave me? Oh, my girl.” Raven’s tears returned. She wiped them from her cheeks with the hem of her apron. “You are cruel.”

“Nonsense.” Sid’s voice was crisp. “Nothing can be so dire that a baker can’t leave her place of employment for a month without people languishing.”

“You don’t understand,” I told Sid.

Raven gave me a satisfied smile. Her smile warmed me. It made me feel less nervous. I was still capable of winning her approval, even if I was selfish enough to leave her alone with the task of helping the Half Kith who needed to leave the Ward. “Yes,” she told Sid, “you don’t know what it’s like to scrape by. To make do with so little. You don’t know what it is like to have a business to run, how hard I work for my girls. These hands.” She lifted one. It was gnarled and soft. “I work them to the very bone. With my best girl gone, what will I do?”

Sid rolled her eyes.

Her contempt made me angry. Whatever her life had been like, she had been so spoiled. A mother, a father, a trunk of luxurious clothes, a seemingly endless supply of gold. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend Raven’s situation. “Give Raven my earnings,” I told her.

Sid didn’t like that. “We didn’t discuss payment.”

“Well, now I come at a price.”

“Fine,” Sid said. “Service rendered deserves fair pay. But I have hired you, not your mistress.”

“It’s one and the same. I would give everything to Raven anyway.”

Raven gave me a tiny, proud smile. Sid looked furious. Her eyes were black fire. She reached inside her jacket, pulled a small leather purse from an inner pocket, and handed it to Raven. I could see the rich luster of gold peeking from the purse when Raven opened it. Her face grew peaceful for a moment, then almost instantly tight and worried again. “That’s all?” she said. “For a whole month?”

“I’ll give you twice that,” Sid said. “You’ll receive the second half upon her return to the tavern.”

“Oh, I know how it will be,” Raven muttered to me. “She will turn you against me. You will never come home. I know this woman’s ways. I see what she wants. She will keep you for herself.”

“I will do no such thing.” Sid sounded disgusted.

“One day I will be gone,” Raven said to me, “and you will remember this. You never forget anything. You will remember how I begged and you abandoned me.”

“Oh, please,” Sid said.

“You’re heartless,” I told her.

“Thank the gods I am.” She offered more gold. “Here. For your pains.”