She squinted. The skin covering her missing eye was as wrinkled as a fig’s. “Six days.”

“Will someone have caught the bird by then?”

“Child, I only do the rain. No birds. Six days. It doesn’t happen at night. I feel it in my bones.”

She was never wrong. “I’ll plan to stay inside, then, and bake another loaf of bread for you.”

She smiled back at me, showing her missing teeth. I thought she’d lost them through age, not as a tithe, but I never knew for sure.

A vine of icy flowers hung over Aden’s door. When he opened it, they chimed like a shopkeeper’s quiet bell. He gave me a cocky smile and made a silent game of tugging at my coat sleeve to pull me indoors. This was in case the militia was watching us. They would see us not as criminals, but as lovers catching a moment for themselves before the night’s festivities truly got underway. I smiled back, ready to kiss his offered cheek. He turned at the last moment and caught my lips with his.

“Aden!”

He pulled away. He was a full head taller. I didn’t raise my eyes but kept my gaze on his tanned throat. His playfulness soured. If I looked up, I’d see his broad mouth thinned, light eyes narrowed. A notch always formed between his brows when he frowned. That would be there, too. He said, “As if you’ve never done it before.”

It was true. We had kissed, and more, but I had put an end to that.

Sometimes I didn’t understand things and felt stupid later. Like how his lovers’ game to protect us from curious eyes hadn’t been a game to him.

“Come inside,” he said.

Normally, during an ice wind, it would be nearly as cold inside a Ward house as outside. Our houses weren’t built for the cold, since it came so rarely. Aden dealt on the black market, which meant that his home had a few comforts others didn’t. A brazier glowed with live coals. Orange light flared against the white, limewashed walls of the first room. Half Kith must keep the walls of their home white, just like they must always wear muted colors. Although some people in the Ward could carve sinuous chairs, shape exquisite sofas, craft tables with minute patterns of inlaid bone, such furnishings were sold to the upper kiths beyond the wall. Everything we owned must be plain.

I handed Aden the bread. He made a pleased sound to see its design: a raptor with talons outstretched. “You made this for me?”

Raven had chosen this masculine image, likely for the same reason I told Aden yes. We wanted to please him. We needed his skills.