Someone was watering the tree.

Carefully, as soundlessly as I could, I shifted to peer down through the branches.

The man emptied his tin watering can. It thumped hollowly against his thigh as he walked away, the smell of wet earth strong in the air. His red robe trailed behind him.

It was a councilman.

35

“HMM,” SID SAID THE NEXT DAY, dipping a thin, buttered slice of toast into the soft yolk of an egg. She had knocked softly at my door before bringing in a tray with breakfast for both of us: soft-boiled eggs encased in pale blue shells, pink pastries clouded with cream piped between wispy wafers, spongy pancakes dotted with holes and sopping with butter, a dish of amethyst-colored jam, a lily-yellow pot filled to the brim with steaming black liquid that scalded my tongue and made my heart race. “A councilman.” Sid squinted as she stared from our little table on the balcony out over the bright sea. I had slept until midday. The sun was high. It honeyed Sid’s skin and made the freckle beneath her eye stand out like a star. In this light, I could see other, fainter freckles on her cheekbones, and even one near her upper lip. She sipped the hot black drink. The sun shone through her peacock-blue porcelain cup.

She caught me staring and held out her cup for me to drink from it, even though my own full cup remained untouched after my first sip. I refused. “You don’t like it?” she said.

“So bitter.”

“It’s coffee, imported from the east. I always travel with my own supply. I adore it. Tea tastes like water to me, and coffee from anywhere else in the world is truly inferior. Here.” She uncovered a little jar shaped like an Elysium bird nesting on golden eggs. The bird’s back was a lid that revealed sugar molded into hearts. I had never seen so much sugar. I resisted the temptation to sneak the whole jar into my pocket. Sid dropped one sugar heart into her cup, then looked at me, considering, and dropped in two more. She offered the cup again. “You said you like sweet things.”

I was surprised she remembered. I didn’t think any amount of sugar could make me like the coffee, but I wanted to drink from Sid’s cup. I wanted to put my mouth where hers had been. I tried the coffee again, and made a face.

“Still too bitter?” she said.

I handed the cup back, but she said, “Now it’s too sweet for me,” and chucked the cup’s contents off the balcony. She laughed at my gasp.

“You can’t just do that,” I said. “You could have burned someone below.”

“I heard no scream.” She was impishly delighted by my moral outrage.

“Sid.”