I took the yellow pot and poured all of its coffee out over the balcony.

“That was cruel, Nirrim.”

“Answer at least some of my questions.”

“Listen.” She turned serious. “I always pay my debts. I have plenty of money. My family is swimming in it. That card … gets me some necessary respect. Should I have the card? Debatable. Should I use it? Definitely not, and doing so will definitely catch up with me. But money isn’t enough here. You know that. Class matters. Gold isn’t going to get us into that party tonight. Prestige will. My association with the queen will.”

“You said you work for her.”

“Worked.”

“What did you do?”

“If I tell you, will you trust me, and stop thinking that I’m a horrible person out to cheat people of their honest work?”

“How will I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You will have to trust me.”

“You are asking me to trust you in order to trust you.”

“I am asking you to trust yourself. To believe in your instincts. Do you think I am a horrible person?”

I looked at Sid: her skin was amber in the sunlight, her few freckles stark, her eyes worried in a way I had never seen before. It meant something to her, I realized: what I thought of her. I looked at the breakfast, at all the sweet things she hadn’t touched, which she had cooked or fetched while I was sleeping, and which must have been for me alone. “No,” I said. “I think you have a good heart.”

“Well, we don’t have to go that far.”

“Tell me what you did for her,” I said, “and I’ll believe you. For now.”

“I thought I wanted you to trust me, but I confess that now I am enchanted by this new, suspicious side of you. It makes me feel like I had better live up to your expectations of me or I will be in really big trouble.”

“Sid.”

“Nirrim, I was her spy.”

I stared.

“Why is that so surprising?” she said. “Kings and queens have spies. It is common knowledge. How else does one run a country?”

“I don’t think spies admit they are spies.”

“Ex-spy.”

“I don’t think spies reveal the identity of their spymasters.”

“Well, really, who else would it be? The king is too noble. The queen, however, is perfectly willing to get her hands dirty. Everyone knows she is the mastermind of the monarchy. It’s an open secret. Really, the queen wants her people and foreign dignitaries to know exactly what she is. It makes them wary of her.”

“You told me you ran her errands.”