She got very quiet. “I didn’t like the thought that you had left. I was afraid I had made you go.”

“But I’m here,” I said. “You are here.”

“For now.”

“Everything is for now,” I said, and didn’t know how to explain to her the feeling I had always lived with, which was as old as the memory of the cold orphanage box: that anything could be taken from me at any time. I said, “We want the same thing.”

“Do we?”

“We want answers,” I said, because it was true but also because I wanted to turn the conversation to the reason we were in this house together to begin with, and away from last night and her rejection, which she seemed to be trying to explain, with an awkwardness unlike herself, and which I didn’t feel needed any more explanation. Things were clear. She would regret taking me to bed. She was trying to explain that anything between us would bring me pain, because she was not someone who stayed. That she cared about me, which I could see, plain on her worried face, and which was a bitter comfort. I didn’t want her to worry. I put my hand on her oiled and bloodied one, the grit of the spices and salt like sand against my skin. “I haven’t changed my mind,” I said. She looked at me, and I faltered, because I didn’t want last night to happen all over again, to ask for what she didn’t want to give, or to think about how her wet mouth had skimmed my neck. I said, my voice clear, “I haven’t changed my mind about our plan.”

She nodded. “All right.”

“And I have some information for you.”

She lifted a brow. She looked more like herself. “Do you?”

“Doesn’t it embarrass you to find that a lowly underling has discovered something a queen’s spy hasn’t?”

“You are not a lowly underling.”

“Dodging the question as always, I see, which must mean that I am right.”

“You are wrong. I am not embarrassed.” Sid turned her hand, which lay beneath mine, and held my fingers. “I am impressed. But not surprised.”

“Why aren’t you surprised?”

“You’re resourceful. Strong.”

“Resourceful…,” I said. “Maybe. Strong?” I shook my head. “Sometimes I miss the wall. I miss being behind it.” I knew it wasn’t safe there, but it was my home. Even an unsafe home can feel safe.

“But you’re not behind it,” Sid said. “You’re here. You are at risk, so much more than I am, yet you keep risking yourself. I wish you could see yourself like I see you.”

“How do you see me?”

“You’re like those flowers that grow along the walls. The indi flowers. The ones that freeze and come back to life. They dig themselves into any little crack.”

“They’re destructive.”

“Yes. And beautiful.”