The parties—at least at first—showed us nothing but excess. A masked ball where, at the stroke of midnight, dancers ate their lovers’ sugar masks while I looked awkwardly on, Sid standing stiffly beside me, her own mask still on her inscrutable face. Probably at least in part to make no matter of how people around us were licking each other’s sugared lips, Sid busied herself as a pickpocket, filching a High-Kith passport from someone’s pocket and slipping it to me. I paged through it quickly, committing each part of it to memory. Sid then returned the booklet to its owner, who thought he had dropped it, with a slight bow. Later, at her house, I carved a block of wood to re-create a High-Kith stamp, taking care that it would make the exact impression on paper as the stamp I had seen. Sid brought me dyes and scraps of leather. I cut the heliograph from my Middling passport and set it into my new High-Kith one. I didn’t have the right stamp that would let me into the Keepers Hall, but having a High-Kith passport was a start.

The new passport gave me a sense of security, though Sid was right: no one at the parties demanded to see my documents. It was enough that I was with Sid, and dressed the right way. The High Kith were focused on their own pleasure, and certain no one could or would dare infiltrate their quarter.

There was a fountain party in a home where water gushed up out of the floor at unexpected moments in unexpected spots, catching glamorously dressed people, soaking their clothes to visible skin. Sometimes I saw furniture or decor that had been made in the Ward, which made me miss it. Once I found an entire library filled with books that bore, on their spines, a mark that showed that they had been made by Harvers, and I felt homesick for his workshop and the smell of ink-damp paper.

Every so often I looked at the trinkets I had saved for Morah and Annin: the knife, the boxed cat, the jewels. I missed Morah’s stern care and Annin’s sweetness, and I wished I could tell them everything that was happening. But the pile of gold and silver I had set aside for Raven made me feel an uncomfortable relief to be away from her. Her love could so easily sour. I never knew when I would anger her. In the tavern, I’d had to watch her as closely as I watched the militia, for fear of doing something wrong. I found that I did not miss her, that I avoided thinking about her. This made me feel guilty, and reminded me of all that she had done for me, and how ungrateful I was. Then I did miss her, and remembered her voice calling me lamb and my girl.