Could it be that elixir or pleasure dust damaged people’s memories? But no, because the Half Kith suffered from it, too, and they had no access to such things.

And it was always about the city’s past. It was as if something—or someone—had wiped history away, so all of us were performing roles whose origins we didn’t understand. We celebrated festivals without knowing why. We followed rules whose reasons were unclear.

I touched the man’s hand as I had with Harvers, and poured my wish into him.

Remember, I thought. Tell me.

“It’s … an anniversary,” he said, blinking.

“Of what?”

“The building of the wall. The first Lord Protector commanded it, and promised gifts in return.” Then he glanced down at my hand on his and frowned, shaking it off. “I don’t know you,” he said suspiciously. “Mind yourself.” Then he turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd, his grisly gift scattering like small shells from his hand onto the paved road.

Flutes began to pipe, and the thoroughfare cleared, everyone thronging by the ivy. A tendril curled around me, almost like a creature’s tail, and I shuddered, ducking its touch.

A host of councilmen in red robes began to march up the road in formation, their faces ranging from bored to serious to intensely focused, but all of them hot, sweat dripping from their brows.

The Middling merchants, with furtive, worried looks at one another, began to pack up their stalls.

Then I heard a pure trill curl over the crowd. The call dipped and ascended, each note ringing as clear as a crystal bell.

It was an Elysium bird.

It flew over the awed crowd, its red wings shimmering green on their undersides, the iridescent talons tucked close to its belly. They looked like mother-of-pearl. It was the same bird I had captured the night of the moon festival. I knew that to be true by its green markings, the pink threaded through its plumed tail, which matched exactly with my memory. Most of all I knew it to be my bird because of how its song tugged at my heart.

The Elysium bird beat its wings, creating little currents of air that smelled as fresh as rain.

The formation of councilmen split in half, and one red-robed man walked between them to the dais at the square. I could not see his face, and his robe was not very different from his fellows’, though dyed a deeper shade of crimson. But I knew from the deferential whispers that this was the Lord Protector.

He raised a fist. I thought it was a salute of some kind—a command of silence, perhaps, though we were already silent.

But his fist was intended as a perch.

The Elysium bird dove down from the sky to settle onto that raised fist. It opened its beak and made a full-throated call.