The thoroughfare was strewn with trash. The blue ivy had sagged into a heap, its blossoms blown wide-open and gone as brown as butcher paper. A few people stumbled through the street, drunk or foxed, but most people were probably sleeping until the parties began.

I turned to head back to Sid’s house in the hope of finding her there, but before I took more than a few steps, I heard someone call my name.

It was the Middling boy, Sid’s little spy.

He ran up to me. “You have to help,” he said breathlessly. “I have been looking everywhere for you. Sid’s in trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw a man come up to her after you disappeared. He pulled her away from the crowd.”

“A councilman?”

The boy shook his head. “No.” His eyes were wide. “I’ve never seen a man like this before.”

“Describe him. What did he look like?”

“A monster.”

49

THE BOY SAID THE MAN had taken Sid in the direction of her house, so I rushed there, blaming myself for having brought the Lord Protector’s attention to her. I assumed she had been seen beside me, that even if I wasn’t easily identifiable in the crowd and the haste of the chase, someone had noticed Sid standing close to me and easily recognized the foreigner by her short blond hair, her large dark eyes, the way she dressed, and the reputation she relished. Home didn’t seem like a good place for her to hide.

Unless it was a trap set for me, and she had been forced to set it.

The smart thing would have been to stay away, but my heart raged with fear at the thought of her in any danger. I couldn’t leave her alone, captured by someone who sought me.

I remember clearly how I felt: my pulse quivering like a dragonfly over water, a glassy insect with a vivid green body. Easy prey, easily seen, its wings as transparent as how frightened I was for Sid—and for myself, should harm come to her.

When I flung open the door, I heard an argument in another language: Sid’s voice anxious in a way that pierced through me, and the man’s voice alternately insinuating and forceful. It wasn’t a language I recognized. It didn’t sound like Herrani, with its rounded vowels and similarity to my own tongue. It had clusters of hard and harsh sounds. Sid said something that ended with a hiss.

I strode into the sitting room, where I expected to see Sid bound, or with her dagger drawn, threatened by the man who had stolen her. Instead, I found her impeccably dressed, drinking a green liqueur, and gazing up in worried affection at a tall man with no face.