Its body was only slightly larger than my hand but its tail floated long, the tip of it almost to my elbow. It warbled: a bubbling sound. I stroked its head and it allowed this, leaning into my touch. When it burbled its low music again, I stroked its throat. Beneath its feathers was a light vibration, like a purr.

I realized then what anybody in the Ward should have realized.

I couldn’t keep this bird.

It wasn’t possible to hide such a secret. Everyone in the tavern would learn, and then it would be only a matter of time before the Ward did, and before people began to wonder whether the death of a soldier on the day the bird flew into the Ward had something to do with me. It would be only a matter of time before the militia learned who had the bird. Then they would come for me, if not for the crime of murder, then for the crime of stealing a High-Kith pet. When the Council could sentence you to years in prison for dressing like a High-Kith lady, what would it do to someone from the Ward who had kept an Elysium?

The bird nosed among the seeds, looking for its favorites, which were slender black ovals.

The only way to keep it, I thought, was to kill it.

If I were to wring its neck, I could sell the feathers. I could see whether the stories about its meat were true. Its hollow bones.

A dead Elysium bird held so much value. It could be parceled out secretly and slowly. That, perhaps, could be kept hidden when a living thing—with its song, its rustlings, its need for food and water, its excretions—could not.

The bird looked at me. Mine, it sang, and I was so startled that my hand sagged and the bird floated up, wings stuttering. But it settled back into my palm.

It would be easy to snap its fragile neck. I had just killed someone. The murder of a bird would be nothing by comparison. And there was so much to gain.

A treasure, Raven would say when I showed her the limp corpse, its feathers as bright as a bouquet. My treasure, she would call me.

Who knew what comforts we could bring into our home through the sale of the birds’ parts?

Who knew how many Half Kith we could save, with extra money to buy what we needed to make passports?

But the bird nestled into my palm, its feathers a warm cloud, its happiness thrumming into my skin. I had never felt or seen anything so beautiful, and it was only then that I realized how starved I had been for beauty. Its liquid green eyes studied me.