“Why would you care,” I said, “if you shock a Half Kith?”

“It’s important to me to know.”

“Did you murder someone?”

“No! What kind of person do you think I am?”

I was quiet at that.

He said, “I took a lord’s lady to bed.”

“Oh.”

“The husband came home. He got quite an eyeful. He wanted to punish me, and I can hardly blame him. It was quite obvious that she liked what I was doing far better than whatever he typically did for her. Now, he didn’t want what I had done to be widely known. It would shame him, you see. How to solve his dilemma? Accuse me of theft, clap me in the local prison, and there I am punished and gotten well rid of.”

“You didn’t tell the militia the truth.”

“I would never.”

“To protect the lady’s honor?”

“I am not interested in honor.”

“Then why not?”

He thought about it. “I wanted to see what she would do.”

“And she said nothing.”

“Nothing at all.”

“Did that hurt you?”

“No,” he said, but I didn’t quite believe him.

“Did you love her?”

“I am not interested in love. I did what I did with her because I wanted her and she wanted me.” He seemed to mull it over. “I suppose I am disappointed. She could have told the truth. She didn’t. I thought her more courageous than that. Oh, well.”

“Oh, well?”

“So I have shocked you.”

“You let yourself be thrown in prison.”

“It’s not so bad. I have you.”

“I don’t think you realize how serious your situation is.”

“To tell the truth, I was tempted to see what prison was like.”

Disbelief and anger knitted into a ball in my belly. “What was your sentence? Your tithe?”

“Tithe?”

“The fine.”

“There was no fine.”

I hadn’t realized that only Half Kith had to pay for a crime. The ball in my belly hardened to stone.

He said, “I saw them take your blood.”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” he repeated, drawing out the words, a question in his tone. “That’s what you mean by a tithe.”

“I was lucky.”

“It could have been worse?”

“Much worse.” I thought of the guard in my cell and perhaps Sid did, too, because he said, “I see. The law here is strange.”

“It is as it is.”

“You people always say that. Such an empty thing to say. What does it even mean, really?”

You people. And he was only Middling, not even High Kith. I was sick of the differences that ruled my life. I was sick of his arrogance, his curiosity, his light, fluid voice. I was sick of a world that would keep me in this cell, blood drained every day, when he would probably go free with everything that belonged to him still in his possession.

“Nirrim?”