“Struck by your foolhardiness.”

“There were rumors of an island. I wanted to know the truth. Maybe,” he mused, “what made your island so hard to find is connected to what brings travelers here now.”

“What do you mean?”

“This country has something that no other country does, not in the whole world, so far as we know.”

I said, “What do we have?”

“Well, not you. Not the Half Kith.”

Of course not. Frustrated misery made my throat close. If there was ever anything to have we would not have it. And of course Sid would say it so airily. I found myself hating him. I hated his blithe carelessness. I opened my mouth to tell him so when a door down the hall opened with a metallic bark.

It was a soldier, a blood vial in his hand, its thin tubing wrapped around his wrist. He came to my cell. “Arm,” he ordered. When I approached the bars, I could not see Sid beyond the soldier’s body, and was grateful that this must mean Sid did not have the satisfaction of seeing me. I slipped the arm that hadn’t been pricked yesterday through the bars. The soldier was not fastidious in finding a vein. He jabbed away, muttering to himself as I flinched, until the needle slid in properly. I couldn’t see the blood flow through the tubing, not in that dim light, but I felt it leave me.

After the soldier had left, I sat in silence. My hand twitched lightly against my knee: a sign of oncoming sleep. I had a near dream: an illusion of a glowing creature the shape of a person but far larger. It had many small hands all over its body, opening and closing in panic.

“Nirrim, are you all right?”

I shook away the illusion. “Just sleepy.”

“How much blood did they take from you?”

“A vial.”

There was a moment of silence. “That should not be enough to make you sleepy.”

“It is as it is.”

“I would like never to hear you say that again.”

Surprise at his anger cut through my drowsiness, but before I could say anything he said, “Why are there kiths? Why are some people made to live behind a wall?”

I hunted in my mind for the answer, but hit only blank resistance, as smooth and blind as stone. “I don’t know.”

“It’s strange that you don’t know.”

“It is?”

“Yes. You should know your own country’s history.”

“You know yours?”

“All too well,” he said. “Don’t you want to understand why you live the way you do?”