The man seemed flustered. Belatedly, I realized I was wearing Sid’s coat. Worried I would be punished, my gaze darted between the man behind the desk and the guards, but they paid no attention to me. They stared at Sid. The air prickled with their fascination.

Sid strode past the desk to the door beyond it. He pulled it open. Warm night air wafted in, fragrant with flowers. The ice wind had broken. “After you, Nirrim.”

“Really? We’re leaving?”

“Yes. I’ve had enough.”

The prison door shut behind us. The night was still. The moon was a large mirror, its light so bright that when I pushed up the sleeve of my—Sid’s—coat, I could see the bruises on my inner arm. The wall was as white as polished marble in this light, though I knew by day it was pocked gray granite. A gate in the wall was flanked by guards, but I was already in the Ward. It was Sid who would pass through the gate to the rest of the city. “What did you do,” I asked him, “to get them to release me early?”

“Isn’t it more fun to guess than to know?” he said, and I finally turned to look at him.

I could see Sid more clearly now. I saw the mistake I had made.

Sid’s face was even more striking in the moonlight: severe cheekbones set in an unexpectedly soft face with a softly lined mouth, and eyes so dark they must be black. Short fair hair, which I had never seen before—no Herrath had light hair. Sid was a little taller than me, but not if I were to stand on tiptoe. I was struck, as I had been before, by Sid’s beauty, but it wasn’t that which stole my breath. It was the tunic Sid wore: sleeveless, as I had noticed before in the prison, showing bare, slender arms. What I had not seen then, and could see now, was that the tunic was tight enough that it showed the curve of her breasts.

“Oh,” I said.

She lifted her brows.

My mind scurried back through our conversations. “I thought you…” I couldn’t finish my sentence.

“You thought what?” She frowned, studying my face. Then her expression eased—not in a relaxed way, but rather into tired lines. “I see,” she said. “Well, that’s no fault of mine.”

“I didn’t say—”

“I can’t help what you assumed. Did I say I was a man?”

“No.” My face grew hot as I newly understood things she had said.

“Disappointed?”

“No,” I said hastily. “Why would I be?”