Harvers napped in an unvarnished chair in the sun as I assembled the lines of type. I didn’t read as I worked. I arranged the words as though they were mere designs with no meaning, and stamped the pages. Dirty, Harvers had said, but I ignored the temptation to peek. That would only slow my work.

When I was done with that, I did what I had truly come here to do, and to which Harvers always turned a blind eye. He slept on—or pretended to—while I printed official-looking pages for the travel documents Raven needed me to forge. It was quickly done. I cast sand across the pages to help them dry. It would take some time before I could leave the workshop with the folded documents without fear of the ink smudging.

The poet’s book hung in pages like flags from lines strung about the workshop. The tang of ink was sharp and strong. I could tell there were no pictures. This surprised me, given the kind of book Harvers had said it was. The surprise was like a fish hook beneath my ribs, drawing me closer.

There was no harm, I thought. No one was watching me.

I had already broken so many serious laws. I had illegally forged documents. I had killed a man. Reading beyond my kith was nothing in comparison.

And I was surely immune, anyway, to whatever the poet’s words said. I had already done what there was to do with Aden.

I stepped close to the ink-wet pages.

Light from the window caught floating dust motes as I moved among the poems, which were about love. The poet’s voice was pained, raw with longing. But I couldn’t see why Harvers would say the book was dirty, unless he was joking.

Then I realized it was because the love poems were written about a woman.

In my mind I saw the poet and the woman she loved, mouths damp from kissing, limbs tangled together. A flush crept into my cheeks.

It wasn’t allowed for a woman to love a woman, at least not in the Ward. It was a shameful thing. I couldn’t even guess the tithe.

The Council encouraged Half Kith to marry. Babies are a blessing, we were told. Larger homes were allocated for growing families. Special Council-funded rations were awarded for births. I wasn’t sure what a woman did with a woman in bed, but I knew that it didn’t make children.

I started to turn from the poems, then paused before a page almost entirely white, with only a few bare black words.

Gold-sandaled dawn

Fell like a thief

Upon me

I wondered what kind of night was so precious that when morning came it felt as if you had been robbed, as if what you wanted most had been cut from you like a bloody tithe.

I had never had a night worth stealing.