Finally, I embossed the thin leather cover with a raised stamp. The pages looked and smelled too new, so I ran a whisk over each page—gently, to soften the paper—and buried the booklet in a bowl of sand to absorb the smell of ink. I kept the bowl under my bed, worried throughout the whole day it sat there that Morah or Annin—or, worse, Raven—would find it.

Raven would be hurt if she discovered what I was doing. I imagined her wounded eyes as she opened my passport. Was I not enough, she would say. What did I do, to make you want to leave?

I don’t want to, I would say.

All I wanted was one night.

Just to see.

I will always come back.

Her eyes, however, would glisten. Her sadness would rush through me like storm rain in a gutter. Eventually, her sadness would thicken into anger. I would understand. After all, I had betrayed her. But …

One night.

She would never know.

I took the passport from the bowl, shook off the sand, and slid it into the coat pocket. It was rigid and felt heavier than it was, and somehow fragile, as though it were a pane of glass. Anxiety sizzled in my belly. I remembered Sid’s words: You’ve been in prison your whole life.

I buttoned the last button. The coat would cover some of my drab Half Kith clothes, and with any luck the guards at the gate wouldn’t discern the color of my trousers in the dark. My body was taut with fear.

I imagined saying to Sid, I bet that you are never afraid.

You left your home.

You sailed to a region marked on a map as dangerous waters.

You let yourself be sent to prison without protest.

Do you know what this feels like? What I feel like?

Come find me, she said in my mind. Ask me for real.

I blew out the lamp. Darkness doused the room. My reflection in the window vanished into black glass.

“Name?”

I kept my eyes down. The guard at the gate wore boots and crease-free trousers, the fabric crisp and red and with blue piping. “Laren.” I had chosen a name with a common ending for a Middling woman.

“Occupation?”

“Merchant.”

“Wares?”

I brought Annin’s empty embroidered bag, the one I had used to capture the Elysium, from my pocket. “It’s just a sample. I hope to interest someone in ordering more.”

“That’s a man’s coat.”

“My brother’s,” I said. “I always forget how the temperature drops at night. He loaned me his.”

“Look at me.”

I brought my gaze up. In the lamplight, the young man’s expression was hardened into irritated boredom. “Green,” he said disapprovingly.

“Excuse me?”

“This passport says your eyes are hazel. They are not. They are green.”