“Raven tried to act unfazed, but even she was impressed, I could tell. High Kith almost never come into the Ward. Of course you know that. You know how they are: too good for us. But this one was nice. I spilled the tea, and she didn’t reprimand me but”—her voice dropped to an astonished whisper—“helped me clean it up. Can you believe it? Thank the gods Raven didn’t see.”

I hated to feel so hopeful, yet I was. “What did she look like?”

“You must know.” Annin’s expression turned conspiratorial and inquisitive. “She asked for you.”

“She did?”

“How do you know her? Did you sell something to her? Do you think she might hire you to be a lady’s maid? Maybe you will receive a special writ to work in the upper quarters. Is that possible? Maybe so. Maybe she is connected to someone on the Council. I wouldn’t doubt it. She was so self-assured. Her clothes were so rich! Garnet silk and jeweled sandals and a pocket watch like a little sun. Nirrim, you could leave the tavern. You could go beyond the wall! Will you leave us altogether?”

“Please, you’re going too fast. You’re not answering my question.”

She withdrew a folded note from her gray skirts. It had a black seal stamped with an insignia I didn’t recognize: a pair of closed eyes with a little round mark where its forehead would be.

“I said, why don’t you give this to my mistress to give to Nirrim, but she seemed not to like that idea. She said she trusted me, and that it was our secret.”

With eager fingers, I cracked the note open along its seal. My darting eyes fell upon the first line of writing.

I hear you are looking for me, it said.

22

THE HONEY-STRIPED WOOD of the railing glided smoothly beneath my cold hand. Sconces lit my way up the winding stone stairs, and I could see parts of the Middling quarter through the diamond-paned windows that appeared at every floor.

The patched-quilt colors of the night-market tents.

A garden behind the wall of someone’s home, bushes and trees blurred together in the darkness, warped by a defect in the window’s glass.

The nearly uniform shapes of houses, the same rust-colored ceramic tiles, doors painted the same sage green as the door at the address Sid had given me.