He let me go then, reassured, the anxiety that had been sparking all around him soothed now into satisfaction. He glanced across the street at Sid with something like disdain, or disinterest, or pity, before he kissed me again, deeply, and left, promising to come to the tavern as soon as he could.

When I walked toward Sid, I saw that her hand was on the hilt of a large knife I had never noticed before. It seemed to be belted beneath her dress, hidden under the fabric, its hilt now showing through a slit in the side. Sid shifted her hand and the dagger disappeared again beneath the fabric. Her expression was neutral yet closed. Everything felt huge inside me. I wanted to explain everything that had happened with Aden. I wanted it to spill out like a confession, like milk from a broken jug. But then I remembered Aden suggesting that Sid was faking her kith, and even though I didn’t care if she was faking it, not exactly, I became frighteningly aware of how little I knew about her.

Aden, at least, I knew. Aden, I could trust.

What would Sid think, if she knew I had killed someone?

What would she do?

“I suppose that’s your sweetheart.” Sid’s voice was cool.

“No.”

“Ah, Nirrim. It’s never wise to lie when no one will believe you.”

27

“WHY DON’T YOU LEAD ME to the red paint you found,” Sid said, “beneath the coat of white.” Her voice sounded friendly enough, but too perfectly calibrated to be truly friendly. She was like that the whole way to the building, commenting on the surprising charm of the Ward. “Not bad, for a prison,” she said.

I glanced around. “It’s so plain. You are surely used to better.”

“It has been made to look plain.”

We were passing through the agora. She said, “Do you see that temple?”

“It’s not a temple. It is for storing grain.”

“Look at the cornices along the top. It looks like decorations have been chiseled away. And there.” She pointed to the holes in the agora’s paved square. “What used to be there? Statues, maybe? The holes seem the right size for it.”

I thought of the visions I had had of the agora. It felt dizzying to hear Sid suggest, without knowing it, that what I had seen was real. For so long I had thought of those visions as dangerous signs of my unsteady mind. It unnerved me to wonder if Sid was right—if I had been right, all these years. I wasn’t sure what it would mean if she and I were both right.

I repeated what Morah had once said to me. “The agora has always been this way. It is as it is.”