Sid shut her mouth. The sky darkened as we walked. Indi flowers growing along the walls nodded in the warm wind. Silver ants glinted as they disappeared into cracks along the walls. The heat would break soon.

I asked, “Why do you carry a weapon?”

“Oh, that.”

“You looked like you would use it.”

“I was worried about you,” she said. “I didn’t need to be.”

“I’ve known Aden for years. He’s harmless.”

“If you say so.”

“He would never hurt me.”

Dryly, she said, “What a compelling reason to care for someone.”

But it was a good reason, and if Sid could laugh at it, it was only because her life had been so easy. “As if you need a reason,” I said. “As if you don’t just tumble into any woman’s bed.”

“You wound me, Nirrim.” She lay a hand on her heart. “Not just any woman. I have standards. They must be beautiful. Adoring.” She ticked the criteria off with her fingers. “They must let me have my way. And never stay longer than one night.”

“How romantic.”

“Oh, yes. Just like your hero back there. Such broad shoulders! And his jaw. I loved his jaw. Why, you could shovel dirt with that jaw.”

I didn’t want to talk about Aden. It sounded like she was mocking him, but really she was mocking me. “You didn’t answer my question about that knife.”

“Dagger.”

“Why do you wear it beneath your dress?”

“I always wear it.”

“But why do you hide it?”

She brushed her hand through the air as if batting something away. As we walked, the wind grew. The sky turned the color of slate. “It’s not the custom here to wear a weapon openly.”

“But it is the custom where you come from?”

“For some people.”

“Which people?”

“Nirrim, why are you interrogating me about my dagger?”

Frustrated, I said, “Because you’re dodging my questions.”

“No, I’m not. I’ve answered them all. How much farther to that wall of yours? Is that thunder?”

That faint rumble was thunder. It would rain, just as Sirah had said that it would. As always, she had been exactly right about when the rain would come. I was glad for the coming storm. The people of the Ward were going into their homes, which meant that Sid and I were the only ones left on the street.

I said, “I want a straight answer.”

“Very well. I will give you a straight answer if you give me one.”

“To what question?”

“So suspicious! All in good time,” she said. “If you must know, I wear that dagger because it is Valorian, and that is what Valorians do.”

“Valoria is the old Empire? The one that conquered so many countries?”

“The very same.”

“You said you were Herrani.”

“I am both. There was some intermarrying after the last war, the one that ended Valorian rule.”