I ran a hand over the wall. It was perfectly white and smooth. Had I imagined scraping paint off the wall? Had it even happened? I was so confused, and Sid was waiting for an answer that I didn’t want to give. “It’s complicated,” I said.

“Yes or no.”

I wanted to tell her that sometimes you can’t explain one thing without explaining everything. Sometimes an answer is not as easy as yes or no. Sometimes the truth gets lost even as you tell the truth. “Yes,” I said, “but—”

“That’s what I thought.”

Thunder cracked the sky. Rain darted down. It pelted my head, my shoulders. It dropped like pebbles. I knelt before the white wall. I forgot about Aden. Panic grew inside me as I searched for where I had scraped away the white paint. The scratched-off patch was gone.

“Nirrim, what are you doing?”

“It was here.” My voice rose. “The red paint.” I dug at the white wall with my wet nails.

“Stop that,” Sid said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“I swear it was here.” The rain fell harder, blurring my vision. “I’m not making it up.”

“I believe you.”

“Lend me your dagger. I’ll show you. The red paint is there.”

“You don’t have to show me.”

I looked up at her. Rain dripped from her eyelashes. It dripped from her full mouth. It had already soaked her thin dress, darkening its hue. I could see clearly the shape of her narrow body, the little dip of her navel, the rigid outline of the dagger and its leather belt beneath the wet silk. She pulled me to my feet. I was so unprepared for that—or maybe she had tugged harder than she intended—that I wobbled on my feet. I swayed too close to her, to her rain-wet mouth. My hand went to her shoulder. I didn’t mean to do it. It was instinct, to steady myself. For a moment, she allowed the touch, then stepped back. My hand skidded down the sodden, rumpled silk of her arm and fell away.

I had regained my balance, but inside I was still unsteady. My fingers were alive, feeling strangely as though they had brushed against something rough that pricked my skin with splinters of pleasure. I tucked my fingers into my hand. The rain helped the feeling go away.

Her eyes narrowed in what looked like caution. She kept a clear distance between us. She wiped water from her face, and said, “If you say you saw it, it was there.”

“You don’t think I imagined it? You don’t think I’m crazy?”

“No. I think the Ward is hiding something.”

28