Morah’s face was wooden, her expression set as if pins held her features in place. “Nirrim, she tried the same things on me that she always uses on you. She told me it was for my own good. That she cared about me, that I was like a daughter to her. She was looking out for me, even if I couldn’t see it. What good would it do to keep the child? The father was gone. He was so young. He had tried to climb over the wall. I had been so sick, early in the pregnancy. I couldn’t stop vomiting. I hid my sickness from Raven, hid my growing belly. My sweetheart thought that surely there would be medicine in the Middling quarter for me. He tried to climb the wall during the night, and fell, and died. So I told Raven everything because, like you, I believed in her. I thought she cared about me. And at first, it seemed that way. She gave me the best foods. She held my hair when I vomited. She never let me rest from my work, but I believed her when she said it was for my own benefit, that work would distract me from my sickness and keep me fit for when the baby came. And when my baby came he was so sweet. His nose and mouth and fingers were so small, his hair so dark. I missed his father but thought I was strong enough to make a home for my baby, to raise him alone, because I was not truly alone. I had someone who loved me like a daughter. Someone who would love my child like a grandson. But she took him while I was sleeping.”

An emotion swept over me like vertigo. I had no name for what I felt. The namelessness reminded me of when I was a baby and couldn’t understand what people said, when their voices tumbled like thick gleaming oil, when sounds dropped from their mouths like rocks, like the whine of a draft through a window, when I didn’t know what oil was, or rock or window.

But as Morah’s eyes welled I understood the name for that sick chill creeping over my skin and seeping into my belly. It was loss. What I felt was not Morah’s loss, though I could see that clear on her face.

It was my own.

“Why don’t you want me to love her?” I asked. “You are jealous that I am her favorite. You tell me lies to come between us.” But I had seen the ghost of that boy hovering near her. Haltingly, I said, “If it’s true, then where is your child?”