The Midnight Lie Read online

  Nirrim, she said one day. What you are doing is a secret. You cannot tell anyone.

  Who would I tell? I said. Raven had made clear to the Ward that I was under her protection, which meant that no one troubled me when I walked in the streets, but it also meant that few were friendly with me.

  Ever, she said. This is our secret.

  I agreed. I was twelve, then. It was my name day. My first name day was perhaps a year after I had been left at the orphanage as a new infant, small and large eyed. I seemed no different from the other infants who arrived and grew and sometimes died. A fever. A fading. Thinning down to the bones for no reason I knew besides neglect. But a year of life meant stubbornness, a will that had to be acknowledged, so the headmistress decided I was likely to live and therefore should be named the word that had been pinned to my swaddling cloths when I was abandoned: Nirrim, a type of cloud that is rosy, lined with gold, and predicts good fortune.

  For your name day, Raven said, I would like to teach you something new.

  What is it? I said. I liked being good at what she asked me to do. It pleased her. It made me feel safe.

  To be quiet, she said. We were alone in the kitchen, seated at the table, which was pale from age and scored by knives. I was sucking a sugar cube she had given me. I shifted the cube into my cheek so that I could speak.

  I can be quiet, I said.

  I know, my girl. She tucked a lock of my chin-length hair into my cap. She said, But you can become even better at it. You could become the best. And if you do, I can teach you other things.

  What kind of things?

  Ah, she said. I cannot tell you yet.

  What do I need to do? I asked. The sweetness of the sugar drizzled down my throat. The sharp edges of the cube dissolved against my gums.

  We will start with something small, she said.

  All right.

  She said, Put your hand on the floor, palm down.

  I did. I had to get down on my hands and knees to do it the way she wanted: palm fully flat, the fingers spread. The sugar cube had dissolved. My mouth was full of sweetness.

  She got out of her chair, and I was confused. I thought that she would leave me in the kitchen, perhaps for hours on end, that solitude would be how she would teach me silence. But she did not leave. She positioned her chair so that the tip of one leg rested on the web between my thumb and index finger. It didn’t hurt, but I saw right away how it soon would.

  Now, my girl, not a sound.

  She lowered her weight onto the chair.

  5

  ON THE DAY THE ELYSIUM BIRD came to the Ward, Raven sent me on an errand. She had me tuck a printed bread into a muslin drawstring bag that had been deftly embroidered by Annin to display the tavern’s insignia: a lit oil lamp. Raven buttoned the top button of my coat, which was her coat and made with cloth finer than anything I owned, but its dark brown was discreet enough for a Half Kith to wear. “There will be a lot of nonsense in the streets,” she said, “what with this wind and the festival and that godsforsaken bird. You keep your head.”

  “But Annin.”

  “Annin! She is made of dreams, that one.”

  “She wants the bird.”

  “She’d get herself killed going after it. You think I will let her out of my sight? I’ll tie her up if I have to.”

  I nodded, but I felt a small sadness. I remembered Annin when she first came here. She was careless. She let food burn on the stove. She forgot to change the sheets of a paying guest, a Middling merchant. I once found Annin asleep in the kitchen, head pillowed on her arms at the table, knife nearby, onion skins floating to the floor, sandal untied. I brushed the dark reddish hair away from her face. Soft round cheeks. A doll’s face. She drooled a little: a wet shine on her mouth. I knelt beside her and tied her sandal.

  “Bring me back something nice.” Raven patted my cheek. She gave me a little push, and I was gone.

  * * *

  When an ice wind comes to the city, indi flowers freeze along the white walls. Purple enameled petals chatter in the wind. Then the cold snap passes. Petals melt and fall from their stems. New flowers grow, fluffy and thick. I love the flowers. They are so strong. Really, they are a weed, and destructive. The vines cannot easily be ripped out. They must be chopped. Over time, they can crack and crumble a wall. But I love them for that, too.

  The Ward is a puzzle of skinny streets that turn an ice wind into pure malice. A wind will gust through tall buildings, kick sand in your eyes, freeze your fingers into claws. They say more murders happen during an ice wind. Maybe it’s because of the cold, but I think it’s because the cold is temporary. People get the sense that everything is, and that there are no consequences.

  I passed members of the militia, usually in pairs, men stiff in their starched red uniforms, a stripe of dark blue across the chest to indicate their Middling kith. I kept my head down.

  They could take me if they wanted.

  They could always find something I had done wrong. They could smell my breath and accuse me of having eaten something sweet. They could look closely at my coat, which was almost too nice. They could say the center part in my hair was off-center, that its natural wave was because I must have had it in small, illegal braids. I had looked boldly in their faces. My hands had been in my pockets. What did I have that I should not? Those sandals. That leather looked too good. They were sure of it.

  Come with us, they would say.

  We’ll see to your tithe.

  My chest always flooded with fear when I passed the militia. You are nothing, I told myself. No one.

  Their glances slid from my face and left me, forgotten. Thank you, I thought. Yes, I thought. I am unimportant. Insignificant. A crumb to be brushed away.

  Children ran past me, their breath pale streamers in the cold, their tin moons twinkling behind them.

  The militia didn’t stop me. They eyed the children. Then I saw the men’s gaze float to the rooftops. They, too, wondered where the Elysium bird had gone.

  The buildings of the Ward were brilliant with white paint. The Half-Kith men had given the walls a fresh coat of limewash, as was tradition every year on the moon festival. The tang of new paint sharpened the air. The Ward buildings were perhaps once beautiful. Raven said they were older than anything beyond the wall. Stone arches braced the stone walls at their height, bending over the narrow streets. The arches seemed to serve no purpose. I supposed they were architectural. Sometimes, though, I looked at them and saw canopies of sun-shimmering cloth draped over them, shading the walkways below.

  But I would correct myself. There were no canopies. I didn’t see them. I imagined them.

  I emerged into an agora, one of the open squares. It bustled with people celebrating the largest full moon of the year, cooking salted fish over open fires, warming wind-dried hands. As always, they wore dull colors: brown and gray and muddied beige. The black-and-white diamond marble beneath my feet was soap-smooth and uneven with age, interrupted by large, deliberate holes. It looked as if objects had been gouged out of the paved ground, though no one knew what.

  The holes made me think of the vanishings. Sometimes people disappeared from the Ward. Half Kith entered the prison and never returned. Far worse were the night-snatchings, which happened for no reason anyone understood. I sung him to sleep, a mother said. Tears slipped off her face and onto a tavern table. She said, I should never have left his side. Her words dissolved as Raven stroked her shoulder. I saw the boy in my mind: soft, fat cheeks, thick lashes like little black fans. A reaching shadow fell over his face.

  Is it a tithe? the mother whispered. But I did nothing wrong. I am so careful. What did I do wrong?

  There was never any answer. I occasionally saw that woman in the Ward, though I always looked away. All of us in the Ward lived our lives around empty spaces, but she became the emptiness.

  One of the holes in the agora was slick with ice. Children skidded on it and slipped and laughed at their game. I was struck by ho
w children, at least when they are small, can make do with whatever they have, even if it is not much, without the burden of realizing they are compensating for what they lack.

  I wonder, I once said to Morah as we passed through the agora together, how this place used to be.

  Her expression turned strange. What do you mean, she said, how it used to be? The agora has always been like this.

  * * *

  Before I saw to Raven’s errand, I had one of my own.

  I stopped at the home of Sirah, who was too elderly to shuffle outdoors for the festival, even if it weren’t so cold. As I’d feared, her home had no fire and was freezing. Sirah lay under a mound of blankets. She opened her one eye. The other had been tithed from her when she was young. She had been arrested for wearing cosmetics on her eyelids.

  She was lucky. They could have taken both eyes.

  “Sleep,” I said, and built a fire in the kitchen, but when I brought her a steaming cup of tea, she was wide awake.

  “I have something for you.” I produced a small loaf of bread that I had hidden in my deep coat pocket.

  Her gray eye shone. “My sweet Nirrim,” she said, which made me feel as warm as the tea, as warm as the fire. She said, “It will rain.”

  I smiled. “When?”

  She squinted. The skin covering her missing eye was as wrinkled as a fig’s. “Six days.”

  “Will someone have caught the bird by then?”

  “Child, I only do the rain. No birds. Six days. It doesn’t happen at night. I feel it in my bones.”

  She was never wrong. “I’ll plan to stay inside, then, and bake another loaf of bread for you.”

  She smiled back at me, showing her missing teeth. I thought she’d lost them through age, not as a tithe, but I never knew for sure.

  * * *

  A vine of icy flowers hung over Aden’s door. When he opened it, they chimed like a shopkeeper’s quiet bell. He gave me a cocky smile and made a silent game of tugging at my coat sleeve to pull me indoors. This was in case the militia was watching us. They would see us not as criminals, but as lovers catching a moment for themselves before the night’s festivities truly got underway. I smiled back, ready to kiss his offered cheek. He turned at the last moment and caught my lips with his.

  “Aden!”

  He pulled away. He was a full head taller. I didn’t raise my eyes but kept my gaze on his tanned throat. His playfulness soured. If I looked up, I’d see his broad mouth thinned, light eyes narrowed. A notch always formed between his brows when he frowned. That would be there, too. He said, “As if you’ve never done it before.”

  It was true. We had kissed, and more, but I had put an end to that.

  Sometimes I didn’t understand things and felt stupid later. Like how his lovers’ game to protect us from curious eyes hadn’t been a game to him.

  “Come inside,” he said.

  Normally, during an ice wind, it would be nearly as cold inside a Ward house as outside. Our houses weren’t built for the cold, since it came so rarely. Aden dealt on the black market, which meant that his home had a few comforts others didn’t. A brazier glowed with live coals. Orange light flared against the white, limewashed walls of the first room. Half Kith must keep the walls of their home white, just like they must always wear muted colors. Although some people in the Ward could carve sinuous chairs, shape exquisite sofas, craft tables with minute patterns of inlaid bone, such furnishings were sold to the upper kiths beyond the wall. Everything we owned must be plain.

  I handed Aden the bread. He made a pleased sound to see its design: a raptor with talons outstretched. “You made this for me?”

  Raven had chosen this masculine image, likely for the same reason I told Aden yes. We wanted to please him. We needed his skills.

  It is important to make people feel appreciated, Raven said, and made certain to slip Aden a few coppers every now and then. She set money aside from the tavern’s profits. We must do our part, she told me.

  Maybe I should apprentice myself to the printer, I told her. I am good with paper and ink. I could earn a little.

  But I give you everything you need, Raven said. I will always take care of you.

  It was true. I was grateful. Although Morah, Annin, and I didn’t earn money working for Raven, we never needed to.

  I just wish I had money to contribute, too, I told her. For the documents. You shouldn’t have to pay for everything.

  She touched my cheek. Don’t you worry your dear heart, she said.

  “Do you have the heliographs?” I asked Aden.

  “All business, I see. Little Nirrim, made of stone.” He brought the bread close to his face and inhaled its fresh, sugared scent. My printed breads were soft inside, with an airy, melting texture.

  The bread was a risky thing. Too sweet for people like us.

  Aden set the loaf on a table that bore a bowl filled to its brim with seed. “Not you, too,” I said. The seed was stolen, probably, from the upper Wards of the city, where ladies kept pet songbirds of all kinds. Aden had a Middling passport that allowed him outside the Ward’s wall. The document had been forged by me.

  But it would be a lie, I had said to Raven when she had suggested that I forge passports, which she would give to those who needed them most. I was anxious about the risk—to her as well as to me. And I didn’t like lying. It was hard for me to tell what was real. Lies made it worse.

  It is a midnight lie, she said.

  A kind of lie told for someone else’s sake, a lie that sits between goodness and wrong, just as midnight is the moment between night and morning.

  Or a lie that is not technically false, like a misleading truth.

  “I saw the bird fly away,” I told Aden, which was true enough, but which I hoped would make him think the bird was gone.

  “It’s somewhere in the Ward, I know it.” Aden’s smile was back. He was—as Annin had reminded me many times—even more handsome when he smiled. He made a room warmer. When the day dimmed, sunshine always seemed to linger around him like bright vapor. Lucky, women in the Ward called me. “Don’t be so disapproving,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I hunt the bird as well as anyone else?”

  “You can’t hunt an Elysium bird.” A pet Elysium is raised from an egg stolen from a nest in the sugarcane fields outside the city. They say its shell is a glossy crimson. They say that when the shell cracks, it weeps a fluid that, if swallowed, will add a happy year to your life. “The bird can’t be caught.”

  “I will be the first, then, to catch one.”

  “Even if you did.” I shook my head.

  “No one would take it from me. They wouldn’t dare. I’d like to see them try.” He leaned back against the table, large hands bracing its edge. He was well grown for his eighteen years. Aden had just the kind of body the High Kith would approve of in our kind: one made to work, all muscle and sinew.

  “It’s your funeral,” I said. “The heliographs, please.”

  He reached into a breast pocket and produced them: small, thin squares of tin, fanned out between his fingers like a miniature deck of silvery cards. There was the scent of lavender. Only the face on the top tin could be seen clearly. It was Raven’s face. I wasn’t sure why she had asked Aden to make a heliograph of herself. A Middling passport was already hers by birth. We had never tried to forge a High-Kith one. Even if we had the proper Council stamp—which we didn’t—passing as High would be impossible without a great sum of money. Even one day’s outfit of High clothes would cost more than I could imagine.

  I took the tins from Aden and shuffled through them. They showed families with small children. An infant. The baby’s parents. A girl with wide, startled eyes. I made the tins disappear into a secret lining in the collar of my coat, where their stiffness, even if felt, would be taken for cardstock meant to make the collar rigid.

  Aden had shown me how to capture someone’s image with light and a bitumen-coated plate of tin, to wash the tin with lavender oil to make the image appear
. He was good at it. His mother had been good, too, so good that when she decided to leave this city, and abandon Aden around the time when he was no longer a child yet not quite a man, she had thought that an excellent heliograph was all she needed to make her fake passport convincing. She was caught by the militia and sentenced to death. Aden never even received her bones to bury. When the City Council took your body, they took all of it.

  Aden had made a heliograph of me. “We could go beyond the wall together,” he had said, setting the small tin square in my palm, “and work in the Middling quarter.” But I couldn’t leave my home. I couldn’t leave Raven, who needed me.

  If I left the Ward, who would forge documents for others who wanted to leave? The ones who had seen the blank mother questing the Ward for her night-snatched son, and decided, Not me. Not my child.

  “If I caught the bird,” Aden said, “I would share it with you.” His fingers brushed my cheek. They smelled of lavender. They touched my mouth.

  A loneliness opened inside my chest. It was a kind of song that always sang the same thing.

  He kissed me and I let him. Sometimes it can feel so good to give someone what they want that it is the next best thing to getting what you want. His hard body was warm as I leaned into him. His mouth was hungry at my neck, beneath the fringe of my chin-length hair. I pretended that his hunger was my hunger. I kissed him back, and the quiet inside me didn’t feel so large anymore, so heavy.

  I thought, This is not so bad.

  I thought, I could be with him again.

  I thought, He loves me.

  But what I did surprised me. My hand reached around him and dipped into the bowl of seeds. I closed my fingers around a handful. Tiny and hard. I could feel their shine.

  I kissed Aden back, and slipped the seeds into my coat pocket. For good measure, I took the embroidered bag, too.