![]() ![]() I didn’t know if chocolate was something I would like. They say the trees beyond the wall become jeweled by clear pearls of ice, and that the High Kith drink bitter hot chocolate at outdoor parties where their laughter is white lace in the chilled air. People say teardrops of hail spangle the pink-sand beaches outside the city. But every now and then a wind blows from the west that freezes everyone’s bones, Half Kith and High Kith and Middling alike. Ethin-a pretty name for a city, and this city was pretty for the right sort of people-is usually warm, so warm that tiny purple indi flowers grow out of the cracks of crumbling walls. ![]() Maybe I should have been more careful from the moment I saw the bird from my little window in my little room in the tavern attic, so cold I had been going to bed fully dressed. They would find infractions enough in the Ward, whether from drinking or improper dress or any of the many offenses you can commit when you’re Half Kith. ![]() They knew, as I knew, that the festival meant the militia would be out in force, seeking to fill their quotas for arrests. The children must have seen the danger in their own games, in the crescent moons, roughly cut from tin, that they strung from fishing line on sticks and dangled to cast shadows beneath the pale sun. ![]() THERE WERE WARNING SIGNS in the Ward that day that anyone could have seen. ![]()
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