“You don’t need to do that,” I said.
“Nonsense. You’re a guard now. Besides, I won’t have boots in my bed.”
I half-smiled as she pulled them off and set them side by side in the corner. When she came around and we both curled up on the bed together, my head on her shoulder, she stroked my hair in the way I liked.
“Now,” she said, “tell me about the wall.”
Beyond the small kitchen window, the acid rain hissed against the cobblestone. The sky hung green, its hue seeping through the glass, casting itself over the kitchen and the foot of the bed. It was an eerie time; a time I wanted my hair stroked.
“There’s nothing else to tell.”
“I saw the color your neck turned when you thought about it.”
“You saw that, huh?”
“Our family’s skin is too pale to hide such things. It’s one of our curses.” She’d always said that, but I had never seen her skin turn the same shade as mine when she was embarrassed or upset.
I sighed, eyes closing. “There’s a ritual the guard have. A whistle.”
“Oh?”
I tried to mimic the noise, but it was sad and breathy. “Three notes. Sort of like that.”
“Nobody ever taught you to whistle, did they? Shame on us. So what happened?”
“The guard goes around the wall whistling ahead of the regiment commander. It’s a signal to stand at attention.”
Her hand kept stroking. “Doesn’t the guard always stand?”
“Apparently not. Theo spent most of the night with his legs dangling over the wall.”
Her hand stilled.
My eyes opened, and I turned my face to see her. “What is it?”
She stared straight ahead, her eyes unseeing. “Fools. Young fools.”
“It isn’t just them. It’s been going forever. Even the regiment commander used to do it.”
She let out a harsh tsk. “They’re all fools on the wall, then.” Her blue-eyed gaze shifted down to me. “Did you sit, too?”
I swallowed. “No.”
“Good. You must never sit.”
“But—”
Her stroking had stopped. “Promise me.”
I wanted to protest. She knew so little of anything but this block of the southern district and baking bread. Words crowded my throat, but I held them back.
She leaned toward the edge of the bed, began rummaging through the nightstand. From it she pulled a bound journal as longas her hand. Familiar twine held its pages together, keeping the wavy pages from splaying open.
She offered it to me.
I didn’t accept right away. “What is this?”
“I wrote in this when I was your age.”
