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“If you were, the chalkers would treat you better. You are not one of us. You are not one of them. You are not one of the blacks. You are nothing, and your opinions mean nothing here.”
    I reeled as if struck, and the sensation was not just anger and outrage. Her words were a match touched to the powder in my heart, and now it blazed with a hot and poisonous flame: a part of me thought she was right.
    There was a long, stunned silence while I gathered my thoughts, and when I spoke, it was quietly and with conviction. “I will take the child,” I said, thinking suddenly and painfully of Berrit, who the world had already forgotten. “She is beautiful. She has been born on the same day Papa was taken from us. She should not grow up unwanted.”
    The room fell silent again.
    â€œYou?” asked Florihn.
    â€œYes,” I said, sounding more sure than I felt.
    â€œBy yourself? With no husband?” Florihn pressed.
    â€œWhat use has Sinchon ever been in the raising of your family?” I asked my sister. She looked away. “I will come for her tomorrow, but you can tell the elders that you want to keep her. Make them talk about it. If they won’t change their minds—” I faltered, but only for a second. “—I will keep her. And if I can’t, there is always Pancaris.”
    Florihn stared, her mind working, and Rahvey watched her, wary and unsure, like a cornered weancat.
    â€œTomorrow?” my sister repeated.
    â€œYes.”
    Rahvey looked pale, uncertain, suspended between feelings, but when she felt Florihn’s eyes on her, she nodded.
    â€œThis requires a blood oath,” said the midwife, picking up the knife. “You must swear by all we hold true and precious. Hold out your hands.”
    I stared at the knife, and the scale of what I was doing crowded in on me so that for a moment I couldn’t breathe. “Not my hands,” I said. “I have to be able to work.”
    â€œYour face, then,” said Florihn, her eyes hard. “There may be scarring.”
    I blinked but managed to shake my head fractionally. “It doesn’t matter,” I said.
    â€œVery well,” said the midwife with a tiny, satisfied smile. “Kneel down.”
    I did as I was told, feeling the quickening of my heart, as if the blood that was to be let were rising up in protest.
    â€œAnglet Sutonga,” she intoned, “do you swear you will take this child, this fourth daughter, from your sister Rahvey and raise her as your own or, failing that, find suitable accommodation for her, so that she grows up in a manner seemly and fitting for a Lani child?”
    I opened my mouth, but the words didn’t come out.
    Florihn’s eyes narrowed. “You have to say it,” she said.
    â€œYes,” I managed. “I swear.”
    And without further warning, Florihn slashed my cheeks with her knife, first the left, then the right.
    The edge was scalpel sharp, and I felt the blood run before the pain sang out, bright and hot. With it came shock and a sudden terrible clarity.
    What have I done?
    Florihn methodically took up one of the towels she had brought and clamped it to my bleeding face, gripping my head tightly and staring searchingly into my eyes for a long minute.
    There was a knock at the door.
    â€œCan I come in?”
    Sinchon.
    â€œIn a moment, sweet,” said Rahvey.
    â€œJust tell me,” he demanded. “Boy or girl?”
    The three of us exchanged bleak and knowing looks.
    â€œA girl,” Rahvey answered heavily. “We will keep her for tonight, but Anglet will come for her tomorrow. I’m sorry.”
    Sinchon said nothing—expressed no sorrow, no commiseration with his grief-stricken wife, nothing—and moments later, we heard the outside door of the hut slam closed as he left.
    Florihn was still clamping the towel to my face, pressing hard to stanch the bleeding, and I felt a flare of rage that,