The carriage rolled slowly out of the old quarter. It was nearly dark. were walking along the street with long poles, bringing the golden lights to life one by one.
Nora sat beside me, half asleep, with her head against the window. I leaned back and closed my eyes. It had been a very long day. I had a name for the first time, or half a name: a raven, a ring, a man with kind manners. And I had a friend again.
I should have felt happy.
Instead, a small, cold voice in my head repeated my fifth rule over and over. *Trust no one. Not my friends. Not my family. Not a smile.*
"Stop the carriage, please," I said suddenly.
The driver pulled on the . We had gone only three streets from the Hart house, and the carriage stood in the shadow of a tall wall.
"Is something wrong, my lady?" Nora asked, waking.
"I left my gloves," I said, which was a lie. I stepped down onto the . "Wait here."
I walked back quickly, close to the wall, keeping to the shadows. I did not know why. Something in my chest was pulling me, like a string.
I stopped at the corner of the Hart garden wall, and looked through the old iron gate.
Vivienne stood in the yard. She was alone, with the pearl earrings still in her fist. She was looking down the lane, and then up at the house, as if she were checking that no one was watching.
She was not watching *me.* I was hidden by the dark.
A door at the back of the house opened. An old gardener in a brown cap out with a on his shoulder. He walked toward the gate, and Vivienne hurried to meet him.
She said something quickly. She held out her other hand.
A small white square, folded many times, lay in her palm.
The old man looked at the paper. He looked at the girl. Then he nodded, once, and the note inside his cap. He opened the gate on the far side of the garden, and was gone, a gray shadow moving fast down the dark lane.
I stood motionless in the dark. Behind me, the lamps were lighting. Down the street, the great bell of the city struck seven.
An hour ago, she had in my arms. She had sworn to tell me everything.
I had not yet told her what to write.
I walked back to the carriage on legs that did not feel like mine.
"Did you find your gloves?" Nora asked.
"Yes," I said. I was still wearing them.
She looked at my face and said nothing. The driver clicked his tongue, and the horses began to move. Behind us, the Hart house slipped out of sight. In the dark window of the carriage, my looked back at me: pale, quiet, and older than seventeen.
Maybe Vivienne had written a harmless note. Maybe she had written a lie, as she had promised. Maybe she was braver than I knew.
Or maybe a frightened girl in a poor house had done, once more, exactly what a man with a raven ring told her to do.
*Trust no one,* said the little cold voice.
For the first time, I wished it were wrong.