I have a secret. Not one of those secrets that the maids whisper about in those dim little halls that the servants enter from but I’ve never been down. It’s not a secret that you’d giggle about over embroidery, when the shades are drawn to save your complexion and words are sharper than needles because what other entertainment do privilaged girls have?
    This is one of those secrets like the time I pushed a knife into that muscle at the base of my thumb just to see my ruby blood against pale, pale skin, but I told mother it was an accident. This is a secret like a muffled moan you hear from your younger sister’s room where you know she’s naked with a man, but what does it matter? She’s never going to get married with that dark hair of hers.
    Last night, I left the palace compound and wandered the lamp-lit streets of Adreve in the middle of a rainstorm. It felt strange to be so alone, without an escort or servants, like when you step out of the bath and feel the air on your bare skin: vulnerable and refreshing. I found my way into a cobbled yard bordered on one side by the Dera river which glittered darkly like a secret. On the other side, the huge prison towered, a bulk of windowless stone. At the very base of the prison, there was a row of metal grates in the wall where rainwater was rushing in.
     I heard something, then. A small sound so contorted by the rush of water that it could have been a cough, a cry, a plea. I knelt by the nearest grate, letting the rain swirl my skirts like ink in water, and peered into the darkness behind the metal.
Green eyes. A body so thin and bruised it could not be alive. But those green eyes blinked, framed by a head of unruly dark hair and a shadow of a beard, a smear of blood and yellow bruises. Alive, yes, but barely.
    “Do you have any food?” he asked, in a voice so faint that it barely yielded breath.
    “I’m sorry,” I replied, shaking my head. I wanted nothing more than to give him something, wrap my arms around his cold and filthy body, feel emaciation so close to me. It was sick and curious and compassionate. I wanted to help him.
    The green eyes disappeared, and all I saw was rushing water again. I stayed for a full minute before pulling myself up, my heavy skirts weighing me down and clinging back to the water.
    My feet found their way back to the palace compound, and the guards must have remembered me coming out, because they waved me through the servant’s entrance without a second glance at the rain-soaked girl with bedraggled yellow hair clinging to her face, her skin all gooseflesh and trembling fingers. Sneaking back into our palace was difficult, but I did manage. Standing in my bedchamber, my wet skin still trembling in the brazier-heated room, I wondered if I had changed in that one night.
    

    The next night found me hurrying through those damp streets again in the darkness, hoping he would still be there, still alive.
    He was. I reached the courtyard, as empty as before, and kneeled before the grate. His face appeared, impossibly pale and barely lit, floating like a ghost in front of the dark behind him.
    I pushed a piece of cold roasted duck between the bars, and he took it from me, and when his hand touched mine it was so cold that I couldn’t believe there was still blood rushing through his veins, that his heart could still beat. He devoured the meat within seconds, so I pushed a chunk of bread between the bars, then cheese, then an apple. His eyes never left mine; although his body was dying, there was nothing pitiful about his eyes. They were calm and curious.
    “Why are you here?” He asked me, when the food was gone. I couldn’t think of a good answer, although I’m sure he surmised most of it. Although I was dressed in drab clothing that might fool the guards, up close my yellow hair and blue eyes betrayed me as nobility. Just another sheltered girl with too much curiosity.
     “Who are you?” I asked him.
    “Cedric,” he replied. He didn’t offer to me why he was in a prison or how long he’d been there.
    “I’m Iselle.” I told him. A ghost of a smile traced his lips.
    But with the sound of approaching boots, terror flooded his features. He whispered to me to go.
    “What will they do to you?” I asked.
    He sank back into the darkness and all I could hear was a cell door opening and closing.

I returned every night for several weeks, despite the deepening shadows under my eyes and the questions the cooks began to raise about disappearing food. During the day, I could only think of him, alone and hungry, and I was wracked with guilt for every moment I could not help him.
    He became an obsession, a secret, the only hint of danger in my world of closed doors and closed shades, of endless embroidery and endless hours.
    
    I did not discover who he was until nearly a month had passed, and he was not the one to tell me. I was sitting on a stiff little chaise in the parlor, surrounded by several other blonde girls with pale, pinched faces, squeezed into corsets and stitching pretty things onto little silk circles as though it could save their lives.
    The scene was dimmer than a sickroom, with the shades drawn to keep us fashionably pale, so we were forced to squint. The conversation ranged from who was getting married to who was wearing a far too low-cut gown, but it really only makes sense because she behaves like a tavern wench anyway, have you seen her table manners? I heard she was sleeping with a servant, the harlot.
    But then I heard his name, Cedric, and I was so startled that I jabbed my needle into my finger, watching a red stain blossom over birds and vines and grapes.
    “-heard that he was being held in the prison here in Adreve,” Charlotte was saying.
    “Aren’t they going to execute him?” asked Rashia.
    “No, of course not. They’re torturing him for information. Why would they put him to death right away if they can get names out of him first?” Charlotte replied in an acid tone implying that she was the authority on interrogation.
    “Who is he?” I asked. They looked at me in surprise, as it was probably the first thing I’d said all afternoon.
    “Didn’t you hear me?” Asked Charlotte with a little giggle, “Or are you still off in the clouds and- what on earth happened to your embroidery?” She demanded, feigning shock at the sight of blood and fluttering her fan at her face.

    
    “I was clumsy,” I said impatiently, “But who was he?” She looked at me coldly, her fanning forgotten, clearly struggling between the temptation of gossip and scolding me for my lack of dainty and ladylike abilities, not to mention the criminal disregard for the sight of blood when I should be reeling and fainting. But gossip won in the end.
    “He’s the leader of the Ildium- the resistance movement. They say he’s much younger than expected, not much older than us.”
    I was too shocked to respond, but the conversation moved around me like a stream over a rock, and I was left staring at the spreading stain on the white silk in my hand.
    

    That night, I told him I knew who he was. He looked at me, as impassive as ever.
    “Even young ladies of nobility hear these things?” He asked, that nearly-smile twitching his lips.
    “You’d be surprised at the embroidery gossip.” I replied. There was a silence; we both wondered about each other. “What’s it like?” I asked finally.
“What?”
“To live so close to death, all the time. To experience…” I struggled for words, hoping he’d understand.
    “It’s frightening,” he murmured, but I went on as though I hadn’t heard him.
    “I want a purpose,” I said, “I want to fight for something. I want change, I want instability, I want pain or passion or something real-“ I cut off, unable to express what I wanted. I realized how ridiculous it sounded. I could not pretend to be jealous of this tortured peasant who’d spent his whole life fighting to overthrow people like me. But he wasn’t offended, as he should have been. He was calm and compassionate.
“You live a comfortable life,” He said. “But comfort isn’t for everyone.”
    “I thought I was content,” I said simply. He nodded, and there was another pause.
“Will you tell me about… you? About the Ildium?” I asked.
    “I’m not special,” he said. “I have a story like millions of peasants, and nearly everyone in the Ildium.”
“Please tell me,” I said again.
    “I was born in a tiny village in the Plains. We were so poor and so hungry… we couldn’t be happy. Poverty makes people do horrible things. I remember neighbors often sold some of their children into slavery so they could feed themselves. One winter was so harsh that we were forced to eat boiled leather just to stay alive.”
    “Leather? You ate leather?” I asked, aghast.
    “People will eat anything if they’re hungry enough. And eventually, death became something I was used to. My mother died in childbirth, and the baby died too. Many of my siblings died. We became accustomed to burying people. But as soon as I was old enough, I ran away. I wanted to go to the city, where I thought there might be more money to be made. I thought if I could get a job, I could bring some prosperity back to my family.”
    “Did you?” I asked.
    “No. I was captured. I discovered why people who travel alone usually carry weapons. There is such a huge slave trade in our country, that peasants are often simply forced into captivity.”
    “Isn’t that illegal?”
    “Of course, but if there’s no one to enforce the laws in the country, and anyway, the nobility doesn’t care.”
“Did you escape?”
“Eventually,” he said simply. We stared at each other for a long moment. It began to rain; thick, cold drops began soaking through my hair and running down the back of my neck.
“Are they going to kill you?” I asked finally. A fierce wind pulled at my hair and dress, urging me to leave, not to get involved.
“I… think so.” He replied, forcing his voice to be impassive.
“Let me help you escape,” I pleaded. He bit his lip.
“What can you do? You’re as powerless as I am.”
He’s right. The realization settled upon me softly and gradually, as snow falls without wind. I stared at his floating, pale face, the smear of blood above his eye, the tangled, dirty curls. I was no different.