Set in the world of the New York Times–bestselling Winner’s Trilogy, Marie Rutkoski’s The Midnight Lie is an epic LGBTQ romantic fantasy about learning to free ourselves from the lies others tell us―and the lies we tell ourselves.Where Nirrim lives, crime abounds, a harsh tribunal rules, and society’s pleasures are reserved for the High Kith. Life in the Ward is grim and punishing. People of her low status are forbidden from sampling sweets or wearing colors. You either follow the rules, or pay a tithe and suffer the consequences.Nirrim keeps her head down, and a dangerous secret close to her chest.But then she encounters Sid, a rakish traveler from far away, who whispers rumors that the High Kith possess magic. Sid tempts Nirrim to seek that magic for herself. But to do that, Nirrim must surrender her old life. She must place her trust in this sly stranger who asks, above all, not to be trusted.
Excerpt
I opened my eyes. I could see a bit better, now that the guards did not block my view, the shadow in the cell opposite mine. The light cast by the oil lantern in the hallway was dim, but still I saw the shape of a young man, hair cut close to the head, in trousers tighter than I would wear and a waist-length jacket with the short, stand-up collar allowed to Middling men. He lounged against the bars, a languid hand dangling through them, fingers slender and long. He was taller than me but not by much, the lines of his body fuzzy in the darkness, loose and lazy.
“Come closer,” he said. “I can’t see you.”
“Yes, you can. You saw the ring on that guard’s finger.” “I would like to see you better.”
I was grateful that he had made the guard leave, and I was curious about him, too, but my curiosity unnerved me. Curiosity is too much like wanting. It comes from feeling dissatisfied, and I knew well the danger of that.
“It’s only neighborly,” he said.
I moved back into the depths of the cell. “My name is Sid,” he said.
That was a strangely short name, and I told him so.
He hesitated, the first time I had seen him pause at all. Thus far, he had spoken so quickly after the end of someone’s words it was as though he had known long ago what that person would say. Finally, he said, “I don’t like my longer name.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t suit me.” “Why?”
“Persistent thing. And curious. Aren’t you curious? Come closer, and you’ll see me better, too.” His voice, husky yet light, had lowered a little.
“A cheap trick.” He had dropped his voice to a whisper with the intention to make me instinctively draw nearer.
“But if a trick is so obvious, is it really a trick? If I know that you will know it? I think it’s trusting, actually. If I trust you to see through my trick then I have placed great faith in your intelligence.”
“Flattery.” “Honesty!”
“Flattery disguised as honesty.” “Flattery just means that I like you.”
“You don’t know me,” I said. “You are playing a game, and it is with me.”
There was a mortified silence. “I didn’t mean to. It was silent here before you came. That’s no excuse, I know. Should I be quiet? I can be. It will be hard.”
“No.” Like him, I didn’t want the frightening silence of the prison. His voice was supple and clever. It hid the corridor’s empty echo. It meant I wasn’t alone.
“Will you tell me your name?” he asked. “I have given you mine.” He hadn’t, not really, but: “Nirrim,” I said.
“Nirrim,” he repeated. “No last name?” I was confused. “What is a last name?”
“True, they are not used in Ethin. But you seem different from other people here, so I thought maybe you were different in other ways, too.” I didn’t want to ask how he found me different. I didn’t like that he knew that I was. I had tried so hard, since what had happened to Helin, not to be different. I said, “I have never heard of a last name.” “In other places, in some countries, people have last names.” “What other places?”
“Do you want me to tell you about them?”
I felt ashamed that I knew so little of anything outside theWard, and that a Middling knew so much more than I did of the world. He wasn’t even High Kith. “No,” I said.
If you haven't read the Winner's Trilogy by Marie Rutkoski, I highly recommend it! It's one of my favorite trilogies. Expect great writing, a strong female lead, strategy, and romance. I should probably go reread it again, but sadly it is finals seasons.
Marie Rutkoski is the New York Times bestselling author of several books for children and young adults, including The Winner's Curse. She holds a BA from The University of Iowa and a PhD from Harvard University. She is a professor of English literature at Brooklyn College and lives in Brooklyn with her two sons and two cats.
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