Isareth had not thought about Maren in seventeen years.
That was not entirely true. She had thought about her the way you thought about things you had decided to stop thinking about — in the gaps, in the unguarded moments, in the third hour dark when the managed mind loosened its grip and the things underneath came forward without permission. She had thought about her in those moments and then she had done what she always did, which was acknowledge them briefly and return them to where they lived and pull the management back into place.
She had been very good at this.
The things she had been best at were the things she had put down.
•••
She had grown up in the lower city.
