The Winner's Crime(46)

“Blunt, but effective,” Arin commented as Kestrel claimed a chair, her back to the courtiers. Arin remained standing. She thought he might say something teasing. That steely mirth hadn’t quite left him, but it had softened during their push through the tavern. He looked a little tired, like a runner done running. Whatever thought had seized him in the alleyway was gone … or had gone away enough. She couldn’t see it anymore on his torn face.

His dear face, dear to her, dearer still. How could she love his face more for its damage? What kind of person saw someone’s suffering and felt her heart crack open even wider, even more sweetly than before?

There was something wrong with her. It was wrong to want to touch a scar and call it beautiful.

Arin wasn’t looking at her anymore. He’d been distracted.

Kestrel followed his gaze to see a black-eyed redhead at a nearby table giving Arin a cool look. His expression didn’t change, but something inside him did. Kestrel felt it. It twisted her heart.

When Arin’s attention returned to Kestrel, she examined the splintery surface of the table. “I’m going to get a Bite and Sting set,” he said. “And wine. Should I get wine?”

The answer to that was a clear no. Kestrel needed all her wits about her for a game she shouldn’t—couldn’t—lose. But she felt suddenly miserable, and realized that she’d been nervous ever since Arin had found her by the river. She said yes.

He hesitated, like he might counsel her against that choice. Then he left the table.

The crowd swallowed him. Kestrel couldn’t see where he had gone.

*

Arin didn’t like to leave her for long. She was going to attract attention. It was her nature. But when he returned with wine and a game set, she was alone and quiet: an almost eerie silence in the tavern’s storm.

He saw her before she did him. He saw that she was unhappy. He realized that this was what had arrested him by the canal when he’d thought she was a nameless maid: the sense that this stranger had lost something as precious to her as what he had lost was to him.

In his mind, Arin lost to Kestrel at Bite and Sting, and let all of his questions slip away.

In his mind, he said, Tell me what you want.

And she said, Leave this city.

She said, Take me with you.

Kestrel lifted her gaze. As he met her eyes—an extremely light brown, the lightest shade before brown becomes gold—Arin knew that he was a fool. A thousand times a fool.

He must stop. They were painful, these waking dreams. Why did he allow himself to think them? They skewed everything. Arin was ashamed now, remembering how he’d pretended—even if for a moment—that Kestrel was the Moth. He shoved that lovely little lie from his head. He refused to think of it again. Thoughts like this made him feel split in two, just as his face was: one side fine and the other sore and throbbing.

He sat, and set the game, wine bottle, and glass on the table. He poured.

“Only one glass?” she said.

He handed it to her. “I’ve no head for wine. How is it?”

“Terrible.” But she drank deeply.

Arin upacked the set. Kestrel picked up one of the tiles, which was made of rough wood, and turned it over in her fingers. Her thumb rubbed at some grime. He watched her drink again.

Arin thought of the ruined dress Deliah had described. Tensen had dismissed it with an impatient wave of the hand, a gesture that told Arin it was ridiculous to imagine anything dire. Vomit on the sleeve of a dress? Well, don’t courtiers like wine? Arin had seen scores of Valorians drunk until sick. As for the dirt on the dress and split seams … anybody can trip. The Winter Garden had no mud, true, but Arin hadn’t seen all of the palace grounds. There were places he wasn’t allowed to go. Kestrel could have tripped anywhere.

Neither tripping nor drunkenness seemed like Kestrel. But he watched her drain the glass.

I could have changed, she’d said by the river.

Arin took the game piece from Kestrel. He mixed the tiles with unnecessary force. They drew their hands.

Arin’s was pitiful. The only thing that saved this game from being a lost cause was a pair of mice, and mice held almost the lowest value. The rest of his hand was an assortment of Sting tiles—which Kestrel delighted in playing, and played well. He, less so.

And Kestrel had a high hand. He knew it. She had no tells—not exactly. It was more that she had a concentrated lack of tells. She changed without giving any clear sign that she had changed. She gathered intensity.

“Kestrel.”

She discarded a tile and drew another. She didn’t look at him. He’d noticed—of course he had—how she avoided looking at him now. And no wonder. Arin’s face stung. The stitches itched. He was tempted to rip them out. “Look at me,” he said. She did, and Arin suddenly wished she hadn’t. He cleared his throat. He said, “I won’t try anymore to convince you not to marry him.”

She slowly added the new tile to her hand. She stared at it, and said nothing.

“I don’t understand your choice,” Arin said. “Or maybe I do. It doesn’t matter. You want it. That’s clear. You’ve always done exactly what you wanted.”

“Have I.” Her voice was flat and dull.

He plunged ahead. “I was wondering…” Arin had an idea. He’d had it for some time now. He didn’t like it. The words lay bitter on his tongue, but he had thought about it, and thought about it, and if he said nothing …