The Winner's Crime(70)

That last kind of thought grew like flowers with fire for petals. They blackened the grass around them. They burned from root to stamen. Kestrel avoided them.

Except when she didn’t. Sometimes, she went to them first. Sometimes, she lied to herself along the way.

She thought about the piano she had left behind in Herran. And it was allowed for her to think about that, because why wouldn’t she miss the instrument she’d grown up playing, and had been her mother’s? There was nothing wrong with thinking that the palace piano had a rich, ringing sound, that it was probably the finer instrument, but that it made her long for the one she’d played almost all her life. She could practically feel the cool keys.

Her piano was in Arin’s house. She knew the house well. It had been her prison. It had become—almost—her home.

But then she thought that this was not true. She didn’t know Arin’s house all that well, and her insistence on this truth made it clear that she had told herself that earlier lie only so that she could correct herself. Because wasn’t there a part of Arin’s home that she had never seen?

This was her correction:

This was the burning flower:

Kestrel had never been in Arin’s rooms. Yes, she’d visited his childhood suite. She’d been there once with him. But that wasn’t where he had slept during her time there. That wasn’t where he passed his private hours, where he bathed and dressed and read and looked out windows. No, she’d never seen those views.

Arin had lived on the other side of the twinned rooftop gardens that joined his suite to hers. He’d given her the key to its door. In her mind, Kestrel held the key. She fitted it to the lock. She eased the door open.

She imagined what she would find. Maybe the hall that led into Arin’s rooms from his garden would have a tiled floor that had been glazed so that it glittered in the dark like the scales of a magic creature. In her imagination, night had fallen hours ago. The darkness felt ripe.

Arin wouldn’t burn lamps in every room, especially the rooms he wasn’t using. That was something Kestrel would do. No, Arin would light one lamp and turn it down low, in the way of someone who had long been forced to conserve what little he had. There’d be one light to follow. When she found it, she would find him.

Sometimes, she found him in his bedroom.

Sometimes, this was too much to think. It made her heart flinch. It stole her courage. So she found him in other places: in a chair by the sitting room fire, or crouched by the fire itself, feeding kindling into the flames.

Once she found him, what happened next was always the same. Her imagination gave him something to hold so that he would set it aside when he saw her. The kindling. A book.

He was surprised to see her. He didn’t think she would come.

He straightened. He stood. He came close.

Arin had won the truth from her that night in the capital city. He’d won it fairly. This time he would collect what she owed. This time, he demanded all her reasons. She would pay them fully. The truth lay on her tongue. But not just there. Kestrel felt the truth in her throat, too. It stemmed down deep inside her. She wondered if this was how it felt to sing. Was this the moment before song, the way the body set and readied itself?

She could ask Arin. He would know. But she was afraid of speaking.

But he was listening. He was waiting for his answers.

This was the moment. This was when it always happened. And this was what it was: Kestrel lifted her mouth to his, and sang the truth into him.

*

She could no longer bear Jess’s silence. Too many letters had gone unanswered. Kestrel had been turned away from Jess’s door too many times. Kestrel hated to force a meeting … but in the end, that’s exactly what she did. She sent an announcement embossed with the imperial seal. The heavy paper proclaimed the day of Kestrel’s arrival at Jess’s townhome. It appointed the hour.

And Jess was there.

Kestrel was ushered into the parlor, where Jess sat on a needlepoint sofa near a fire stoked high even though the day was fair. Kestrel stood awkwardly, twisting and untwisting the ribbon of her purse. Jess looked even thinner than before, her hair dull, her eyes not quite meeting Kestrel’s. They were focused a bit higher—on the engagement mark on her brow, Kestrel realized.

Jess’s gaze flicked away. “What do you want?”

Kestrel had been queasy in the carriage the whole way here. That feeling was worse now. Her insides screwed into a wormy knot. “To see you.”

“Well, I’m here, just as you commanded. You’ve seen me. And now you may leave.”

“Jess.” Kestrel’s throat closed. “I miss you.”

Jess picked at the needlepoint image stitched into the sofa’s seat cushion. It showed a warrior girl hunting a fox. Jess’s nails tugged out a thread.

“Was it the necklace?” Kestrel asked. She’d been quick—unfeelingly, cruelly quick—to crush the glass petals of Jess’s gift into dust. She caught herself hoping that a broken gift was all that had made their friendship go wrong.

“The necklace.” Jess’s voice was flat.

“I didn’t realize how much it meant to you. I—”

“I’m glad it’s broken.” Jess leaped to her feet and went to a crystal tray set on a side table. It held a cut-glass pitcher of water and a small vial filled with a murky liquid. Jess poured water into a glass, splashing a little. She tipped the vial over the glass. Several drops fell into the water and clouded it. Jess drank deeply, her brown eyes too shiny, and hard.