The Winner's Crime(89)

But of course he wasn’t. A needle of ice pierced her heart. What a foolish thing to have thought: him, here. Her breath caught at the pain of it.

Kestrel made herself sit again at the piano. She pushed that icy needle in deeper. It grew frosted crystals. Kestrel imagined the ice spreading until it lacquered her in a clear, cold shell. Kestrel lifted her hands from her lap and played the emperor’s sonata.

*

The cook insisted that servants should accompany Arin. The maid’s cream had softened the appearance of his scar, but it would fool no one who looked closely. “Walk the halls with a few of us,” said the cook. A curious courtier could be distracted. The servants could flank Arin so that his features were obscured.

He refused.

“At least partway,” urged a Herrani.

“No,” Arin said. “Think of what the emperor would do if he discovered that you were helping me walk through his palace unnoticed.”

The Herrani gave Arin two keys and let him go alone.

*

When Arin mounted the steps up to the other world of the palace, the one with fresh air, he made sure to walk close alongside the walls, the left side of his face turned to them. A bucket of hot, soapy water swung from his hand. The steam curled damply over his wrist. He walked as quickly as he could.

Arin remembered little-used hallways, and had the advice of the servants, who knew which areas of the palace attracted the least attention at this hour. He followed their instructions. His pulse stuttered when he stumbled upon a couple of courtiers emerging, disheveled and giggling, from an alcove cloaked by a tapestry. But they were glad to ignore him.

The heavy keys in his pocket knocked hard against his thigh. He might not find Kestrel, or find her alone. It was astounding: the risk of what he was doing. Yet he picked up his pace. He dismissed that sinuous voice whispering inside him, calling him a fool.

But the treaty. Kestrel had offered it to him outside his city’s gate. The treaty had saved him. Why had it taken Arin so long to wonder whether it had been she who had saved him?

Fool, the voice said again.

Arin reached the imperial wing. He took a key from his pocket and let himself in.

*

Somewhere in the midst of the sonata, Kestrel’s hands paused. She hadn’t been reading the sheet music, so when her memory failed her and she lost her place in the progression of phrases, she lost it completely. This was unlike her. The music throbbed away.

Her old self would have been annoyed, but the frozen needle in her heart gave the orders now, and it said that she should simply make a note of the mistake and move on. She found a pen and did just that, underscoring the forgotten passage. She set the pen on the rack that held the sheet music and prepared to play again.

Then it came: her father’s silvery chime.

The corner of her mouth lifted.

All at once, she knew what she wanted to play for him. The general wouldn’t recognize one half of a duet, and if he did, he couldn’t guess whose voice was meant to sing with what she played. Kestrel thought again about how much she wanted to tell her father, and how little she could say.

But she could say this music. He would hear it, and even if he didn’t understand what he heard, she would feel what it would be like to tell him.

*

Arin heard the music long before he reached the room. It came down the hall in an overwhelming tide. It called him like a question his throat ached to answer. He could feel the parts where he was meant to sing. The song tried to batter its way outside him.

He thought he might have dropped the bucket. He didn’t know where it was. He was standing before the music room door. It seemed to have materialized in front of him. He set a palm to it. The door felt alive. The music pulsed in its grain.

Arin used the second key to open the door. The room was empty save for her. Kestrel saw him, and the music stopped.





43

For a heartbeat, Kestrel thought that she’d imagined him. Then she realized that he was real. It shattered her. The icy shell around her shivered into a thousand stinging pieces.

He shut the door. He kept his palm flat against it, his fingers fanned wide. He looked at her.

Later, Kestrel understood what the shock had cost her. She’d been too slow. It wasn’t until he met her eyes that she dropped deep into the knowledge that they were both in danger.

It took every ounce of will not to glance at the screen that hid her father. Her father, who would hear anything that they said, who could see Kestrel now. She saw herself as he must see her. She’d risen to her feet. She must be deathly pale. One hand gripped the music rack. She was staring toward the door, which was just out of her father’s line of sight.

Kestrel raised her hand. Stop, she begged Arin. Stay. Don’t move.

But the gesture set something in him on fire. His palm slid from the door. And she saw the determination in his face, the wild suspicion, the way it was already shaped into a question. With sudden horror, she realized what he was going to ask.

He strode toward her.

“No,” she told him. “Get out.”

It was too late. He was already at the piano. Her father could see.

“You will not shut me out,” Arin said.

Kestrel sank back down onto the piano bench. Her stomach lurched: this was a disaster. She had imagined, again and again, Arin looking at her in this way, saying what he’d just said. Suspecting what he must suspect. She had even—tentatively, feeling like a trespasser—prayed to his gods for the chance to see him again. But not like this. Not with her father watching.