The Winner's Crime(93)

Kestrel had a three-tiered plan of what to do when she found Arin. If she found him alone, and trusted their privacy, she would speak. Yet … would he listen? She remembered that clarity in his voice as he had finally and fully given up on her, the coolness of his touch … a lightness. That light, cool quality had been relief. She knew that. If she tried to speak with him again, he might very well just walk away.

Please, read this letter, she’d say, and place it in his hands. If all else failed, or they weren’t alone: the moth.

There was a tap at the dressing room door.

Kestrel opened it to see one of the maids: a very young girl. Quiet, softly plain. “My lady,” the maid said, “forgive me, but you seem upset.”

“I’m fine.” But Kestrel’s voice was strained.

“Should I send for the prince?”

So this was the maid in Verex’s employ. Kestrel realized that regardless of why the arrangement had begun, at some point Verex had asked the maid to watch over her, and to tell him if Kestrel needed help.

How like Verex. How like her friend.

It gave her courage. “No,” she told the maid. “Truly, I’m fine. Everything will be fine.”

*

At first, Kestrel felt better. She left the imperial wing behind her, clinging to her plan as if it were a guiding hand. But as she took a tightly wound marble staircase down, careful not to rush, careful to smile at a passing courtier and to ignore imperial guards stationed at the landings of each floor, that guiding hand grew cold. When she reached the wing that held suites for the lesser sort of guests, that hand felt like a fistful of bones. If she let go, they would scatter and roll.

Kestrel stole a glance behind her. No one seemed to be following her.

She turned down one last hall. The day’s last light seeped in from a lone window. It cast the hallway into lurid orange.

Kestrel stood before the door. Could it really have been this easy? But then, the hidden room behind the screen had been empty. And the general was her father. He had taught her how to ride. He loved her. She knew it. Wasn’t it a betrayal of him to fear that he had reported the conversation in the music room … if, indeed, he’d even witnessed it?

You have been betraying him all along, whispered a voice inside her. You are betraying him now.

Yet she knocked at Tensen’s door. With a jittery gratitude, she heard someone stirring inside. Footsteps neared. The handle clicked. The door widened, and so did Tensen’s eyes when he saw who stood before him.

She didn’t wait for him to speak. She slipped inside.





45

“You shouldn’t be here,” Tensen said.

Kestrel ignored him. She threaded through the small suite, ignoring the very existence of privacy as Tensen trailed after her, protesting. She even entered his dressing room.

She rounded on Tensen. “Where’s Arin?”


“I told you,” Tensen said warily, “no one knows where he is, and I assure you that I haven’t hidden him in the wardrobe.”

“Well, he’s closer than you’d think, and he hasn’t been in Herran’s city, or he would be dying.” She explained what she knew about the poison flowing through Herran’s aqueducts. The news made Tensen grow still. Stony. Telling the news had the opposite effect on her, because beneath her own words she heard the murmurs of everything Arin had said to her in the music room, and what she’d said back.

Tensen caught her wild hands. “Kestrel, be calm. Lower your voice.”

Had she been shouting? Her breath felt shallow, as if she’d been running. “Where can I find him?”

“I need for you to calm down.”

She pulled away. “The city’s water supply is tainted. I have to tell him.”

“It can’t be you.” His small green eyes were worried. “There are places in the palace you can’t go without raising suspicion. Arin might even have left already. Your emperor’s punishment for treason is death. Do you want to be caught?”

“It must be me,” she insisted. “I have to explain … other things.”

“Ah.” Tensen covered his mouth and rubbed at his cheek. “He risked a great deal meeting with you alone. Would you have him risk that again?”

“No, but…” She felt desperate. The pieces of her were coming apart, jumbling out of order. She took the letter from her pocket. She could no longer believe that Arin might accept it. Not from her. Not after the things that she had said. “Find him. Give this to him. It explains.”

He took the folded page gingerly. The black and white of the sonata’s score looked up at them. “What does it explain?”

“Everything.”

“Kestrel, what exactly do you hope giving him this will do?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. I—”

“You’re not yourself. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“I don’t want to think clearly! I am tired of thinking clearly. Arin should know about me. He should have always known.”

“It was better for him that he didn’t. You believed that. I did, too.”

“We were wrong.”

“So after he learns the truth, you’ll end your engagement.”

“No.”

“You’ll run away with Arin to live in a dying country for a few short days before the hammer of another invasion falls.”