*
Verex stopped her in the hallway. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Maybe you bribed the wrong lady-in-waiting. You should choose one who keeps a closer eye on my whereabouts.”
He laughed. “Or maybe you should bribe one of my valets, so that we’d be even. Then again”—he shrugged good-naturedly—“my whereabouts aren’t very interesting.” He tugged her hand. “Come. I have something to show you. Give you, actually.”
“A gift?”
“A wedding present.”
The word wedding stopped her heart. “It’s too early for that.”
“It’s never too early for presents.”
“I don’t have anything for you.”
“Oh, just come. You’ll like it, I promise.”
It was a good-size puppy. A black, squirming creature with folded ears and a tail that had been docked for hunting. It was chewing the leg of one of the ornate chairs in Verex’s sitting room. It had left a yellow puddle on the wooden floor.
“The runt,” Verex said proudly. “She survived.”
Kestrel bent low, her organza skirts rustling. She offered a hand to the animal, who snuffled it, then pushed beneath so that Kestrel could properly scratch behind her ears. Her stubby tail beat back and forth. Delightedly, the puppy nipped Kestrel’s wrist.
Kestrel felt suddenly quiet and warm, as if she had just come inside from a long walk on a day chillier than anyone had predicted.
She straightened. She went to Verex and kissed his cheek.
“Oh,” he said, and awkwardly patted her shoulder. “Well.” He smiled.
They played with the puppy, whom Kestrel didn’t yet want to name. They tossed velvet cushions for the dog to catch. She savaged them. Feathers flurried over the floor.
This moment was simple, smooth, like a pebble lifted from a riverbed. Kestrel could have asked Verex about the screen in the music room. She could have talked about that Borderlands game with her father, or how her oldest friend was no longer her friend. But Kestrel didn’t want to. Nothing should spoil this moment. She played tug-of-war with the dog until the animal dropped her cushion, which no longer bore even the vaguest resemblance to a cushion. The puppy collapsed in a black heap and fell asleep.
Kestrel wondered what Jess would name her, then shoved that thought from her mind.
But …
Something had been troubling her. Something about that day in Jess’s parlor that she should be able to figure out. A mystery that Kestrel thought could have a clear answer when so much else seemed bewildering, like how she understood Jess’s anger—and didn’t.
“You know a lot about healing,” she said to Verex.
“Not really.” He sat on the floor by the sleeping puppy, who had huddled on Kestrel’s feet. “I studied it a bit. I told you: my father didn’t like it. I didn’t get far.”
“But you know some things.”
He shrugged. “I suppose.”
“Is there a brownish medicine one might take with water?”
“Diluted with water?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean. The medicine leaves a residue at the bottom of the glass.”
He pursed his lips. “That could be a few different things. You should ask the palace physician. He’s developed many medicines made in concentrated form to be diluted later with water. He’s excellent at calculating dilution. He trained as a water engineer.” When he saw Kestrel’s surprise, Verex said, “Yes, he even served in the military with the palace water engineer. But that was long ago. He had a gift as a medic on the battlefield and changed professions.” Verex ran a hand down the back of the puppy, who sighed heavily. “Don’t you wish it were that easy? To change who you are?”
For a moment, Kestrel didn’t quite hear his question. Her mind was sparking with the connection between the palace physician and its chief water engineer, who had been bribed for some unknown thing.
She’d promised Tensen she would discover what that thing was.
She’d promised herself to live by her own ideas of honor. She would help Tensen. Because it was right. Because it mattered.
How can the inconsequence of your life not shame you?
Kestrel’s memory was so full of Arin’s voice that she didn’t realize that Verex was peering at her. What had he asked?
If she wished to change herself.
“No,” she lied. Then she decided that what she’d said was the truth. “No,” she said again, “I don’t.”