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.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Tensen said. “You love him.”
Helplessly, she said, “I love my father, too.”
Tensen looked down at the letter. He turned it over in his hands.
“If you don’t give that to Arin,” Kestrel said, “I will.”
Tensen grimaced. Then he opened his jacket and placed the letter in an internal breast pocket. He refastened the jacket and patted his chest once, just above the heart. Kestrel heard the faint crackle of paper.
“You’ll do it?” she said.
“I promise.”
*
Kestrel’s father was waiting in her suite. He must have sent the maids away. He was alone, sitting in a chair in the outermost receiving room. During daylight hours, the chair had a view of the barbican through which the general had entered months ago on his bloodied horse. He kept his gaze to the window well after Kestrel had entered. Night had fallen and the window was black. There was nothing for him to see.
She stopped wondering whether he had been in the hidden room for some—all?—of her conversation with Arin. She knew. She saw it in his face. Her father had heard more than enough.
A crisis of words rose within her. She wanted to say so many things—to ask what he believed, to plead her innocence, to confess her guilt, to ask if he had reported Arin’s presence to the imperial guard, and if yes, what would happen, and if no, please don’t, Father, don’t. She wanted to say, Love me anyway, even with what I’ve done, even with my mistakes, will you, would you, please?
And what she wanted most was to be small again, to be allowed to call him papa, to reach only his knee, because she remembered, in a flash like light from a curtain yanked open wide, how she used to run and topple against his legs when she was that young, and hug him, and she could swear that he would laugh.
Kestrel slowly crossed the room to him. She knelt beside his chair. She rested her brow against his knee and closed her eyes. Heart in mouth, she whispered, “Do you trust me?”
There was no answer. Then she felt his heavy hand on her hair. “Yes,” he said.