The Winner's Crime (22 page)

with its diamond- paned oil lamps.

But she didn’t.

Kestrel touched the wrought- iron railing that ran the

length of the river. The cold metal burned. Kestrel skimmed

her palm along it as she walked— slowly, then quickly, rac-

ing along the river’s edge for no other purpose than to see

where it would lead her . . . so long as it was away from

where she was supposed to be.

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A water engineer. Arin took a skinny set of stairs that led

up out of the Narrows. At the top, he turned to look down

CRIME

at the city. Lamplights scattered over the darkness: jewels

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across a black velvet lap.

To Arin, the bets about the wedding dress were clear.

Though Tensen had doubted him, Arin had been right:

THE WINNER

the Senate leader was being paid with lucrative informa-

tion. He had done the emperor a favor. But what?

And if the water engineer had been paid in kind, what

had
she
done?

Arin heard the sound of rushing water. The river.

There was a canal, he remembered, where the river

thinned and gentled. A series of locks, crafted by the water

engineer herself.

Arin found the river and followed it.

Kestrel stopped at the sight of the locks. At fi rst, she mar-

veled at their design, at the way a series of gates could open

or close to raise or lower the water level so that a barge

could deliver its goods.

Such an invention. What a sharp mind had made these.

When Arin came to the locks, someone else was there. A

palace maid, her back to him. She was Valorian; through

the faint light of a far- off lamp, he could see the white-

trimmed hem of her blue skirt peeking out from beneath a

large coat. Her hair was covered with a work scarf. She was

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all shadow, a small huddle of it.

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Somehow his heart caught at the sight. The boy he had

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been, the one that Arin caught glimpses of sometimes in

the mirror, spoke up shyly within him to say
lonely
. He said

beautiful
.

But this was not a painting. This was a person. This

MARIE RUTK

was a Valorian stranger he wanted no part of, with her pal-

ace dress that reminded Arin of everything the empire had

cost him.

He told that boy to go away.

Arin kept walking. He followed the canal until it

curved. Even if he looked back, he would no longer be able

to see the maid.

The more Kestrel stared at the locks, the more she began to

feel like that river. She sensed her staggered self. The things

pent up behind the fl oodgates. The iron lies she herself had

swung into place and locked tight.

Kestrel heard footsteps: another late- night wanderer.

They slowed, but didn’t stop. They carried on, became far-

away echoes, then gone.

She, too, should leave. Kestrel couldn’t avoid the palace

forever.

Something made Arin turn back. The hand of a god? He

couldn’t say. But his feet were retracing their steps before

he even realized it. His body was alight, alive, insistent.

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Arin’s mind buzzed with the puzzle of it even as he

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quickened his pace. Why did he feel the urge to return?

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There was no great mystery in a palace maid standing

alone by the canal. There was nothing more to see.

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But:

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Hurry,
said his feet.

Hurry,
said his heart.

The maid, however, had gone.

THE WINNER

He kept searching. As the canal expanded into the river

and a bridge arched its back in the gloom, he remembered

the maid’s shoes: black dueling boots. Why would a maid

wear boots that were part of the ceremonial garb for a Val-

orian duel?

Unless she had nothing more practical to wear. Arin

had a very strange image of a faceless maid sorting through

piles of glamorous shoes for a comfortable pair.

Why would he think that?

Her dagger, too, hadn’t been quite right. It wasn’t un-

usual for a maid to wear one— all Valorians did— but they

didn’t wrap their hilts with cloth. That changed the grip.

Arin couldn’t think of any reason that someone would

cover a hilt like this . . . unless it needed to be hidden.

He was running now. Sweat stung the cut on his face.

Although he hadn’t seen the maid’s hands, he kept

imagining a memory of them.

He saw pale, lithe fi ngers. He remembered them reach-

ing for his own. He felt them slide under his shirt, over his

skin. He saw them strike music from black and white keys,

storm down, then quiet the melody, lull it, and trick it into

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dreams.

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When Arin truly did see the girl’s hand in the dark-

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ness, resting on a railing near the bridge, he thought it was

a phantom of his imagination. The maid’s fi ngers rippled

along the railing. They played an unheard song.

He knew that gesture.

MARIE RUTK

He knew that hand.

Arin slowed. She was lost in thought. She didn’t hear

him coming, or if she did it didn’t matter to her. The river

mattered. The music in her head mattered. She stared into

the dark.

Arin was quiet as he came close, said her name, and

touched her cold, bare hand. He didn’t want to startle her.

He thought at fi rst that he hadn’t. Arin felt the stillness

in her before she turned to look at him. He felt the recogni-

tion. But when Kestrel fi nally glanced up at Arin, she re-

coiled as if she didn’t know him. She snatched her hand

from his and lifted it— to ward him off , he thought. To

block the very sight of him.

He’d frightened her after all. There was a cry on her

lips. Horror in her eyes.

A monster stood before her. Arin remembered that

now.

The monster was him.

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19

KESTREL SAW ARIN FLINCH AWAY, HARD, FROM

the hand she’d lifted to touch him. It fell as if burned.

She seemed to feel the knife that had done this to him.

It went into her. It hit something vital, and she hunched

inside herself. Shock made it impossible to speak. Pain

scooped the air from her throat.

Arin’s fi ngers touched the two seams that cut a long

broken slash down the left side of his face.

“What happened to you?” she whispered.

He covered the wound. But Kestrel had seen its length.

The livid skin straining at black stitches. The way it had

changed him. The way he hid it.

“Arin, tell me.”

He stayed silent.

“Please,” she said.

Arin crouched down, and Kestrel didn’t understand

the movement until he had pulled a dagger from his boot.

Her dagger. Her beloved dagger, with its perfect weight

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and her seal carved into the hilt’s ruby. Her dagger, which

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the emperor had taken weeks ago.

“This,” Arin said, and gave it to Kestrel.

I’m sorry,
she had told the emperor.

No, you’re not. But you will be.

MARIE RUTK

She dropped the dagger to the ground.

Arin retrieved it. “Take care. You’ll damage the blade. I

happen to know that it keeps a nice, sharp edge. I made

sure that the palace guard I took it from knew it, too. You’d

think that a Valorian would have more courage than to

hire someone to attack me in a dark corner.”

“Arin, it wasn’t me.”

“I didn’t say it was.” But he was angry and rough.

“I could never.”

Arin must have sensed that she was ready to weep, that

the dagger in his hands was warping in her blurred vision.

He spoke more gently. “I don’t think that you did.”

“Why?” Her voice wavered and broke. “I could have

arranged for it. That’s my dagger. That’s my seal. Why do

you believe what I say? Why would you believe in me at

all?”

He moved to lean forward on the railing, forearms

folded with the blade dangling down over the river, his face

in profi le. Finally, he said, “I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I know,” he muttered.

She heard the strain in his voice. His eyes cut to her,

and she saw that he knew she had heard it. His body shifted

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into a position of determined nonchalance. “Logically

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speaking,” he said lightly, “the idea that you hired someone

to attack me doesn’t make much sense. I’m not sure what

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your motive would be.”

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“I could have wanted to put an end to the rumors.”

“That would be a shame. I like the rumors.”

“Don’t joke. You should blame me. You must.”

THE WINNER

He shook his head. “It’s not like you to send someone

else to do your dirty work.”

“I could have changed.”

“Kestrel, why are you trying to convince me of your

guilt?”

Because this is my fault,
she wanted to say.

“A moment ago, you insisted that you had nothing to

do with this,” Arin said, “and that’s what makes sense. Do

you want to tell me why the emperor took your dagger?

Whom did he want to punish with it? Just me . . . or you,

too?”

Kestrel couldn’t speak.

“I might even be fl attered,” Arin said, “if the emperor’s

form of fl attery didn’t hurt so much.” He straightened, and

off ered her the dagger again.

“No,” she said sharply.

“It’s not the blade’s fault.”

She choked on her anguish. On her guilt, her fault, and

her trust. “If you give that dagger to me, I will throw it in

the river.”

Arin shrugged. He tucked the dagger back into his boot,

then he faced her. The slash curved slightly in his cheek

9

like half a smile, but his mouth was fl at as he watched her

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take him in. “I’m sure that my new appearance is fascinat-

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ing in all sorts of ways, but I don’t want to talk about it

anymore. I’d rather talk about
this
.” He pointed at Kestrel’s

work scarf and dragged his fi nger down through the air to

her black boots. “Kestrel, what are you doing?”

MARIE RUTK

She had forgotten what she wore. “Nothing.”

He lifted his dark brows.

“It was a dare,” she said. “A senator’s daughter dared me

to sneak out of the palace without an escort.”

“Try harder, Kestrel.”

She muttered, “I was tired of being closed up inside the

palace.”

“That I believe. But I doubt it’s the whole truth.”

Arin’s eyes were narrow, inspecting her. His hand slid

along the railing as he came close. He reached for the collar

of the sailor’s coat. He drew it away from her neck.

The world went luscious, and slow, and still.

He bowed his head. Stitches scratched against her

cheek. Arin buried his face in the hollow between her

neck and the coat collar and breathed in. Warmth fl ooded

her.

Kestrel imagined: his mouth parting against her skin.

The teeth of his smile. And she imagined more, she saw

what she would do, how she would forget herself, how

everything would slip and unloop, like rich ribbon off its

spool. The dream of this held her. She couldn’t move.

She felt him feel how she didn’t move. Arin hesitated.

He lifted his head and looked down at her. The blacks of

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his eyes were huge.

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He released her. “You smell like a man.” He put some

distance between them. “Where’d you get that coat?”

CRIME

Kestrel’s voice wasn’t quite as shaky as the rest of her. “I

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won it.”

“Who was your victim this time?”

“A sailor. At cards. I was cold.”