The Winner's Crime (11 page)

Arin just stormed through the ballroom. His mouth was

shiny. Maybe people will think it was from wine and not

glittered oil, but they won’t if they see you, too.”

MARIE RUTK

Kestrel’s fi ngers fl ew to her forehead and the engage-

ment mark Arin had kissed moments ago. She touched her

hair, its loosened tendrils.

How did she look?

Like someone who had had an illicit liaison?

“That’s right,” Tensen said grimly.

“Come,” Kestrel said, turning to retrace her steps back

down the hall, away from the ball.

“With you?”

“You and I need to talk.”

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9

KESTREL LED TENSEN TO A SMALL, EMPTY

salon where lamps and a fi re burned. Tensen shut the door

behind them.

“Block it with your cane,” Kestrel said, pointing at a

tapestry hook that was about level with the doorknob.

“Since you don’t need it anyway.”

Tensen glanced ruefully at her before setting the curved

end of his cane around the doorknob and latching the

straight end into the hook. “That won’t hold. Not if some-

one really wants to get in.”

She ignored him. She came close to the mirror above

the fi replace’s mantel, which held a wide- bottomed vase of

hot house fl owers.

Maybe it was the roses, the way that they covered her

neck in the mirror’s refl ection, reaching up to her chin.

Maybe it was the hurried escape down the hallway.

Kestrel looked breathlessly in bloom. Color was high in

her cheeks. Her lips, though Arin had not in fact touched

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them, were bitten red. The blacks of her eyes were wide

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pools. The necklace Jess had given her was broken, the

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cracked glass petals hanging limply from their ribbon,

crushed from the pressure between her and Arin.

Kestrel’s refl ection stared back. She had the air of some-

thing that has been opened and cannot be shut again.

MARIE RUTK

She looked like pure scandal.

Her hair wasn’t the worst of it. Yes, the upswept ar-

rangement was coming loose, a lock slipping here and there,

but her hair was too short for intricate braids, which meant

that it often came undone. Kestrel was in the habit of ap-

pearing a little disheveled, and pinning her hair back in

place herself.

The real problem was the mark. The golden line on her

brow had become a smear.

“Do you have extra oil and glitter with you?” Tensen

said.

Kestrel gave his refl ection in the mirror an exasperated

glance. She wasn’t carry ing a purse. Where did he think

she’d keep such items? The cosmetics were on the dressing

table in her suite.

“I’ll fi nd one of your ladies- in- waiting in the ballroom,”

Tensen said. “Or do you have a trusted friend? Someone

who can fetch what you need and bring it here?”

Kestrel thought about how long that would take. She

thought about how one of her maids reported to Verex. She

thought about Jess, and what her friend’s reaction would

be if the Herrani minister of agriculture approached her at

the ball to request her assistance in making Kestrel look

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respectable again.

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“No,” Kestrel said. “Bring me a lamp.”

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Tensen’s expression was disapproving. It said that he

didn’t see how a lamp could serve, and that time was being

CRIME

wasted. But he did what she asked.

’S

Kestrel blew out the lamp and set it on the mantel to

cool. With her dagger, she cut fabric from the hem of her

inner slip, grateful for the dress’s many layers. She took the

THE WINNER

roses from the heavy ceramic vase, set their dripping stems

on the mantel, and tipped the vase’s water onto the silk rag.

She used it to scrub her forehead clean. She remembered

Arin’s kiss there, and scrubbed harder. She tossed the rag

aside. She untied her necklace, found the brightest amber

glass petals, and hammered them against the mantel’s sur-

face with the vase’s bottom. She ground the petals into

dust. Dipping one fi nger into the lamp’s oil, Kestrel hissed

at the burn, yet didn’t wait for the pain to fade. She drew

an oiled, horizontal line above her brows.

Now for the glitter. She tapped her fi nger into the glass

dust.

“You’ll cut yourself,” said Tensen, but his disapproval

had vanished.

“I’ll be careful,” she said, patting the dust over the oiled

line. She tucked loose tendrils back where they belonged

and pinned them more securely in place. The roses returned

to their vase, the vase resumed its place in front of the mir-

ror, and Kestrel wiped the remaining glass dust off the man-

tel with her wet silk rag. She threw the rag and necklace

into the fi re. “Well?” she asked Tensen, turning to face him.

“Excellent.”

She shook her head. “Optimistic.” The mark shimmered,

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but was barely golden. “Are you always so optimistic?” she

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asked. “I think you must be, or you wouldn’t have written

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that letter to me, or hinted that we have information to share.”

“Am I wrong?”

“You forget that I outrank you.
I
will inquire.
You
will

answer. Minister Tensen, what were you before the Herran

MARIE RUTK

War, ten years ago?”

Slaves had never liked that question. She’d seen teeth

clenched at its asking. If an emotion could have a sound,

Kestrel thought that the one produced by that question

might sound like the glass petals had, ground beneath the

heavy vase.

But Tensen only smiled. “I was an actor.”

“I suppose that’s good experience for a spymaster.”

Tensen wasn’t at all put out by having that title pinned

on him. He seemed positively delighted by this conversa-

tion. “I hope I’m not so obvious to everyone.”

“ ‘Hope’ is the operative word here, since your governor

gave all signs that he wouldn’t be here to night, and if he sent

someone to the capital in his stead it must have been a per-

son of po liti cal value to him, someone he trusts, someone

intelligent and observant. You’ve taken some pains to appear

weaker than you are, but you’re no old man ready to doze

off .”

“Well, I
am
old. That much is true.”

Kestrel made an impatient noise. “Are you even really

the minister of agriculture?”

“I like to think that I’m able to play many roles.”

“And you are very optimistic indeed if you believe that

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the emperor won’t notice, especially when he knows full

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well that Herran has spies in the palace.”

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Tensen lost his smile. “What do
you
know, my lady?”

“That this conversation will end now unless you make

CRIME

me a promise.”

’S

He raised his brows.

“Promise that Arin will never learn that you and I

spoke,” she said. “I can off er information. You can give it to

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your governor. But it can’t be linked to me.”

Tensen considered her. He passed a gnarled hand over

the carved back of a chair and pursed his lips as if there was

something wanting in the chair’s design. “I know that your

presence in Arin’s house after the Firstwinter Rebellion

was . . . complicated.”

“I didn’t want to be there.”

“Maybe not at fi rst.”

Slowly, Kestrel said, “I never could have stayed.”

“My lady, it’s not for me to know what you wanted or

what you could or could not do. But your condition sur-

prises me. If you’re sympathetic enough toward my gover-

nor— or his cause— to share something with me, why can’t

Arin know? I swore by the god of loyalty to serve him. You

would make me break my oath.”

“Do you know how I escaped from your city’s harbor?”

“No.”

“Arin let me go,” she said, “even though letting me go

was the same thing as inviting the Valorian army to break

down his city’s walls. So promise me, because it is in
your

interest that Arin can’t know. You can’t trust that he’ll al-

ways choose the safety of his country— or even of himself.”

Tensen was silent.

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“Do you see?” Kestrel pressed. “Do you see that the

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very reason you stopped me from entering the ballroom is

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why you can’t tell Arin that your information comes from

me? Let’s not pretend that you don’t know how I came to

look like I did, and why I can’t look that way when I return

to the ballroom.” Kestrel’s gaze dropped to her hands. She

MARIE RUTK

wished she had something to do with them. She imagined

that she held one of those roses on the mantel. She could

almost feel the bloom’s texture, its curled velvet as sink-

ingly soft as the balcony’s curtain.

“Arin and I are impossible,” she said quietly. “Danger-

ous. It’s best that we keep our distance from each other.”

“Yes,” said Tensen. “I see.”

“Do you promise?”

“Would you trust me to keep that promise?”

“I trust my ability to ruin you if you don’t.”

He laughed. It wasn’t quite a disbelieving laugh, only

the kind that the aged sometimes have for the young.

“Then speak, my lady. You have my word.”

Kestrel told him about Thrynne and what the tortured

man had said.

The minister pressed a palm to his mouth, thumb rum-

pling the wrinkles near one eye. As he heard more, his

hand shifted into a fi st, still covering his mouth. He had

the look of someone trying not to be sick.

His hand fell away. “You think that Thrynne had

something important to tell Arin. What did Thrynne over-

hear during the emperor’s meeting with the Senate leader?”

“I don’t know.”

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“You could fi nd out.”

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But Kestrel was already walking toward the door. “No.”

Tensen spread his hands. “Where’s the harm?”

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She shook her head at the obvious absurdity of such a

’S

question.

“Are you afraid of the risk of fi nding out more?” said

Tensen. “I hear that you love a gamble.”

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“This isn’t a game.”

“Yet you’ve played it well so far. You’re playing it now.”

Kestrel set her hand on the cane blocking the door.

“This kind of conversation won’t happen again. I am not

one of your people. I have my own country and code . . .

and no reason to become your spy.”

“Then why tell me anything at all?”

Kestrel shrugged. “Valorians see little point in the sa-

cred, but we honor the last request of the dying. I’ve told

you what I know for Thrynne’s sake.”

“Only for him?”

Kestrel handed Tensen his cane. “Good night, Minis-

ter. Enjoy the remainder of the ball.”

Verex found Kestrel in a corner of the ballroom pouring

a glass of iced lemon water with fl oating sprigs of mint.

“Where have you been? And why are you serving yourself ?

Here.” He took the cut- crystal dipper from her and poured.

But Kestrel wasn’t really watching him. Her mind was

a curtained balcony. It was fi lled with the memory of warm

movement. Of almost coming undone. Coming close, push-

ing away, letting go . . .

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Verex set the cold cup in her hand. The lemon- mint

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water tasted alien: piercingly sweet and clear.

He took his time pouring a cup for himself. His move-

ments were tense. He seemed constantly on the point of

saying something.

MARIE RUTK

“Thank you,” he fi nally murmured.

“For what?” Kestrel’s heart was made of treason. Didn’t

Verex sense that? Couldn’t he tell? Why would he ever thank

her?

“For the Borderlands game. You helped me win.”

She’d forgotten about that. “Oh. It was nothing.”

“I’m sure to
you
it was,” he said bitterly. His eyes roamed