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 rumpling the wrinkles near one eye. As he heard more, his hand shifted into a fist, 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 overhear during the emperor’s meeting with the Senate leader?”

“I don’t know.”

“You could find out.”

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

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

She shook her head at the obvious absurdity of such a question.

“Are you afraid of the risk of finding out more?” said Tensen. “I hear that you love a gamble.”

“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 sacred, 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, Minister. Enjoy the remainder of the ball.”

* * *

Verex found Kestrel in a corner of the ballroom pouring a glass of iced lemon water with floating 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 filled with the memory of warm movement. Of almost coming undone. Coming close, pushing away, letting go …

Verex set the cold cup in her hand. The lemon-mint water tasted alien: piercingly sweet and clear.

He took his time pouring a cup for himself. His movements were tense. He seemed constantly on the point of saying something.

“Thank you,” he finally 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 the ballroom, then settled on the emperor. Verex drank. “I couldn’t find you earlier. I looked everywhere.”

Kestrel’s cup was cold and sweating in her hand. She ran a quick thumb through the condensation. She was aware that some courtiers lingered nearby, as close as politeness would allow. They were drawing closer.

“Did a senator corner you?” Verex asked. “They’ll do that. They’ll try to worm their way into your good graces for a chance to influence my father. Well, Kestrel? Where were you? And what…” He frowned, peering closely at her. “Your mark has faded.”

“Oh,” she said. “I have a headache.” As the courtiers watched, she rubbed at her forehead, smudging the mark. She hoped the gesture seemed casual, absentminded, as if she had been doing it all evening.

* * *

Arin rambled around the palace suite he was to share with Tensen. It was not small or large, neither luxurious nor spare. Arin had thought that the palace steward would assign the Herrani contingent an insulting set of rooms, but this suite seemed chosen to send the message that the Herrani didn’t matter one way or the other.

He shrugged off his shirt. It was early in the evening, not yet midnight. The ball was still whirling on its giddy axis. Tensen hadn’t returned.

Arin could smell Kestrel’s perfume on him. It exhaled faintly from his shirt, mingled with the scent of the sea. Folding the fabric—or not really folding it, more smoothing it out over the back of a dressing room chair, as if the cloth were a living thing that needed soothing—Arin found a hole in the seam where the shoulder met the body. He worked a finger through the rip and swore.

Well, it was an old shirt. He had worn his finest clothes. He’d torn them out of the trunk upon his arrival in the palace and flung them on, fumbling with the cuffs, knowing he was late for the ball. Maybe the hole had happened then, in his haste.

It would have happened sooner or later. All of his best garments were ten years old. They had been his father’s.

They fit Arin badly. Even after alterations, it seemed that there wasn’t enough room anywhere. His father had been an elegant man, his proportions artistic. If he stood here now next to Arin, a stranger would never guess they were related.

Arin pressed a hand to his face. He felt the bones that made him look so different. There was the prickle of a beard.

How ridiculous he must have looked next to those polished courtiers, with his ill-fitting clothes and unshaven face.

How rough, how thuggish.

How wrong.

Arin flicked open a straight razor, filled the washbasin, and lathered soap. He tried to shave without looking too closely at his face in the washbasin mirror.

A nick pinkened the lather with blood.

He kept at it, more attentive this time, until he had finished, wiped off the lather, and poured water over his bowed head. He looked up again, dripping. His face was clear.