So he had told her about Kestrel. Arin recalled it now as he shifted to look out over the black mirror of the sea.

Sarsine had been quiet. They’d been in the library of his family home, not the salon. Kestrel’s piano was in the salon. Though out of sight, the instrument had loomed in his mind: large, shining. Intrusive. He wanted to rid himself of it.

Sarsine said, “This doesn’t sound like her.”

Arin shot her a cold glance.

“You know her better than I do,” Sarsine admitted.

He shook his head. “I’ve been lying to myself.”

It seemed that he’d been confused for a long time, that the last clear thing he’d done was to declare that the emperor’s treaty was a trick. Arin knew that his army would have lost that day. The Valorians had already breached the city walls. But the fight would have been vicious. The Herrani would have fought to the death. They would have killed as many as they could. The treaty ended up being a bloodless victory for the emperor: a way to drain Herran’s resources without losing another Valorian soldier.

It could be a trick, Kestrel had said, but you will choose it.

It had been snowing then. Snow had caught in her eyelashes. He used to wonder what would have happened if he had reached to brush it away. He used to imagine the snowflakes melting beneath his fingertips. It shamed him to remember this.

Arin hadn’t fallen asleep on the deck of his strangely still ship, yet it felt as if he’d been dreaming. As if dreams and memories and lies were all the same thing.

He startled at the sound of a fish breaking the water. He had no idea how long he had been standing there. The stars had moved in the sky.

Chilled, tired, Arin went below.

* * *

He left winter behind him. The wind had picked up. It luffed the sails. It filled their canvas bellies. The Herrani captain, who had been somewhat of a legend before the war, was pleased. The ship sped over the waves.

The sun became melted butter. Arin stripped away his father’s hot, threadbare jacket. He didn’t want to wear it again.

The sea sheered into green: marvelously clear. Arin saw whole worlds in the water below. Fish broke away and came together and rearranged themselves like pieces of a colored puzzle.

Once, a creature leaped out of the water. Its dorsal fin was scalloped and pink. It made a strange, whistling cry, then dived under again.

Arin’s wound finally healed. He tugged out the stitches himself.

* * *

He was truly in eastern waters now. The wind and sea and sun made it easier not to think.

Though not always. There was a shining hot day when the sun was high over Arin’s head and he saw what he thought was the shadow of the ship in the water. Then the large shadow shifted and slid in a way that made no sense. Arin stared, realizing that the shadow was in fact an enormous sea creature swimming far below the ship. He hadn’t understood what he’d seen.

He heard Tensen’s words again: You’re seeing what you want to see.

Arin thought of Kestrel, and wondered if some wounds ever heal. His heart thumped in his ears. He was stunned all over again by his anger.

But what does Tensen want you to see? whispered a voice inside him. The very thought was an insult to Tensen, who had warned Arin from the first about his obsession with Kestrel.

Arin could now appreciate—in a gritty, unpleasant way—that Kestrel had been honest with him. For a long time, she’d tried to make things clear. She’d sent troops to attack Arin’s forces after she’d fled Herran. She’d told him of her engagement. She had not once—Arin cringed to think of it—responded to his advances. And when he’d asked her about the Valorian attack on the eastern plains, she hadn’t denied her involvement. The guilt had been plain on her face.

The noon sun beat down on Arin’s head. He hammered his thoughts into a kind of nonthinking: smooth and burnished like a shield.

Arin spun Tensen’s ring around his finger, but didn’t take it off.

* * *

The ship swam through the jade waters of the delta toward the eastern queen’s city. Then the vessel could go no farther. Arin gave Tensen’s ring to the captain. Arin had wrapped it in a handkerchief edged with a stitched, coded message.

The message told Tensen that Arin had arrived safely in the queen’s city. A white lie. It was almost true. Arin didn’t want the old man to worry. As for the ring—

I couldn’t bear to lose such a gift, Arin had sewn onto the handkerchief.

Then he had strapped on Kestrel’s dagger, which he rather wished he would lose.

Arin was lowered alone in a launch. He rowed away from the ship, which would sail back to Herran. The captain would pass the ring and message into other hands. There was a slight risk the ring wouldn’t make it to Tensen. It could be intercepted by a Valorian. But Arin trusted himself with it less, and wasn’t worried that the ring itself might be identified. It was very plain.

Arin faced the ship as he rowed away. When he rowed up a thin river fringed with reeds, he could no longer see the ship. Twice, tempestuous bursts of rain came out of nowhere, soaked him to the skin, and vanished.

The river gave way to winding canals. The city had begun. It was made from white, slick stone, with little bridges over each canal like bracelets on a lady’s arm. Somewhere, a bell began to ring in its tower.

Arin was just beginning to navigate the city’s watery labyrinth … but not the stares. The canal glided with sleek vessels that made his launch look like a duck. Even if that hadn’t marked him as a foreigner, his skin would have. People stopped what they were doing to look at him. A child washing laundry in the canal was so startled that he let go of the shirt in his hands. It floated out into the canal, then was sucked under.