He invited her for a walk. The wind was loud and brisk enough to make Kestrel’s ears ache.

It seemed at first that Kestrel and her father wouldn’t speak. Then he said, “I don’t know what to give you for the wedding.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I wish”—he squinted at a wheeling falcon high above the Spring Garden—“I wish I’d held back something of your mother’s that I could give to you. I’d say that I’d been saving it for this.” On the day she’d come of age, Kestrel had inherited all of her mother’s possessions. He had wanted none of them.

A few months ago, Kestrel would have found another way—light, negligent, maybe witty—to repeat that it didn’t matter. But now she felt keenly the damage of how they never really said what they meant to each other. Yes, they came close. They had understandings, such as the one that regularly brought the general to the secret space behind the music room’s screen—if not into the music room itself—to hear Kestrel play. This was a kind of honesty, she supposed, but it wasn’t plain, it wasn’t true, and she couldn’t help the hurt that came with the thought that she was just like him. She, too, couldn’t say what she meant. She wanted to. She tried. The words struggled inside her.

Kestrel said, “Would you give me something if I asked for it?”

Carefully, he said, “That would depend.”

“Stay. Don’t go to the east.”

“Kestrel…”

“Stay one more week, then,” she pleaded. “Or a day. Stay one more day after the wedding.”

He kept looking at the sky, but the hunting bird was gone.

“Please.”

He finally turned to her. “Very well,” he said. “One more day.”

* * *

Events for the court continued. There was the spring tournament. There were masques, dances, feasts. More than once, Kestrel caught Tensen’s gaze from across a room. She averted her eyes. She knew that he wanted to speak with her. He would press her for more information. He would urge her to take more risks, all for a very uncertain gain. But she’d made her decision. She would marry. She would rule. This was how she would change things. Her attempts at skullduggery seemed almost silly now: the games of a child who doesn’t want to grow up. Worse—in her starkest moments, when Kestrel was most honest with herself, and honesty showed itself like a skeleton, bones clean and jutting, she knew that her efforts to be Tensen’s spy had been a way to prove herself to Arin … even as she insisted that he never know.

It made no sense. Its senselessness was painful. How had Kestrel become someone who didn’t make sense?

Two days before her birthday recital, which was two days before the wedding, Verex stopped the emperor on the palace grounds after a horse race where one of the imperial mounts had taken the prize. The prince had approached his father precisely at the moment when the emperor had his back to Kestrel. The emperor didn’t see how close she was.

“Should we be concerned that the Herrani governor hasn’t returned for the wedding?” Verex asked. His gaze flickered over his father’s shoulder to light on Kestrel.

The emperor laughed.

“There’s only one representative from that territory,” Verex said. “It will look a little strange. Maybe the governor ought to be here.” His eyes asked Kestrel’s wish. She shook her head.

“Oh, the Herrani.” The emperor chuckled again. “No one cares about the Herrani. Honestly, I had forgotten all about them.”

* * *

When Arin arrived in the capital’s harbor, he reined himself in. During the sea journey, he’d let himself pace the ship’s deck, or curse faint winds. The waves didn’t make him sick, not this time. He was too intent on the movements of his thoughts. Arin was incandescent, nervy, sleepless, and possibly mad.

Sometimes he managed to think of other things than Kestrel. He’d shudder at the memory of his cousin. He’d stopped in Herran to see Sarsine and resupply his ship. A Dacran fleet had sailed with him, as part of the alliance, and were stationed now in his city’s harbor to protect it. Arin had been shocked by the change in Sarsine. She seemed so weak. Everyone did. He hated to leave her … yet he had, so possessed he was by the need to speak with Kestrel.

He needed to know. On the ship, his heart and brain galloped over what he knew and thought he knew, or hoped he knew, and then his thoughts would run right back over where they’d already been until they dug deep ruts inside him.

But when he dropped his boots to the capital’s rocky wharf, he became nothing but careful.

He didn’t wash the sea from him. He was too recognizable; the scar especially was a problem. His dirty hair hung just long enough to curtain his brow, but the scar cut clear from his left eye into his cheek. Arin kept his head down as he headed through the Narrows. He hoped he looked disreputable enough that no one would take him for the governor of an imperial territory.

He prowled the city. He didn’t rest. The morning ripened into noon. Then it grew late.

Finally, Arin glimpsed a Herrani man about his size dressed in the blue livery of the imperial palace. The basket strapped to the servant’s back weighed low on his shoulders—heavy, probably filled with foodstuffs for the imperial kitchens. Arin dogged him. He crossed skinny streets. His stride quickened, but he wouldn’t let himself do anything so noticeable as to run.

It was at the edge of the canal, where the opened locks let the full spring waters gush loud, that Arin caught up with him. Arin hailed him, quietly. He called to him by the gods. He invoked their names in a way that made ignoring him a mortal sin. And then, for good measure, he spoke plainly. “Please,” he said. “Help me.”