Page 119 of The Winner's Crime
You have been betraying him all along, whispered a voice inside her. You are betraying him now.
Yet she knocked at Tensen’s door. With a jittery gratitude, she heard someone stirring inside. Footsteps neared. The handle clicked. The door widened, and so did Tensen’s eyes when he saw who stood before him.
She didn’t wait for him to speak. She slipped inside.
45
“You shouldn’t be here,” Tensen said.
Kestrel ignored him. She threaded through the small suite, ignoring the very existence of privacy as Tensen trailed after her, protesting. She even entered his dressing room.
She rounded on Tensen. “Where’s Arin?”
“I told you,” Tensen said warily, “no one knows where he is, and I assure you that I haven’t hidden him in the wardrobe.”
“Well, he’s closer than you’d think, and he hasn’t been in Herran’s city, or he would be dying.” She explained what she knew about the poison flowing through Herran’s aqueducts. The news made Tensen grow still. Stony. Telling the news had the opposite effect on her, because beneath her own words she heard the murmurs of everything Arin had said to her in the music room, and what she’d said back.
Tensen caught her wild hands. “Kestrel, be calm. Lower your voice.”
Had she been shouting? Her breath felt shallow, as if she’d been running. “Where can I find him?”
“I need for you to calm down.”
She pulled away. “The city’s water supply is tainted. I have to tell him.”
“It can’t be you.” His small green eyes were worried. “There are places in the palace you can’t go without raising suspicion. Arin might even have left already. Your emperor’s punishment for treason is death. Do you want to be caught?”
“It must be me,” she insisted. “I have to explain … other things.”
“Ah.” Tensen covered his mouth and rubbed at his cheek. “He risked a great deal meeting with you alone. Would you have him risk that again?”
“No, but…” She felt desperate. The pieces of her were coming apart, jumbling out of order. She took the letter from her pocket. She could no longer believe that Arin might accept it. Not from her. Not after the things that she had said. “Find him. Give this to him. It explains.”
He took the folded page gingerly. The black and white of the sonata’s score looked up at them. “What does it explain?”
“Everything.”
“Kestrel, what exactly do you hope giving him this will do?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. I—”
“You’re not yourself. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I don’t want to think clearly! I am tired of thinking clearly. Arin should know about me. He should have always known.”
“It was better for him that he didn’t. You believed that. I did, too.”
“We were wrong.”
“So after he learns the truth, you’ll end your engagement.”
“No.”
“You’ll run away with Arin to live in a dying country for a few short days before the hammer of another invasion falls.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Tensen said. “You love him.”
