Page 49 of The Winner's Crime
If Kestrel played this wrong, she was likely to lose. A fight with this man could mean death … or arrest. She would be brought before the emperor.
She would be asked to explain.
The freezing sea was in Kestrel’s blood. Her veins ran with it.
She grabbed another rock and pitched it into the shadows. It hit farther up the beach.
The harbormaster instinctively turned to see what had made that sound.
Kestrel swung the pommel of her dagger at the back of his head.
* * *
The bookkeeper whistled. “You do surprise a girl.” She touched the emerald on Arin’s palm. “How do I know it’s real?”
“That’s your risk. My offer’s good for tonight only. Take it and give me what I want … or doubt me, and I’ll walk away.” He closed his hand around the earring. Arin could tell the bookkeeper was hungry for the sight of it again. She looked exactly how he felt.
“Earrings come in pairs,” she said. “Where’s the other one?”
“Gone.”
“Got any more surprises like these?”
“No.”
Her black eyes were bright in the rushlights. Even though the Broken Arm tavern had in fact grown louder since they’d started speaking, Arin had the sense of things quieting: a muffling of the world, a breath held as the bookkeeper made her decision. He desperately hoped she would say yes. He desperately wanted her to say no.
“Give it here,” she said.
Arin’s hand didn’t move. Then, slowly, he loosened his hold on the jewel. He let it slide, green and glowing. He held the memory with the bare tips of his fingers: his mother’s face in the nighttime, hung with twin green stars. She rested her palm on his forehead and said the blessing for dreams. She lifted her hand away, and Arin opened his, and dropped the earring into the bookkeeper’s waiting grasp.
* * *
Kestrel dragged the harbormaster’s unconscious body. Her arms burned, her bad knee screamed in protest, but Kestrel dug her heels into the rocks and pulled until the man was hidden behind the house where the shadows were darkest. Then, her breath sharp and thin in her throat, she stepped inside, locked the door, and went to the ledger open on the man’s desk.
She flipped back to entries from earlier that winter. She found the Senate leader’s ship—the Maris.
Point of origin: the southern isles. Goods: none.
Kestrel let go of the page. It sighed down.
She’d been wrong to suspect that the Senate leader had traveled to Herran instead of the isles. Here was the proof of it.
What else might she have gotten wrong? Her pulse sped with fear of herself, fear of her choices, her certainty. Kestrel’s heartbeats flew, one right against the other, like flipped pages of a book.
Were all her lies to Arin worth it, if she couldn’t see the truth? Kestrel had thought she’d known what was best for Arin. Perhaps her greatest lies were the ones she’d told to herself.
But then …
Kestrel paged again through the ledger.
What if the Senate leader had lied to the harbormaster? What if the harbormaster had lied to his book?
She found the latest entries. The Maris was docked in the harbor now. The ledger listed the number of its pier.
Kestrel left the book open on the desk exactly as it had been. She riffled through desk drawers until she found a purse filled with silver. She pocketed it, pulled out the drawer, and dumped it and its contents on the floor.
Did you hear that the harbormaster was attacked? she imagined city guards saying. A case of petty thievery.
