Kestrel felt a sinking sickness.

“—I blamed you for the exodus. But poisoning the horses was better than setting fire to the plains. Isn’t that why you chose it? Your father—”

“I love my father.”

Arin drew slightly back. “I know.”

“If I’d given him anything less than the best military advice I could, I would have put him in danger.” She only now realized this, and was appalled anew at herself. “The east burned the plains we took.”

“Yes.” It seemed like Arin would say more, but he didn’t.

“If my father had been there then … many Valorians died in the fire.” She thought of Ronan. Her throat closed. She couldn’t say his name. “If I did what you think I did, those deaths would be my fault.”

“They deserved it,” he said flatly. “All those soldiers cared about was feeding the empire’s appetite. The empire eats everything. Everyone in Herran is weak. We’ve been taxed too much. There’s been too little food. Now people are so weak they don’t even want to eat what’s left.”

Kestrel glanced up. “That doesn’t sound like starvation.”

“You know nothing about starvation.”

That silenced her.

Arin sighed. He rubbed hard at his brow, pushing along the line of the scar, which was poorly disguised by a cosmetic. “Everyone’s thin, tired. Hollow-eyed. It’s gotten worse. They sleep most of the day, Sarsine said. Even she does. If you could see her … she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.”

Kestrel’s mind snagged on his last word. Shaking. It made her think—inexplicably—about how she had dyed her villa’s fountain pink when she was a little girl. She remembered telling the water engineer about it, not more than two months ago. She saw again the red dye spreading through the water and fading to pink. An experiment. Kestrel—had she been ten years old then?—had overheard the water engineer talking about a strange word, dilution, with her father at dinner. He thought well of the engineer, who had served with him in the war and designed Herran’s aqueducts. The girl Kestrel decided she should understand how dilution worked.

But dilution had nothing to do with shaking. The grownup Kestrel frowned, and as she did, she remembered that shaking had been the imperial physician’s word to describe the sign that someone had taken his medication for too long … long enough for it to become deadly.

Understanding seeped into her. It spread, red drops in still water, and she forgot that her father was listening and watching and judging behind the screen. She forgot even that Arin’s shoulders were hunched in worry and doubt. She saw only the meaning of those six imagined Bite and Sting tiles she had mixed over and over in her mind: the emperor, the water engineer, the physician, a favor, Herran, and Valoria.

She knew how they all played out. The pattern stared her in the face.

The emperor had decided the Herrani were more trouble than they were worth. He decided to have them slowly poisoned through the water supply. A neat solution to a troublesome, rebellious people. He had eked as much out of them as he could. Once they were dead he’d claim the land again. He’d show the empire Herran’s ultimate reward for rebellion.

It was more important than ever that she speak with Arin frankly … and that she not do so here. She looked at the door. She wasn’t entirely sure her father wouldn’t walk through it—maybe even with the palace guard.

But how could she get Arin to leave? How could she follow him, and not have it be blatantly obvious to her father why? He’d heard the rumors. He had seen her fight a duel on Arin’s behalf in Herran. If all that wasn’t enough, he must have surely heard the intimacy in Arin’s voice. You are not so cold. When we were together in the city tavern …

Arin dropped his elbows to the piano’s frame and leaned to press his face into his palms. “I shouldn’t have left Sarsine. I shouldn’t have come.”

Kestrel wanted to touch him. He looked so miserable. Could her father see the longing in her face? It felt like a burning lamp. If she could, she would have touched three fingers to the back of Arin’s hand: the Herrani gesture of thanks and regret. I’m sorry, she’d say. Thank you, she’d say, because somehow he still believed in her and had guessed what she’d tried so hard to hide. I love you, she’d say. She almost heard the words. She almost saw her hand reach out. She craved it.

Slowly, Kestrel said, “You wanted to talk about the treaty.”

He lifted his head. His face reflected in the piano lid’s varnish.

The decision fell on Kestrel like a white sheet. She would lie one last time, for her father. She would be composed. Convincing. Later she would set things right with Arin, and tell him everything.

She could do this. She must.

“You think that I somehow arranged it. Isn’t that what you implied? That I swayed the emperor.” Kestrel sank one finger down on a high key, but slowly, so that it made no sound. “Does the emperor seem easily influenced?”

“No.”

“Yet I managed it?”

“Yes.”

She played a merry trill.

“Please don’t do that.”

She stopped. “Arin, why would I persuade the emperor to offer that treaty? We do agree that it was I who told the empire of your rebellion, don’t we? It’s common knowledge. I sent war to your doorstep.”

“Yes.”