Arin did. It felt good to make that promise.

Tensen let go. “The treaty was a lie. Every minute we’ve spent here has been part of the emperor’s charade, a distraction to make us believe that our independence was a serious thing, serious enough to demand attendance at court. The emperor wants Herran back. He wants it emptied of Herrani.”

Arin listened as Tensen told him about the poison that had been seeping into Herran’s water supply. Arin felt blood leach from his face. Coal dust caked his lungs. Air rattled in his chest. It was hard to breathe.

“You’ll have to shut off the city’s water,” Tensen said. “Evacuate everyone to the countryside if you have to. Just go. It’s nightfall. You might make it to the harbor with no one noticing.”

“Come with me.”

Tensen shook his head.

“If Sarsine’s sick—if everyone’s sick … Tensen, I need you.”

“You need me here.”

“It’s too dangerous. You must be under scrutiny. Deliah can get word to us, your Moth could use the knotted code.”

Tensen’s face changed. “Deliah and the Moth can’t help us anymore. They’ve done as much as they can.”

“Then so have you.”

“There might be one last thing to learn. What if I’ve missed something?” Tensen’s expression softened. “Don’t you remember when I asked whether you’d choose to help Herran, or yourself? You said you’d put our country first. Haven’t I respected that choice? Can’t you respect mine?” Tensen lifted a hand to Arin’s face and ran a thumb across his cheek. The old man’s thumb came away black. “My boy. You’ve been a little lost, haven’t you?”

Arin wanted to protest that he hadn’t been, then to admit that he had, then to prove that he wasn’t anymore. “I didn’t fail you.”

“I never said you did.”

“I secured the eastern alliance. I made something, Tensen, a new thing, something that might check the imperial army. The emperor isn’t as secure as he thinks. He—”

“Better not tell me any more.”

Arin went cold. Those had been the words of someone who feared torture. “Come with me.”

“No. I need to know what happens next.”

“This isn’t a story!”

“Isn’t it?” Tensen asked. “Isn’t this the one about the boy who becomes a man and saves his people? I like that story. I acted the role once, decades ago, in a performance for Herran’s royal family. It ended happily.” Tensen touched his chest, right above his heart. Arin thought he heard a faint, papery sound. There was a flash of indecisiveness on Tensen’s face. Then it was gone. Tensen’s hand fell, and Arin forgot what he’d heard with the minister’s next words, and when he later remembered that look of indecisiveness, Arin hated himself, because he believed that the choice Tensen had been debating inside him had been about staying or leaving, and that if Arin had only found the right words, he could have persuaded Tensen to come with him.

“Go on, now. Go,” Tensen said. “My grandson looked so much like you, Arin. Don’t make me grieve him twice.”

Tensen took the gold ring from his finger and offered it. “This time, keep it, will you?” He smiled.

Arin caught the man’s hand. He kissed the dry palm. He took the ring. Then he said goodbye.

* * *

Kestrel’s father had left her. He wouldn’t stay for dinner, though Kestrel had said they could have it brought to her suite. He didn’t claim he was tired, or that his freshly healed wound might trouble him, but his step was slow as he let himself out, and Kestrel thought for a moment that he would put a hand to where he’d been gutted.

After he’d gone, she felt shame in a solid rush. She realized that she had been hoping he was tired, hoping his wound was sore … it would explain why even though he’d said that he trusted her, he didn’t want to stay.

Dinner came. Kestrel couldn’t eat it.

She opened a window. The almost-summer air was soft and sweet. There was a high wind. It smelled like the mountains, which meant it was blowing out to sea.

Kestrel’s maids came. They asked if she wanted to be changed for bed. She fidgeted with the wrist fastening that kept the moth inside her blue silk sleeve. She told the maids no. She wanted to send them away, then dreaded being alone. The maids stayed and gossiped quietly in their corners. It grew late. She sat, and worried. Had Tensen given Arin the letter? Was Arin still in the palace?

Later, Kestrel saw all of her mistakes, strung in such a crowded, ugly line that it was difficult to tell which one had come first.

But she knew the last. That was when she left her suite and went back to Tensen’s rooms to find out whether he’d seen Arin and delivered her letter.

* * *

The halls were hushed. Even quieter than before. Though the sweat that trickled between her shoulder blades proved that it was almost summer, Kestrel had the sensation that it was snowing. Her ears rang with a white, mirroring silence. Anxiety pricked her skin in icy flakes. The stone heap of the palace held its cold breath.

Tensen’s door was almost flush with its jamb, but it hadn’t been closed completely. Kestrel thought for a moment that he’d been waiting for her, but a part of her knew better. That self had already guessed what the slightly open door might mean. Yet Kestrel refused to believe it … and so that other, wiser self turned away from her, disowned her, and refused to help any further someone who had wrought her own doom.