He ran fingers through his cropped hair, but slowly, anger gone, replaced by something heavier. He didn’t look at her. His breath smoked the chill air. “Do what you want to me. Say anything. But it frightens me how you refuse to see the danger you risk with others. Maybe now you’ll see.” He opened the door to the governor’s home.
The smell struck her first. Blood and decaying flesh. It pushed at Kestrel’s gut. She fought not to gag.
Bodies were piled in the reception hall. Lady Neril was lying facedown, almost in the same place where she had stood the night of the ball, greeting guests. Kestrel recognized her by the scarf in her fist, fabric bright in the guttering torchlight. There were hundreds of dead. She saw Captain Wensan, Lady Faris, Senator Nicon’s whole family, Benix …
Kestrel knelt next to him. His large hand felt like cold clay. She could hear her tears drip to his clothes. They beaded on his skin.
Quietly, Arin said, “He’ll be buried today, with the others.”
“He should be burned. We burn our dead.” She couldn’t look at Benix anymore, but neither could she get to her feet.
Arin helped her, his touch gentle. “I’ll make certain it’s done right.”
Kestrel forced her legs to move, to walk past bodies heaped like rubble. She thought that she must have fallen asleep after all, and that this was an evil dream.
She paused at the sight of Irex. His mouth was the stained purple of the poisoned, but he had sticky gashes in his side, and one final cut to the neck. Even poisoned, he had fought.
Tears came again.
Arin’s hold tightened. He pushed her past Irex. “Don’t you dare weep for him. If he weren’t dead, I would kill him myself.”
The sick were laid out on the ballroom floor. The smell was worse here: of vomit and the tang of human waste. Herrani moved among the pallets, wiping faces with wet cloths, carrying away bedpans, and it was strange to see them still acting like slaves, to see pity in their eyes, and to know that it was only pity that made them care for people they themselves had tried to destroy.
A Herrani glanced up, registered Kestrel’s presence, and began asking Arin questions, but Kestrel didn’t hear. She left his side. She stumbled in her haste, searching among the pallets, looking for wide brown eyes, a snub nose, a small mouth.
Kestrel almost didn’t recognize her. Jess’s lips were violet, her eyelids swollen shut. She was still wearing her ball gown, an airy green confection that looked horribly wrong on her now.
“Jess,” Kestrel said. “Jess.”
The girl’s breath hitched, then changed to a wheeze. It was the only sign she gave of consciousness.
Kestrel sought Arin. He was standing against the far wall. He wouldn’t meet her gaze.
She strode to him. Grabbed him. Pulled him toward her friend.
“What is this?” she demanded. “What poison did you use?”
“I didn’t—”
“It was something you’d have easy access to, in the countryside, maybe. A plant?”
“Kestrel—”
“You could have harvested it months ago, let it dry, then powdered it. It had to be colorless, to mix with the iced wine.” Kestrel raced through memories of everything Enai had ever told her about local plants. “Simberry? No, it couldn’t have worked so quickly—”
“It was nightlock.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“A spring root, sun-dried, then ground.”
“So there’s an antidote,” Kestrel insisted, though Arin had indicated nothing of the kind.
He took some time to answer. “No.”
“Yes, there is! The Herrani were the best doctors in the world. You would never have let a poison exist without finding a cure for it.”
“There’s no antidote … only something that might help.”
“Then you should be giving it to them!”
He turned her shoulders so that she couldn’t see the rows of pallets. “We don’t have it. No one planned for survivors. The herb we’d need should have been gathered in the fall. It’s winter. There will be none left.”
“Yes, there will. There’s been no snow yet. No frost. Most plants don’t die until the first frost. Enai said so.”
“True, but—”
“You will find it.”
Arin was silent.
“Help her.” Kestrel’s voice broke. “Please.”
“It’s a delicate plant. They might have all died in the cold, and I’m not sure I’ll be able—”
“Promise me you’ll look,” Kestrel said, as if she had not sworn that his promises were worth nothing.
“I will,” he said. “I promise.”