They have helped Madrigal nurse the burns. With Cait’s good salve, they will hardly scar. But she refuses to say what she saw in the flames, about her child.
“I guess we’ll have the advantages we have,” Arsinoe says.
“Why aren’t you afraid? Why won’t you fight for yourself?”
“Of course I’m afraid! But I can only do what I can do, Jules.”
For a long time, Jules is silent, and Arsinoe thinks it is over. But then Camden snarls, and the logs from the woodpile begin to shift and tremble.
“We’ll keep you safe just to spite you, Arsinoe,” Jules says darkly. “Camden, Joseph, and I.”
“You mean to use your war gift? You can’t! If they see that they’ll . . .” Arsinoe pauses and drops her voice low as if the Council might already be listening. “They’ll take you back to Indrid Down and lock you up. They’ll kill you. The island doesn’t trifle with madness.”
“Maybe I won’t go mad. Maybe it should be unbound, and this is why I have it, to protect you when you won’t protect yourself.”
“I don’t want you in this, Jules. Please.”
“This is your life. Don’t tell me to stay out of it.” Jules glares at her, hard, and stalks away down the drive.
“Jules!”
“I’m just going to find Joseph,” she says over her shoulder. She slows, and her voice softens. “Don’t worry. We’ll only keep an eye on what the Arrons and the temple are up to.”
Arsinoe escapes for a few moments alone with Braddock beside Dogwood Pond before the chaos begins. But moments alone are not to be. Billy surprises her, returned from Rolanth.
“Arsinoe,” he says.
“Junior!” Her whole body jerks toward him. She leaps at him and throws her arms around his neck. His hands press into her back, along with something else that rustles.
“This is a better welcome than I expected,” he says.
“Then don’t ruin it by talking.”
Billy laughs, and they draw apart. He looks unchanged, unscarred by poison. Safe and back home with her where he belongs. Her eyes move over his face, his shoulders and chest. Before she blushes, she looks at his hands.
“Junior,” she says. “You have a wreath.”
And a lovely one too: whip-smooth vines curled round and round, twisted through with purple butterwort and blue-eyed grass.
“I made it.” He holds it out. “For you.”
Arsinoe takes it and turns it over between her fingers.
“I mean, I didn’t make it,” he amends, “but I told the girl from the market what to put in it. It’s not meant to be like a bouquet,” he adds hastily. “I know you’re not the type. Naturalist or not.”
“But you brought me a bouquet, once. Remember? Last winter, after we were attacked by the old, sick bear.”
“Those were from my father.”
Arsinoe smirks. She slides her finger over the bit of pale blue ribbon attached to the wreath, used to hang it on a door in the days before the festival.
“This is . . . very nice,” she says with an uncharacteristic lack of sarcasm. “It will be the first one I release onto the water.”
Then she laughs when Braddock comes to inspect it, sniffing and sniffing with his large brown nose.
“Will he be with you at the festival?” Billy asks, reaching down to scratch him between the ears.
“Yes. But I’ll keep him near the docks, away from most of the crowds.”
“Will he be safe, though? So near the other queens? After what happened at Beltane . . .”
“I think it will be fine.” She forgets sometimes that Billy witnessed the attack at the Quickening. He is so at ease with Braddock now, ruffling his fur and cooing to him like a kitten.
“You spoiled bear.” Arsinoe pats Braddock on the shoulder, and he waddles away, his coat as glossy a great brown’s as she has ever seen. Wolf Spring has made him fat and sleek, well-fed on only the best of the catch.
“Tell me you have a plan,” says Billy. “Some weapon or action that no one knows about.”
“I have a bear. Some would say that’s enough.” She looks down at her wreath. “Do we have to talk about this? You’ve only just returned.”
“Just returned,” he echoes, “as part of Mirabella’s entourage.”
This stupid festival. His being back is the only good to come out of it. She turns toward him and touches his neck.
“I’m glad to see you’re all right. Luke’s tailor friends told us horrible stories of poison in Rolanth. Disfigured priestesses . . . poisoned livestock . . . Was any of it true?”
Billy nods. He says no more, but he seems so haunted suddenly that she knows it must have been, and worse.
“I should have written,” he says. “But truly there was nothing to tell, and anything I wanted to say, I couldn’t get down.”
“We are both that way. I can never find words that don’t sound stupid on paper. Jules can write for days.”
“We must always be sure to come face-to-face, then. So there are never any misunderstandings.”
He runs his fingers along the edge of her mask, down to her jawline where the smallest bit of scar shows from behind the lacquered wood.
“I don’t know how much I’ll get to see you,” he says.
“Aren’t you staying with the Sandrins?”
“Even in Wolf Spring, I’m still Mirabella’s official taster. I will have to stand beside her during the festival ceremonies.”
Arsinoe’s throat tightens. To see Billy standing behind her sister will hurt, even if it is only for show.
“So you won’t do what you did at Beltane. Leave Mirabella and come to me.”
“Things are different now,” he says quietly.
“How different?”
Billy takes her by the shoulders, and she holds her breath. There is no poison on her lips this time. If he kisses her, she will kiss him back. She will never let him go.
But instead, he crushes her to his chest.
“Arsinoe,” he says, and kisses her hair and her shoulder, everywhere but where she wants. “Arsinoe, Arsinoe.”
“I hope we can talk once more at least,” she says. She buries her nose in his shoulder. “Before one of my sisters gets to me.”
“Don’t say things like that. For her part, Mirabella has no particular plan here, except to stay alive.”
“Or you just don’t know of one,” Arsinoe counters, drawing back. “Would you tell me, Junior? If you did? Would you tell her if you knew a plan of mine?”
He looks away.
“Don’t answer,” she says. “They were unfair questions. Mirabella isn’t just a name to you now or a face atop a cliff. I don’t expect that you would hate her for me.”
Billy takes her hand in his and threads their fingers together.
“Perhaps not,” he says. “But I will never let anything happen to you. And that will never change.”
WOLF SPRING TEMPLE
Luca runs her finger along the windowsill in the temple cottage and holds it up to Rho.
“It is clean at least.”
“At least.” Rho chuckles. “You have grown soft and spoiled as a cat, High Priestess.” Luca chuckles as well. That is true enough. She has been the High Priestess for a long time and enjoyed all the trappings that came with it. If she sets all of that aside, the modest dwellings are perfectly sufficient.
The Rolanth priestesses have done a fine job cleaning and clearing out needed space. They could not say much about the security of the temple grounds, but Rho will take care of that. The difficult thing will be keeping Mirabella close. Already Luca has seen her wandering the edges of the temple garden, eyes cast toward the town and the harbor. Their soft-hearted queen is curious about the life that her sister has led here. And she is yearning to see the boy, Joseph Sandrin.
“I like it here,” says Rho, inhaling deeply. “It is harder than Rolanth. And more honest.”
“Such an assessment from one sniff of the air.”
<
br /> “You know me, Luca. It does not take me long to have the measure of a place.”
“Nor of a person,” Luca says. “What do you make of this little poisoner? I did not think her a threat until she disappeared at Beltane and mysteriously returned.”
“So she dragged herself out of a pit.” Rho curls her lip dismissively. “She is still weak, propped up by the Arrons.”
Luca walks to the eastward-facing window that overlooks the marketplace and the western harbor. It is a sunny, pretty day. Down in the city, people are busy outfitting the town square for their extra guests. Only the queens, their fosters, and the luckiest of the attendees will be able to fit there. The rest will spill out onto the side streets for the feast: Wolf Spring, Rolanth, and Indrid Down mingling together.
“Were we wrong to come here?” Luca asks.
“No.”
“Even though we cannot help her?”
Rho places her hand firmly on the older woman’s shoulder.
“This is helping her. A young queen has only one purpose, and that is the crown.”
“I know you are right,” Luca replies. “But I still do not like it.”
“They celebrate with wreaths,” Bree says as she twirls one around her finger. “This was made for you by the Wolf Spring priestesses. They have made one for each of the queens.” She hands it to Mirabella. It is beautiful and expertly woven, comprised of some variety of blue wildflower, white lilies, and ivy. “I saw the one they made for Katharine. All dark red roses and thorns.”
“What do they do with them?” Mirabella asks, but it is Elizabeth and not Bree who answers.
“We float them onto the water with paper lanterns at their center,” she says, her face turned toward the harbor, a little wistful.
“Does this place make you homesick, Elizabeth?” asks Mirabella. “Is it very much like Bernadine’s Landing?”
“A little. My home was not so near the sea, but all of that region bears similar scenery and the same traditions.”
“I did not see the bear when I was exploring town,” Bree says abruptly, and Mirabella stiffens. “Though there was plenty of talk of it. Where is she hiding it, do you think? And why? Perhaps it is not safe. It was so brutal that night. . . . Is it that way for you, Elizabeth? Does Pepper not always do exactly as he is told?”
Elizabeth looks up into a nearby tree, and the tufted woodpecker cocks his head at her.
“Pepper almost never does exactly as he’s told,” Elizabeth says, and smiles. “Our familiars know what we feel, and we know what they feel. We are joined, but we’re each still ourselves. A familiar that strong . . . it may be hard to curb him when he’s angry.”
“It does not matter,” Mirabella says finally. “We will see all of that bear that we want to, and more, during the festival.”
Bree stands on tiptoe to look past Mirabella’s shoulder.
“What?” Elizabeth asks. “Is there some handsome naturalist boy?”
Bree’s eyebrow raises, but then she pouts.
“No. It is only Billy, coming back from bringing his chicken to his fosters. Not that he is not perfectly handsome. If he were not a suitor—” She stops when Elizabeth throws an acorn at her.
Billy said he was going to bring Harriet to the Sandrins for safekeeping, but Mirabella knows he will have gone to see Arsinoe.
“I will be back,” she says to Bree and Elizabeth.
“Do not wander far!”
“I will not.” She could not, with so many priestesses watching.
She jogs until she reaches Billy, and falls in step beside him. He glances at her, then back at the ground.
“Is this how it is, then?” she asks after several moments. “One visit to my sister and we are no longer friends?”
He stops at the crest of a hill and squints out at the sun sparkling off the ripples in Sealhead Cove.
“I wish we weren’t. When my father sent me to Rolanth, I swore that I would hate you. That I wouldn’t be a fool like Joseph and get myself stuck in between.” He smiles at her sadly. “Why couldn’t you be wretched? Don’t you have any manners? You should’ve had the courtesy to be terrible. So I could despise you.”
“I am sorry. Shall I start now? Spit in your eye and kick you?”
“That sounds like something Arsinoe would do, actually. So I would find it endearing.”
“Did you tell her that I know the truth?” Mirabella asks. “That I know she did not try to kill me?”
Billy shakes his head, and inwardly, Mirabella’s heart aches. She wants Arsinoe to know. She wants to tell her so herself and to shake Arsinoe by the shoulders until her teeth rattle for not telling her the truth about the bear that day in the Ashburn Woods.
“Arsinoe would say that a lack of hatred does not change anything. But I think,” Mirabella says slowly, “that I could stand to die. If I knew that the sister who had to do it . . . if I knew that she loved me.” She laughs at herself. “Does that make any sense?”
“I don’t know,” says Billy. “I suppose so. But I resent like hell that you and Arsinoe have to think that way.”
He looks at her regretfully.
“I don’t want to hate you after this. But I might. I might hate all of you if she dies.”
Mirabella gazes out at the sea. It is so pleasant here. In another life, things might have been different. Arsinoe would have greeted her when she rode into town and shown her the marketplace and the spots where she and Jules used to play as children.
“Do not be so quick to say ‘after this,’” Mirabella says. “We are here only for a festival. Perhaps nothing will happen at all.”
“Mirabella,” Billy says softly. “Don’t lie to yourself.”
THE WOLVERTON INN
Genevieve has not stopped glaring in the direction of Wolf Spring Temple since they set foot in their rooms at the inn. She paces and grumbles and crosses and uncrosses her arms. She is upset that Mirabella arrived in Wolf Spring first. Katharine rolls her eyes as Genevieve stalks to the window. She cannot possibly see the temple. The inn is too deep in the heart of the town for that, no matter how hard she presses her nose to the glass.
“Come away from there,” Natalia says. “It is better to arrive last than in the middle. There was no arriving first with Arsinoe already here.”
Katharine ignores them as they prattle on about appearances and security, like it matters at all. She slides the edge of a short throwing knife against a whetstone and listens to it scrape. Sharper and sharper. She will need them all in perfect condition and a crossbow and plenty of bolts besides.
“Kat,” Natalia says, and in the corner of her eye, Katharine sees Genevieve stiffen at the sight of the knives. “What are you doing?”
“Getting ready.”
“Ready for what?” Genevieve asks. “You do not need those. You are perfectly safe.”
“Natalia,” she says, ignoring Genevieve. “What would you edge these with?” She passes the tip of her finger across the blade, paper light. It cuts her skin so quickly that it does not hurt and takes a moment to bleed. “I need something strong enough to take down a bear.”
“Do not fear the bear,” says Genevieve.
“I am not afraid of it.” Katharine smiles. “I have a plan.”
THE FESTIVAL OF MIDSUMMER
“She is making a mistake.”
“Even so, Jules, it’s her mistake to make. You can’t push her.” Jules and Joseph are in his upstairs bedroom, studying the movements of Wolf Spring through his window using a long black-and-gold spyglass given to him by Billy’s father.
“Since when have I done anything but push her?” Jules mutters. “Arsinoe has always been mine to protect. I’ve known that since the moment I set eyes on her when we were children.”
She looks through the spyglass. The streets are bustling, filled with people, and the festival is still hours away.
“They’ll blanket us from all sides,” she says. “Box us in.”
“At least we know th
e streets and the hiding places. We have the advantage.”
“This is a trap,” Jules says. “I don’t think our advantages are going to matter.”
Joseph looks down.
“I’ve never heard you talk like this.”
“Then you haven’t been listening.” She closes her eyes. “I’m sorry. That’s unfair. It’s just that we are surrounded by poisoners and elementals and no one seems as afraid as they should be.”
“I’m afraid,” he says, and takes her hand. “I’m afraid for Arsinoe, and I’m afraid for you, Jules. I know you’ll say you don’t need protecting. But I don’t trust Madrigal. I think she might unbind you without your knowing. Maybe she already has.”
Jules squeezes his fingers. Poor Joseph. There are circles under his eyes, and he seems thinner. She had not noticed.
“My mother is trouble, but not that kind of trouble.” She raises the spyglass back to her eye. “And everybody needs protecting sometimes.”
In the market, there are so many white-robed priestesses that it looks like a raid. They are no doubt inspecting the food, though she does not know why. Mirabella will have brought her own. Any poison will have to be slipped into it by hand.
“The poisoners will strike at the feast. We can be sure of that. Arsinoe can’t eat or touch a thing . . . and she can’t be touched by strangers, in case their skin is poisoned. Then they’ll wonder why she doesn’t die. . . . Keeping the secret is nearly as bad as worrying about the poison!” She curses and slams the spyglass shut between her hands.
“Where is Arsinoe now?”
“Getting dressed. It’ll take longer than usual. Midsummer is the one day out of the year that she lets Madrigal braid a flower into her hair.”
Joseph chuckles.
“I should get back. But I’m so tired.” She rubs her temples. “I’m so tired, Joseph.”
“Jules, this is not only your responsibility.”
“Cait will be busy helping with the ceremony. Ellis will help manage Braddock against the crowds. Madrigal is never any use.”
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