“A stalemate is still preferable to the nothing you have suggested,” Katharine says, and grits her teeth.
The barge returns, escorted by Rho and the queensguard boats. Mirabella steps onto the dock. Three elementals have survived and join her. Two appear uninjured, but the third, a young man not much older than the queens themselves, holds an arm that is bleeding and mangled to the shoulder. Seeing him, Katharine’s heart is heavy. Perhaps she should have refused Rho’s suggestion to test the other elementals. Yet it is a small price to pay, in order to know. Now no other elemental will be asked to do the same.
Mirabella walks to Katharine with her chin held high. She is soaked, and her cloak hangs askew. The simple dress they put her in has been stretched and torn, and her black hair is slicked down her back. But she is still beautiful.
“You are pleased?” Mirabella asks.
“Of course I am pleased. You did it. You are everything that you promised. I could almost embrace you.”
“I lost two. And Eamon requires a healer.”
“He will have the best of them. Let us return to the Volroy to celebrate.”
“And to keep your council from turning blue,” Mirabella says, with a worried look at Luca. “But you are not shivering.”
“How could I after the exhilaration of what I just witnessed?” Katharine uses her unhurt arm to draw her cloak more tightly around her. She has grown careless these past months, showing the gifts she borrows from the dead. The dead elemental queens have made sure that tonight she feels no chill.
She gestures for Mirabella to walk ahead to the waiting carriages and feels the dead queens surge toward her, like a wave. They rise so forcefully that she feels them in her throat, as she did the day they escaped from her and entered Pietyr, and the thought of them taking over Mirabella fills her with dread. Mirabella is far too strong a vessel. In her their wickedness would be unleashed and unstoppable. She had thought, perhaps, that her sister could in time help her shoulder the burden of the dead queens. To help her control them, or find the strength to banish them back to the Breccia Domain for good. But she sees now that is impossible. She must find another way.
The dead queens stretch their necks toward her sister and she snaps them back.
“No,” she says, and clenches her teeth together. “You cannot have her.”
SUNPOOL
The morning that they are to perform the tethering spell, Arsinoe leaves the city and goes to look for her bear. Inside the gates, there are too many faces and questions that she has no answers to. So as soon as she can get away, she stuffs a small sack with dried apples and swipes a few of the larger fish from the kitchen before heading out to the woods.
Thanks to the low magic that ties them together, Braddock knows that she is coming, and it is not long before the shrubbery rustles and he bursts through to stand up before her on his hind legs.
“Come down, boy,” Arsinoe squeaks. She holds out a dried bit of apple, and his big lips take it from her fingers, gentle as a baby. He shoves his head into her chest and she hugs him, burying her nose in his fur until she feels him rooting around her sack for more apples and the fish.
“Hold on, hold on. Let’s find us a nice rock to picnic on.” They walk together toward the beach, and the flat black stones that line the northern edge. There they hunker down in the long dune grass, almost thick enough to obscure her completely, though there is only so much that can be done to conceal the rump of a great brown bear.
Arsinoe rubs Braddock’s head as he eats, and steals a bit of dried apple. But even with him beside her, she has never felt more alone. No one inside the city walls wants to know about the low magic. None of those who know of it wish to see it performed. Not even Billy, who would stop her if he could. And Mirabella is gone.
Arsinoe hopes that she is all right, and that she knows what she is doing. She hopes that she will come back soon.
“She was always the most levelheaded of the three of us,” she says to the bear. “Well . . . except when she’s really angry.”
Braddock sniffs the air, full of fish now and happy to let her lean against him. They look across the beach out at the cold northern sea. There is no sign of mist. There has not been a single mist attack off the coast of Sunpool, despite consistent reports of continued attacks on the capital. Emilia often fixates on that fact, as further evidence that their side is right.
“This spell today,” she says to the bear. “It won’t be that different from the way you and I were bound. And it didn’t hurt you, did it?”
He turns his cheek, a request for a good scratch. But she is lying, of course. The tethering spell will be much harder. Much bloodier. And the link it creates between Jules and Emilia will be—
“Unbreakable,” she says softly.
“How are we feeling today?” Arsinoe asks as she tucks Jules’s blankets up tighter around her throat. The tonic she infused with Madrigal’s blood has worn off, so she keeps her fingers well away from Jules’s teeth, and does not look her in the eye. She cannot stand to see the bright red blood streaked through the whites or the sickly yellow as vessels that have burst attempt to heal. But even though she does not look, she can feel Jules’s eye on her. Tracking her, without a drop of kindness. It feels like being hunted, and when Camden growls, Arsinoe flinches away.
“I can’t wait until this is over and you’re back to your old selves,” she says. Camden growls once more and then settles on top of Jules’s legs.
The small room at the top of the tower feels stuffier than usual today, full of new scents forced into the stale air. Amber resin and hot wax blend with herbs and oils and the lingering aromas of sickness and cougar. And it is too quiet. No sounds besides her own breath and the scrape of her shoes against the floor. No one in the room with her since Billy, who accompanied her and helped to assemble the ingredients for the spell.
“Are we bringing her out?” Emilia asks, and Arsinoe spins. The warrior leans over the desk and picks up the piece of amber. She sniffs it and makes a face.
“No. It’ll be easier to go in to her. And I wish you’d stop sneaking around like that. Can’t you scuff your heel on the stones? Or clear your throat when you arrive?”
“I’m sorry.”
Arsinoe sighs. Emilia is not sorry, not really. She is pleased that Arsinoe finds her warrior ways unsettling. Arsinoe joins her beside the desk and makes one last check of her supplies. She leaves the door to Jules’s chamber open and stiffens when Jules groans.
“How long has it been since she had any tonic?” Emilia asks.
“A day. I don’t want to give her more in case it interferes with the tethering.”
Emilia studies Jules through the open door. “That’s all right. Her chains will hold. Though maybe we ought to chain Camden.”
“You’re welcome to try.” She takes up her knife and tests the edge against her forefinger. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh?”
“Maybe we should both hold the tether. Like, you and I.”
Emilia frowns.
“Is that how it works? Spread the legion curse like butter across a piece of bread? Why do we not bring Caragh, then, and give her a bit, too? Why not your Billy and”—she gestures back toward the door with a jerk of her head—“the cat?”
“I’m just saying—”
“You’re saying you do not trust me with her on my own.”
“I don’t trust you with her on your own,” Arsinoe says, and her eyes flash. “But that’s not what I meant. I’m saying it might ease the burden on you.”
Emilia looks down at the desk, perhaps a little guiltily. “Forgive me. I should not have been so sharp. But I think . . . I will be fine.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe with your war gift you won’t feel the curse at all.”
“But we are not only binding the war gift,” Emilia says. “We are binding the legion curse. She will still be war-gifted?”
“We’re making Jules well by any means necessary. I do
n’t really know what will happen. Maybe nothing. Maybe it will drive us all mad.”
“It did not drive Madrigal mad,” Emilia says. “And is it not the same spell? You aren’t changing much.”
“I’m changing the intent. And it’s the intent that matters.”
Emilia exhales and looks to the ceiling, as if for patience. She does not understand the intricacies of low magic, its strength and its sinister nature. She seems nearly as skeptical as Billy when he first heard of it, and Arsinoe is possessed suddenly by the urge to prove it to her before they start, to slice through her skin and let her feel the rush of the magic.
“It’s nearly time,” Emilia says. “Will you tell me what it entails?”
Arsinoe stares into the light of a flickering candle. Days are so short in the winter, and the light coming into the keep has already begun to slant and turn gold. “Madrigal bled herself into a cord, and bound Jules tightly with it, round and round. Then she bled Jules into a cloth and tied that cloth up in bloody cord. The cloth knot she buried beneath the bent-over tree. The rest of the cord she kept, and that is what Cait brought to me.”
“That sounds like a lot of blood and many cuts. I am going to tie the cat.” Emilia goes to the wall and unfurls the rope that is attached to it.
“She should be near. Jules might need her.”
“Aye, she might need her to rip our throats out.”
“I can’t explain it, Emilia. But her familiar should be at hand.”
“Very well.” Emilia stalks to her and snatches her knife, then uses it to cut the rope free from the wall. “I will hold her, then, while you make the cuts to Jules. And I will hope for your sake that she doesn’t get away.”
In the room, on Jules’s legs, Camden has begun to hunch her back, sensing their intent. She hisses as Emilia tosses the loop of rope around her neck and digs her claws into the floor as she is dragged away from Jules.
“It is not for long,” Emilia says to her through her teeth. But Camden keeps on hissing and spitting just the same.
With Camden secured, Arsinoe brings her supplies into the room and spreads them out on the floor. A small sharp knife, whose blade glows orange in the light. Two lengths of thin white scarf. The herbs. The oil, for anointing Jules and Emilia, to be mixed with Arsinoe’s queensblood. It will be her link to them, as she is not a part of the tether.
“Not even cut yet and my hands are shaking,” she whispers.
“You are not the only one,” Emilia says as she keeps the cougar’s rope taut. “I have never before seen low magic cast. I am wondering about the price. They say that there always is one.”
“Yes. And it’s usually more than you want to pay.”
“Jules’s mother practiced this magic often. Do you think she paid with her death?”
“Maybe.”
“It would seem an unfair price,” Emilia says, “when the collection of it undid the low magic it was purchasing. But then again . . . for seventeen years of her daughter well . . . and I think she would say it was a bargain.”
“You didn’t know Madrigal very long, did you?” Arsinoe asks, and Emilia laughs.
“Maybe it was not the price at all,” Emilia says. “Perhaps our price will be something we will never know. A man from some small village falling off the other side of the mountain. Some girl in the capital run over by a carriage.”
“Is that better?”
“It is less painful, since we would never know.” Emilia’s eyes harden. “And it doesn’t matter. There is no other way. What price in the world would be too high? What cost would keep you from trying to save her?”
Arsinoe looks down at Jules. At her bloodshot eyes watching her with nothing but hatred.
“Those scars you have,” Emilia says, “that you would hide behind a mask. They are the finest part of you. Now let us earn a few more.”
Arsinoe takes up her knife. With the first cut across the back of her hand, the air in the room changes. It becomes charged, fresher, as if the keep itself is inhaling. Her queensblood drips into the bowl of oil, and the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as she dips her finger and bends to smear the blend across Jules’s forehead. Jules—whose lips had drawn back to show the tips of her teeth—relaxes. Her eyes lose their predatory edge. She does not so much as blink when a little of the blood runs down the bridge of her nose to pool in the corner of her lid.
As Emilia tightens her grip on Camden, Arsinoe pauses. “Wait. Bring her here.” She marks the cat between the ears, red painting her fur and turning it spiky. Camden sits down.
“What . . . is that doing?” Emilia asks as she drops the rope and comes to kneel before Arsinoe when she beckons. Arsinoe places the queensblood on her, and she shivers.
“It is preparing the way.”
“I did not really believe,” Emilia murmurs, her voice odd and faraway. “Even as I hoped it would work, I did not really believe.”
Arsinoe does not respond. The low magic has its hold on her now, too. She feels her heartbeat in rhythm with the island, her whole body thrumming. The pain in her hand is a spark as more blood leaks with every pulse.
She lights a bundle of herbs with the candle flame and blows the bundle out to breathe in the cloud of fragrant smoke, the scent sending her even further into the spell. Her thoughts rise from her head and float. She has to blink hard to bring her mind back into her body and focus.
Intent is everything.
She takes up a length of the scarf and holds Jules’s arm. Quickly, she makes the cuts, working around the chains: three shallow slashes and the blood runs forth. She wraps the cuts around and around with the scarf and the white soaks red.
“Emilia, give me your arm.”
The warrior does not hesitate. She is no stranger to pain, and when Arsinoe makes cuts to mirror the ones she made in Jules, Emilia seems to relish it even as she grimaces. She watches the blood run through the scarf that Arsinoe wraps her in and stares as her blood pools on the ground. “You are wasting it.”
Arsinoe looks down. She is right. The small puddle of Emilia’s blood is joined and blended with a small puddle of Jules’s. Blindly, Arsinoe reaches behind her for a piece of cloth or rope or ribbon, but what she finds is a scrap of bread. She shoves it into the mingled blood and lets it soak before placing it into her mouth and biting down.
The blood touches her tongue and she rocks back, the taste and sickening thickness enough to make her gag. She is barely aware of her movements as she joins Jules’s and Emilia’s hands, making more cuts into her palms and thumbs, joining their scarves with knots. She squeezes her fist and turns it over, lets her queensblood drip into her opposite hand. Then she grasps the joined knots.
Jules and Emilia jerk as the queensblood meets theirs, and the candle flares, hot enough to burn it down to a nub.
“How much more?” Emilia moans as their blood spreads across the floor. There is more blood than there should be for such shallow cuts.
“As much as you can bear to lose,” Arsinoe replies.
A gust of wind blasts through the room, and she and Emilia duck as their hair whips into their eyes.
“Don’t let go,” Arsinoe calls as the wind rages. “Hold on!”
With gritted teeth, she shields her face with her knife-wielding arm and cracks an eye open. Camden has collapsed. Her paw has drifted into the pooled blood, and Arsinoe tries to nudge it back with her foot. But crouched as she is and fighting the wind, it nearly makes her fall over.
Jules’s and Emilia’s fingers start to loosen inside her grip. Jules’s eyes roll back. Emilia’s head droops.
Arsinoe squeezes more blood from her hand and soaks the ends of the scarves. Then she knots them again. Three more knots, adding more queensblood each time, until her head begins to swim and the sound of the wind is far away.
That is it. That is all. She slips the blade of the knife beneath the scarf and cuts it away from Jules. Then from Emilia. Their arms fall, and Emilia slides onto her side, fingers feebly
reaching to apply pressure to her wounds.
Arsinoe looks down. Her hands are coated and sticky with red, already drying. She uses her knife to cut the long, dangling lengths of scarf, separating the pieces from the knots, and rolls them carefully into the jar beside the last of Madrigal’s blood-soaked cord.
The knots that joined Jules and Emilia together are soaked through. There is so much of their blood and her blood that holding them in her hands is like holding a freshly harvested heart. She drops the mess into a small burlap sack.
On the floor, Jules and Emilia lie motionless, still bleeding. She hurries to her desk and retrieves bandages to pack and bind their cuts. Now that the spell is finished, the wounds are not so bad. They are not deep and will leave only thin scars. In a few years, they may fade completely.
“Arsinoe.”
At first she does not hear Jules speak. She is too distracted by her task.
“It worked,” Emilia cries. “Arsinoe! She is here!” She fumbles with the chains. “Get these off her!”
“Wait.” Arsinoe holds her breath, watching Jules. And then Camden nuzzles Jules’s cheek and purrs.
“All right,” Arsinoe says, and takes the key to the chains out of her pocket.
Billy and Mathilde look down from the castle upon the deserters leaving through the city gate. The Legion Queen has finally been gone too long from view, and the rebellion has begun to leave in earnest. They have no doubt heard, too, the rumor that is circulating: that Queen Mirabella has left them and gone to fight at Queen Katharine’s side.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” Billy says to Mathilde. “We both tried to convince them to stay. I used every charming trick I know on these deserting rats.” He had even thought he had changed a few minds, only to wake the next morning and find they had snuck out in the night. “They’re just tired. It’s not easy being uprooted from home and living in strange, makeshift spaces.”
“You must be tired as well,” Mathilde says. “You, too, are far from home in a strange place. You must care for your exiled queen a great deal.”
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