“Yes. A great deal.”
Down below, a cart of young rebels leaves, five of them packed in behind the driver and clutching their small sacks of belongings.
“Oh, would you look at that,” Billy says, and throws up a hand. “They’re taking one of the best mules!”
Mathilde smiles. “It was probably their mule to begin with.” But her eyes follow the cart sadly. “Let a few of them go. The true-hearted will stay, and it will cause the crown to underestimate us when their spies report how easily we fall apart.”
“Spies?”
She nods, and Billy looks around as if he might see one right there in the empty room with them.
“How many? How long have you known?”
“So far we have identified three. There are undoubtedly more. It is not unexpected.”
“What will you do with them?” he asks warily.
“Better to know your spies than to kill them and have to search for new ones sent to take their place.” She nods toward the gate. “Another mule leaving.”
“Another mule?” Billy leans out the window. “Go on, then,” he half shouts. “Go on with the lot of you! Who needs you, anyway?” He turns his back on them and crosses his arms until he hears shouts as both mules and both carts come clattering back through the gate. “What, they’re coming back?”
“No,” Mathilde says as they crowd the sill together. “She is back.” She points to the crowd quickly gathering in the square below. At the people racing through the streets to join it. And at the head of them all, Camden leaps through the air and swats with her good paw. She roars and hisses and lashes her tail back and forth. Behind her stands Jules, flanked by Arsinoe and Emilia.
Emilia places an arm around each and raises her voice to the people.
“Our two queens return,” she declares, triumphant. “Queen Jules! The Legion Queen! Queen Arsinoe!” It does not take long for the crowd to take up the chant.
“Our two queens,” says Billy, looking down. “As in, against their two queens.” He shakes his head. “Emilia is so clever.”
“She is,” says Mathilde. “And she is determined to win this, one way or another.”
THE FOUR QUEENS
THE VOLROY
Up on the topmost battlements of the West Tower, Mirabella takes some air with Bree and Elizabeth.
“Not even Pepper likes to be up this high,” Elizabeth says. Inside her hood, the woodpecker chirps with agreement, and she edges away from the cutout in the stone.
“He flies across mountains to ferry messages,” says Bree, “yet he is afraid of the height of the tower?”
“He flies across mountains, true, but never so far from the ground!”
Mirabella smiles as her friends talk. She leans back, lets the wind ruffle her black dress and whip through her hair. This is her favorite place in the capital by far. Or at least her favorite of what she has seen. She has been allowed only in the Volroy and the most secluded of its gardens, always flanked by armed queensguard soldiers. Up here on the battlements, though, the soldiers wait on the stairs just inside. Perhaps they do not care for heights either.
“Come here.” She holds her left hand out for Elizabeth to take. “I will not let you fly away.”
“But will you let me?” Bree asks, spinning, her elemental gift also delighting in the cold gusts and clouds. “You could call a gale to carry me out to sea and back again! Then set me down gently in the courtyard.”
“Could I?” Mirabella laughs.
“It is so good to have you back again, Mira,” says Elizabeth, grasping her hand tightly. “And I’m sure that the queen will allow you more freedom as soon as she declares your allegiance before the city.” She sidles closer and Mirabella wraps her in her billowing black cloak. “The people will be so happy; even in the temple, there are rumblings of approval.”
“That is surprising,” says Mirabella. “Two queens together . . . two queens alive after an Ascension . . . It is not allowed to be.”
“So perhaps now you see the truth of the temple,” Bree says to Elizabeth. “It is not tradition but the word of the High Priestess that determines their course.”
“Do not be so hard on them, Bree,” Mirabella says when Elizabeth frowns. “They have seen things that no other generation has seen. The mist rising. A legion-cursed girl who is strong as a queen. Two traitor queens disappeared into the mist only to show up again alive and well. The temple does not know what to do. So they listen to Luca, because she is the Goddess’s voice to the people.”
In the whip of the wind, she cannot hear Bree’s muttered reply. But she sees the bitter twist of her lips, and it fills her with regret. When they were children, Bree was always so pious. Wild, of course, always wild, but she prayed at the temple every night with her eyes squeezed shut. Unlike Elizabeth, who has always understood the flaws and shortcomings of the priestesses, Bree’s faith was fragile. She held it up too high. And now she has lost it, unable to accept the temple’s human failings.
Bree wraps Elizabeth in her cloak from the other side. “When Queen Katharine announces your allegiance, she will want to present you to the people. When she does, you must make sure that you do not outshine her, Mira; even now that she is queen, she still feels so uncared for.”
“Uncared for?”
“She said something to me once. That she had never had friends like you and Arsinoe had. She only had the Arrons.”
“And they are a cold lot, to be sure,” Elizabeth adds.
Mirabella looks at them quietly. “She has won you over by degrees. Even though she murdered a boy right before your eyes. Even though she cut Madrigal Milone’s throat.”
Bree’s mouth tightens guiltily, but she does not deny it. What else can they do? The Queen Crowned is the Queen Crowned. And no matter which queen they wanted to see on the throne, eventually the island comes to love the one they have.
“We would never choose her over you,” Bree says. “We would never let her hurt you. Maybe in bringing you here, she has begun to show the better part of herself.”
Mirabella nods. Part of her cannot help but feel betrayed, even though she left her friends behind to make her way in another place. It is not fair to be hurt that they have done the best that they can. They are still her Bree and her Elizabeth. They always will be.
“Besides,” says Elizabeth, “you’re here now. You’ve turned away from the rebellion and made peace with the crown. So why should we not be fond of the queen?”
Mirabella looks to the northwest. From this height, it seems she can see all the way across the island straight to Sunpool, and to Arsinoe. Or at least she could if the blasted peak of Mount Horn did not rise up directly in between.
“I am no more for the crown than I am for the rebellion,” Mirabella corrects her. “I fought my way free of that once, and I’ll not be dragged back in again. Not by a Legion Queen, nor by my baby sister.”
“Then why have you come?” Elizabeth asks cautiously.
Mirabella sighs. Their lives have changed so much since Rolanth. It feels wrong to ask them to split their loyalties. When she brought them up to the battlements, she intended to tell them everything. But now she knows that she cannot. Whatever Katharine is hiding, it is something she will have to discover for herself, without confidants.
“I came for the island,” she says, and at least that is not a lie. “And I came for you. We should go back down. Katharine may have returned from Greavesdrake Manor, and I do not want her to search for me.”
Elizabeth grins and shivers, and the woodpecker beak inside her hood clicks open and shut. “You do not have to tell me twice. Let’s go down to the kitchens and find something warm to eat.”
They go, but Mirabella lingers a moment. She steps to the edge and wraps her fingers around the cold stone, then calls up one last gust to whisk away her words.
“I did not want to leave you, Arsinoe. But I had to. I had to come here to find what is wrong with our sister, because she is the darkness the mist reaches fo
r.”
On the way down to the kitchens, they cross paths with Katharine.
“Queen Katharine.” Elizabeth curtsies. “You have been at Greavesdrake? How is your Pietyr?”
“My Pietyr is unchanged,” Katharine replies, and her mouth tightens. “But thank you for asking. There are many here in the Volroy who would no doubt prefer to see him lie in that bed forever. Some even within his own family.”
“Because they disapprove of his appointment to the council?” asks Mirabella.
“And of his closeness to me.” Katharine cocks her head. “Of course, you would never have done something so controversial.”
Mirabella shrugs. “I have no boy to appoint.” She steels herself, waiting for Katharine to say something cruel about Joseph, but she does not. “And besides, it would be my Black Council, as it is yours. Their disapproval . . . they will get over it.”
Katharine’s brows rise. “I hope you are right.”
“If you will excuse us,” Bree says, and she and Elizabeth take their leave.
“That was abrupt,” Katharine says. “I would not expect them to leave you so readily. Especially in my company.”
“They want us to be friends.” Mirabella watches them go, heads bent together. “You would think they were leaving me alone with a suitor, rather than my little sister. I am surprised they did not break out in a fit of giggles.”
Katharine looks after them thoughtfully. “I was going to dismiss them anyway. I am taking you on a tour of the capital. Of course we will have to take a covered carriage, and you must wear a veil to hide your face. A white veil. I trust that will not bother you?”
“They are only colors, Katharine.”
“Not here they are not.”
Outside, Katharine has ordered a black carriage drawn by two high-stepping black horses, their heads adorned with black plumes.
“I thought you wanted us to be disguised,” Mirabella says.
“I wanted you to be disguised.” Katharine hands her a veil, and they climb into the carriage. The driver snaps the reins, and the horses take off, clip-clopping across the cobblestones. Soon enough, they have left the Volroy grounds and made their way through the city streets to the heart of Indrid Down. Mirabella presses to the window, gazing up at the buildings as they go by. They pass Indrid Down Temple, so dark and near to the Volroy that it is like a second shadow, and she twists her head to look up at the spitting, winged gargoyles.
“Are there stairs to go closer?”
“To the gargoyles?”
“Of course.” Mirabella grins. “Willa used to show us drawings of them; do you not remember? Delicate sketchings of charcoal and ink. We had names for every one. Moondragon, she was the largest, with wings outstretched. There.” Mirabella points back as the carriage continues on. “And she was my favorite. Arsinoe preferred the ones with their tongues sticking out.”
“And what about me?”
“You liked a fat one with a porcine nose. You named him Herbert. He rests in a cluster with three of Arsinoe’s favorites, set into the southern wall. If we go around, I can point him out.”
Katharine stares at her.
“I do not remember any of that. Why do you remember those things when I do not?”
“I do not know. Perhaps because from the moment I could speak, Willa treated me like the oldest. To learn and be serious. To grow up. You and Arsinoe, she let be little children. Me, she only allowed to be a little queen.”
Katharine adjusts her hands in her lap. One of them is stiff and nearly immobile. Mirabella nods to it.
“Your arm is hurt. What is wrong with it?”
Katharine does not reply.
“You tried to face the mist.”
“How did you know?” Katharine asks.
“I have noticed you favoring it,” Mirabella replies. “And then, when I saw how Eamon cradled his injured arm . . . I just knew.”
Gingerly and with a grim smile, Katharine strips off her glove. The hand that is revealed is a dark, angry scab, stitched through with black thread. There are so many cuts, it is a wonder any healer was able to put the skin back together. Two of her fingers are splinted and bruised. Two more are missing their fingernails, but those injuries appear to be much older.
“It is healing well,” Katharine says. “I always heal well.”
“What happened to your fingernails?”
“That? That is from the night of the Quickening at the Beltane Festival. When I was lost and stumbling through the dark woods.” She holds the fingers up to her face. “I thought they would grow back. But oh well. I do not feel it.”
The Beltane Festival directly preceded Katharine’s miraculous return. And shortly after that was when they began to call her the Undead Queen.
Mirabella stares at the missing nails as Katharine lays her hand back in her lap. Katharine looks out the window and nods. “Down that street is the best confectionery in the city. They specialize in poison sweets but have untainted offerings as well. I shall send a box to the king-consort’s apartment. You must have been missing the finer things in the rebellion’s wreck of a camp.”
“We were not with the rebellion long.”
“Ah,” Katharine says. “I thought not. And where were you before that?”
They are seated directly across one another, close enough that their skirts touch. Katharine is much more frightening in small spaces. She could slice Mirabella across the cheeks with a poisoned blade before she saw the flash of the steel. “We were on the mainland, with Billy Chatworth’s family.”
Katharine’s eyes go dark. “His father murdered Natalia, you know. He strangled her. Right inside the Volroy. It was probably happening as you and Arsinoe were escaping. When the guards were distracted and she had no one to call to for help.”
Though she is sorry for that, Mirabella remains carefully silent. Katharine’s pretty, angled face has turned sharp.
“What happened to Billy’s father?” she asks finally.
Katharine’s teeth stop clenching. “Rho Murtra carved him up. Slipped her serrated blade between his ribs and sawed right through the bone, through lungs and heart. He outlived Natalia by mere moments.” She looks down ruefully. “Even if High Priestess Luca had not chosen Rho for a Black Council seat, I should have given her one just for that.”
Mirabella’s brow knits. Poor Billy, waiting so long for a father who was dead the moment they left.
“You are pale,” Katharine says. “Are you really so sympathetic to mainlanders?”
“I am not sad for Billy’s father. But I am sorry for Billy.”
Katharine scoffs. “One day, I will do something similar to him and his whole family. Genevieve and I will cross the sea and poison them until their eyes bleed.”
“You should not do that. Billy is not like his father. And his mother and sister . . . they do not deserve to be poisoned.”
“If they are so beloved, then why did you return? What brought you and Arsinoe back to the island after you so recently escaped it?”
“If you are searching for information about the rebellion, you can stop right now. But I suppose it cannot hurt to tell you: it was Arsinoe. She was having dreams. Strange dreams of the Blue Queen. They seemed to indicate we should return. That we were needed.”
“And so you are.” Katharine leans back, and Mirabella breathes a little easier. She wishes Katharine would put the glove back on. Looking at her hand on her lap, like a mangled piece of meat, has begun to make Mirabella sick to her stomach.
“Queen Illiann,” Katharine says.
“You know her.”
“Of course. I would be a foolish queen indeed if the mist rose and I did not at least look into the history of its creator. I ordered Genevieve to research Queen Illiann and the mist as soon as it began to rise unbidden. Arsinoe’s dreams—what did they tell her? What does she know?”
“That is what we returned to find out,” Mirabella replies. “But if she has discovered anything, she did not tell me. A
nd perhaps that is for the best. For if she had, I would have to tell you.”
Katharine chuckles. “So you would.” She points out the window at a pretty town house of red brick, where Bree and Elizabeth stay. “It is odd, is it not? The mist rises and Arsinoe dreams of its creator. Dreams that send you home. Mirabella Mistbane, the only one on the island who is strong enough to banish it.”
“Mirabella Mistbane?”
“It is what I am calling you. Mirabella Mistbane and the Undead Queen. We are legends already. But it is strange. I feel the working of something larger, moving us about.”
“Perhaps bringing us together. To fight.”
“Or to die. But I am not alone in this, am I? You do feel it?”
“I do,” Mirabella admits. “The moment I stepped back onto the island I felt the hand of the Goddess casting about me like a net. I do not know why, yet. But I intend to find out.”
Katharine inhales deeply. “I am giving you more freedom to move about the capital. So long as you remain hidden from public view and in disguise until we announce our allegiance.”
“Thank you, Katharine.” She bows her head respectfully, and to hide her smile. If she is free to move, she is free to try and solve Madrigal’s puzzle.
“Do not thank me yet. When we meet Arsinoe and Juillenne Milone in battle, I will have to kill them. And Billy, whom you are so fond of. He may not have murdered Natalia, but he has committed his own crimes. He is a rebel now. And he backs the wrong queen.”
Katharine puts her glove back on and leans forward to look out the window. “We are here.”
“Where?” Mirabella asks as the carriage slows to a halt. The door opens, and she follows Katharine outside. The city lies behind them now, and before them, Bardon Harbor, stretched as far as the eye can see. “We are on the northern cliffs.”
“Very good. Now come!” She reaches for Mirabella’s hand. Mirabella flinches, and Katharine’s expression falters. For just a moment, her large eyes are the eyes of the little girl Mirabella once knew.
“I thought you would like it. I know you have places like this in Rolanth.”
Five Dark Fates Page 8
