Three Dark Crowns (31 page)

A
fter a week of searching, Pietyr traveled back to Greavesdrake with Natalia. But once they arrived, he would not stay. Without Katharine, there was nothing for him there.

Natalia did not try to convince him otherwise. The boy was miserable. Even his dull country house was preferable to Greavesdrake, haunted by Katharine's ghost.

Before he left, they had one last drink together in her study.

“You had me so convinced about the Sacrificial Year and the temple,” he said. “I thought they were going to take her head. I did not even think of Arsinoe.”

Now he is gone, packed into a carriage, and Natalia is again alone. Genevieve and Antonin went directly to their houses in town, fearful of her mood. They would not dare return without an invitation.

The servants too refuse to look her in the eye. It would be
nice if any of them were decent enough to pretend that everything was all right.

Natalia walks down the main hall and listens to the spring wind rattle branches against the windows. The manor feels drafty this year. She will need workmen from the capital to inspect the windows and doors. It may not be hers for much longer, but she will not let the grand old house fall into disrepair.

In the long, red hallway that attaches to the staircase to her bedroom, she notes dust on the sconces and a small stack of clothing folded and set just inside the door to the hall bath. She stoops over to pick it up and stops.

She is not alone. There is a girl, standing in the foyer.

Her dress is a ruin, and her hair knotted and twisted through with filth. She does not move. She could have been standing there for a very long time.

“Kat?” Natalia asks.

The figure does not respond. As Natalia walks closer, she begins to fear that it is a figment of her imagination. That her mind has fractured, and at any moment, the girl will vanish or dissolve into a pile of lice.

Natalia reaches out, and Katharine looks up into her eyes.

“Katharine,” Natalia says, and crushes the girl to her chest.

It is Katharine, dirty and cold but alive. Cuts mar every inch of her skin. Her mangled hands hang limp by her sides, tipped in dark red with most of the fingernails torn off.

“I did not fall,” Katharine croaks. Her voice is rough, as
though her throat is filled with grave dirt.

“We must get you warm,” Natalia says. “Edmund! Bring blankets and run a bath!”

“I do not want that,” says Katharine.

“What do you mean, sweetheart? What do you want?”

“I want revenge,” she whispers, and her fingers trail bloody streaks down Natalia's arms.

“And then I want my crown.”

T
hough the townspeople would like to see her, Arsinoe spends her time in the Milone house or down in the orchard. She is not hiding, exactly. But it is easier there, where no one stares with newfound respect and where she does not have to explain where her bear is.

Telling the people that the bear was not actually her familiar will be difficult. They may be impressed by her ruse, but they will still be disappointed that she will not be riding it into town.

“Are you accepting visitors?” Billy asks, walking up from the orchard.

“Junior,” she says, and he smiles. He has recovered from their time in the mist, at sea, and looks very well in a light brown jacket. With the young leaves stuck to his shoulder, he hardly looks like a mainlander at all.

“I have never heard you sound so glad to see me,” he says.

“I wasn't sure you were still here. I thought your father
might have packed you up and sailed you home.”

“No, no,” Billy says. “I am to begin formally courting soon, just like the other suitors. He's a dogged man, my father. He does not give up. You'll come to know that about him.”

He holds out his hand. In it is a box wrapped in blue paper and tied with green-and-black ribbon.

“He sent this, you see? As a peace offering.” He shrugs. “It isn't much. Sweets from our favorite shop back home. Chocolates. Dipped nuts. A few taffies. I thought you would like it, though. Since you are mostly stomach.”

“A gift? Really?” Arsinoe says, and takes the box. “I guess the bear changed his mind about me.”

“It changed everyone's minds about you.” He sighs and then nods to the house. “How are things, here?”

Arsinoe frowns. Since the Quickening, Jules has been miserable. She has barely spoken to anyone.

Joseph walks up behind Billy with his hands in his pockets. The look upon his face is grim and determined.

“What are you doing here?” Arsinoe asks.

“I'm here to see Jules. I need to talk to her about what happened.”

“You need to grovel is more like. To both of us.”

“To both of you?” he asks, confused.

“She must really be something,” Arsinoe says. “That elemental sister of mine. To make you forget every promise that you ever made. To Jules. And to me.”

“Arsinoe.”

“Do you want me to die now, instead of her? Would that make you happy?”

She shoves past him hard on the way to the house. There is plenty more she would like to say to Joseph, but it is only right that Jules should have her turn first.

“Let me put these away,” she says, and shakes the candy box. “And then I'll go find her for you.”

It does not take long to find Jules walking in one of the southern fields with Ellis, discussing the spring plant. When Jules sees her, her face falls, as if she knows.

“You have to talk to him sometime,” Arsinoe says.

“Do I?” says Jules.

Ellis puts a gentle hand on his granddaughter's shoulder and walks back down the rows, holding Jake in his arm. The little white spaniel has scarcely walked a step since Beltane. Ellis is just so grateful that he was not taken by the poison, like those unlucky familiars who ate from the fallen
Gave Noir.

Jules lets Arsinoe walk her around to the front of the house, where Joseph and Billy wait.

Arsinoe takes Billy by the elbow, and leads him away so Jules and Joseph can have some privacy.

“All right,” says Jules. “Let's talk.”

Jules lets Joseph inside the bedroom she shares with Arsinoe and closes the door softly in Camden's face. She does not know what will be said or how angry she will get. But if Camden were to injure him, she may regret it later.

Outside, Joseph had seemed tense but collected, as if he had rehearsed many times whatever dressing down he intended to give her. Inside, he shrinks. He looks at her bed, where they spent so many moments together.

“How could you do it?” he asks softly. “How could you send that bear?”

“I stopped it, didn't I?” Jules snaps. “And that's what you have come here to say? To accuse me? Not to tell me you're sorry for falling in love with someone else?”

“Jules. People died.”

She turns away. She knows that. Does he think she is stupid? It all happened so fast. One moment she had the bear, and the next . . . It was the most difficult thing she had ever done, bringing him back under control. But she could not let him hurt Joseph.

She leans against the writing desk and pushes a wrapped blue box.

“What is this?” she asks.

“Billy brought it for Arsinoe,” he says. “It's a box of sweets.”

Jules tugs off the lid. She does not have much of a taste for sweets. Certainly not like Arsinoe does.

“He chose well,” she says.

“Jules. Answer the question. Why did you do it?”

“I didn't!” she cries. “I didn't mean to let him go. I had him. Until I watched her dance. Until I saw you, and the way you looked at her. Like you have never looked at me.”

Joseph's shoulders slump. “That is not true,” he says. “I have
looked at you. I see you, Jules. I always have.”

“Not like that,” Jules says. In her mind, she sees the bear charging. She does not know whether she would have stopped it from killing Mirabella. She only remembers the rage, and the hurt, and how her world turned red.

Jules reaches into the box of candy and puts a piece into her mouth. It tastes like nothing, but at least he cannot ask any more questions while she chews.

“The night of the Disembarking,” she whispers. “In my tent. When you wouldn't touch me. It was because of her, wasn't it?”

“Yes.”

He says it so simply. One word. As if it requires no further explanation. No justifications. As if it does not make Jules's head begin to spin.

“Do you not love me anymore, then? Did you ever?” She pushes away from the writing desk and stumbles, her stomach weak and pained. “I've been quite an idiot, haven't I?”

“No,” Joseph says.

Jules blinks. Her vision goes black, and bright, and then black again. Her legs go numb below her knee.

“Jules . . . I . . .”

“Joseph,” she says, and her voice makes him look up. He reaches out and grabs her to his chest as she falls. “Joseph,” she says. “Poison.”

His eyes grow wide. They flash to the box of sweets as Jules begins to fade, and he screams for Cait and Ellis.

“It's my fault,” Joseph says.

“Shut your mouth,” Arsinoe says. “How can it be your fault?”

They sit beside Jules's bed, as they have since the healers left. They could do nothing, they said, but watch and wait for the poison to paralyze her lungs or her heart. Cait threw them out after that. She threw them out and wept for hours, bent over the kitchen table.

“Dammit, where is Madrigal.” Joseph grasps Camden's fur, where she lies atop Jules's legs.

“She can't handle it,” Arsinoe says. But she knows where Madrigal is. Gone to the bent-over tree, to pray and make bargains of blood magic. Gone to beg for her daughter.

Ellis knocks softly and pokes his head in.

“Arsinoe. The mainlander is outside, asking for you.”

Arsinoe stands and wipes at her eyes. “Don't leave her, Joseph.”

“I won't,” he says. “I'll never. Never again.”

In the yard, Billy waits with his back to the house. He turns when he hears her, and for a moment, she thinks he will try to hug her, but he does not.

“I didn't know, Arsinoe. You have to believe me. I didn't.”

“I know that,” Arsinoe says.

His face floods with relief. “I'm so sorry,” he says. “Will she be all right?”

“I don't know. They don't think so.”

Billy slips his arms around Arsinoe, slowly and tentatively,
as though she might bite. She probably would bite if he did not feel so solid and good to lean on.

“They'll all pay for this,” she says against his shoulder. “They will bleed and scream and get what they're owed.”

Two days after Jules was poisoned, she opens her eyes. Arsinoe is so exhausted that she is not sure whether she is hallucinating until Camden climbs onto Jules's chest and licks her face.

Madrigal wails with joy. Ellis kneels beside the bed and prays. Cait sends her crow, Eva, out after the healers again.

Joseph can only weep and press Jules's hand to his cheek.

Arsinoe carries another pot of flowers from Joseph into their bedroom and sets them on the windowsill. There is almost not enough room. So many offerings crowd the space that it is beginning to look like a hothouse. As she arranges the blossoms, a few of the buds open with pert little clicks. She turns to Jules, sitting up against her pillows.

“Feeling better, are we?” Arsinoe asks.

“I just wanted to see if I still could,” Jules says.

“Of course you can. You will always be able to.”

She walks to the bed and sits, scratching Camden's haunches. Jules looks much better today. Finally strong enough, perhaps, to hear what Arsinoe has been dying to tell her.

“What?” Jules asks. “What is it? You look like Camden after she has gotten into the eggs.”

Arsinoe peers down the hallway. The house is empty. Cait
and Ellis are in the orchard, and Madrigal is in town, with Matthew.

“I have to tell you something,” Arsinoe says. “About the candy.”

“What? Is it about Billy? Did he do it?”

“No. I don't know. I don't think so.” She swallows and looks at Jules with bright eyes.

“I ate it too.”

Jules stares at her, confused.

“When I put the box on the desk,” Arsinoe says. “Before I came to get you in the field. I ate three of them. Two chocolates and a taffy.”

“Arsinoe.”

“When have you known me to turn away candy?”

“I don't understand,” says Jules.

“Neither did I,” Arsinoe says. “Not at first. You were so sick, and Joseph said you only ate one. And I was so worried about you that for a while I didn't think about it at all. But then you woke up. And I knew.”

Arsinoe leans forward on her elbows.

“I haven't been a giftless queen all this time, Jules. Unable to sprout a beanstalk or turn a tomato red or get some stupid bird to sit on my shoulder.” Her voice grows louder and faster until she catches herself and quiets. “All this time I thought I was nothing. But I'm not nothing, Jules.”

Arsinoe looks up and smiles.

“I'm a poisoner.”