Mirabella’s eyes flash to his. They are squinted at the corners as though smiling, but that is not real. Underneath, they are hard as stone.
“There is no suitable apology for that,” she says. “So I will make none.”
“Good. I would have spat it back in your face.”
“May I have my fork now, Billy?”
“No.” He nods out, toward the crowd, where people eat roasted boar and smoked fish off trenchers of bread. Dancing and laughing, and watching the royal table from the sides of their eyes. “We ought to give them a proper show. Isn’t that what they expect? A love story for their queen?”
He cuts a bit of meat and skewers it onto her fork. He offers it to her with his hand on the back of her chair, doting, as though feeding her sweets with his fingers.
When she eats it, the people cheer.
“There now,” Billy says. “That’s better. Even though you were hesitant. Did you think I might push the fork into your throat? Every one of these barbaric priestesses would be on me the moment I did.”
“But your death would serve Arsinoe. So perhaps you will still risk it.”
“Things aren’t that bad yet, Queen Mirabella.”
She tries to see around him, to Joseph, but he has turned away, conversing with Rho of all people. No one seems to be listening; no one is hearing the things that Billy is saying to her. Sara is talking with Luca. Even Bree is distracted, calling out to a boy with tawny hair.
“This is how it will be,” Billy says, his voice low. “I will taste for you, and I will smile. I will appease my father.” He feeds her another bite of sweet apples. “And I will be back with my Arsinoe before she can even miss me.”
WOLF SPRING
“I’m not wearing that,” Arsinoe says.
Madrigal sighs, and drops the long black dress onto Arsinoe’s bed.
“It’s their first time meeting you. You could wear a dress. Just once.”
Arsinoe turns to her mirror and adjusts the cuffs on her black shirt. She straightens the mask on her face.
“I haven’t worn a dress since I was six years old. It was half the reason I was crying when they came to take us from the Black Cottage.” She holds her hands out. “Well? How do I look?”
Madrigal raises her eyebrows.
“Oh, who cares, anyway?” Arsinoe snaps.
“You’re in a foul mood. And you haven’t even seen them yet.”
“Tommy Stratford and Michael Percy,” Arsinoe grumbles as she strips off her vest and throws it aside. Perhaps another. The pinstriped one that Luke made. She looks at her frowning reflection, at the bit of her soft pink scar peeking out from beneath the red and black of the mask.
“Just what is the punishment,” she asks, “if Braddock accidentally eats them both?”
“It’s not wise to joke about such things.”
“I wish Billy was here.”
“If he was, there would be a fight,” Madrigal says, and Arsinoe hides a smile. “Well, if you will not wear this, maybe I can get it onto Jules. It will be longer—”
She bends to pick up the dress, and something small and dark falls out of the green sash at her waist.
“What is that?” Arsinoe asks.
Madrigal picks it up quickly and tucks it away. “It’s nothing,” she says. But Arsinoe has done enough low magic to recognize the cords they use to collect blood.
“It’s not your blood,” Madrigal assures her. “Not even I would dare to use that. Besides, for this kind of spell, it’s better to use your own.”
“What type is that?” But Arsinoe already knows. The length of cord was tied around a familiar gold ring. She hopes she is wrong, but it looked just like a ring that Matthew gave to Caragh, a long time ago.
“Only a charm,” Madrigal replies, and avoids her eyes.
“How did you even get it? Did you go through her things? I thought she’d have taken it with her to the Black Cottage.”
“Well, she didn’t. She gave it back to him. And what does it matter?”
Madrigal goes to the window and looks out, where down in the yard Braddock is bonding with Camden and Jules. “It is almost time to go.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Arsinoe says, and Madrigal whirls.
“Caragh isn’t here,” she hisses. “So why should he still love her? Why shouldn’t he love me?”
“Because it’s ugly, what you’ve done. Have you done it all along? Is that why he came to you in the first place?”
“No. He wanted me. He still wants me, but—”
“But he doesn’t love you.”
“Of course he does. Just . . .” Madrigal pauses. “Not like he loves her.”
“Well, so what? If he still cares for you?”
Madrigal shakes her head. “You don’t understand.” She lays her palm flat against her stomach.
“You are pregnant.”
“Yes.” She looks down at her belly and smiles a little sadly. “Another Beltane Begot, I think. It seems I have a way with them. Only this time, I will not tell anyone that is what it is.”
“Because you want it to have a father,” says Arsinoe. “You want it to have Matthew.” She purses her lips. All this time using low magic, and still Madrigal does this. Knowing the risks. Knowing that there is always a price.
“This will not go well for you,” Arsinoe says.
“It will be fine. It will. But you can’t tell Jules. Not until I’m ready. She will be happy, eventually. Jules loves babies.”
“She’s not going to raise it for you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Arsinoe says, and Madrigal draws back as though slapped. It was a cruel thing to say. But it was not without cause. She looks at Madrigal’s sash, where the charm hides.
“You should throw that away before it’s too late. It is less a charm than a curse.”
The bear is staring at the chickens when Arsinoe comes out. When he sees her, he rolls his head back and flaps his lower lip, and Camden tucks her tail and flattens her ears.
“Do not do that,” says Jules, and touches her head. “He’s a friend now.”
“Camden, Camden,” Arsinoe scolds. “You won’t forgive my bear for being a bear, but you forgive everyone else? I’ve seen the way you nuzzle Joseph, you furry little pushover.”
Jules laughs and rubs the cat’s back.
They walk together to the orchard: two girls, a bear, and a cougar. Arsinoe’s stomach is tight as a fist. The mask on her face is a comfort and so is the poisoned blade in her vest, but she would still like to crawl into a hole and hide until morning.
“Are they there yet?” Arsinoe asks.
“Yes.”
“How do they seem?”
“Rather like buffoons,” Jules replies honestly. “But remember that you thought the same of Billy when he first arrived.”
“Aye, but what are the chances of me being wrong twice?” She kicks at pebbles in the road, and Braddock swats at them like it is a game. It is hard to imagine that he is the same bear who tore apart those people on the Quickening beach. But he is, and someday she will see those claws again, tearing someone open.
“How are you, Jules? Are you all right?”
“I’m not going mad, if that’s what you mean,” Jules says.
“That’s not what I mean. It’s just . . .”
“I’m fine. I don’t feel strange. Or sick. Nothing’s different.”
“Well,” Arsinoe reasons, “that’s not exactly true.”
Jules has started to push her war gift. Arsinoe knows she has. Jules has been spending too much time off by herself for it to mean anything else.
“Will you show me?”
“I don’t like it,” Jules says.
“Please? I can understand having a gift that is a mystery to everyone around me. Sometimes I wonder what a poisoner I would be if I’d had the Arrons at my back. You must wonder what you might have been like if you had been sent to the warriors in Bastian City.”
“I would only ever be a
naturalist,” Jules mutters. But she takes a deep breath and tenses her jaw, raising her arm toward the nearby trees. As Arsinoe watches, the branches of a maple begin to shake, as if from rowdy squirrels. Then the shaking stops.
“That was you?” Arsinoe asks.
“I’m working on breaking off branches. Save us time cutting wood for winter,” Jules replies bitterly.
“Well, that will come in handy.”
“They say the war gifted can’t float things anymore. That the mind-mover part of the gift is gone.”
“I guess they were wrong. The gifts grow strong all across the island. Before you know it, we’ll be seeing great oracles again, and nothing will ever be a surprise.” Arsinoe squints. “I wonder what it all means.”
“Maybe that a great queen is coming,” says Jules. “Maybe you.”
ROLANTH
The day after the banquet, Joseph comes to Mirabella at Westwood House. Bree lets him into the drawing room in secret.
“You earned an audience with her,” Bree says. “Saving her like you did. But if you try something on behalf of the naturalist queen, I will skin you and your handsome suitor friend and send your bodies back on a barge.”
“Uh, thank you,” Joseph says, and Bree bows to Mirabella and leaves.
“On a barge?” he asks when they are alone.
“A river barge, most likely.” Mirabella’s smile is tight lipped. Nervous. This meeting is not like before. Joseph is well-dressed and composed, and the day is bright.
“Then at least our bodies would enjoy some fine scenery on the way back to our families,” he says, and she laughs.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“In this house? Or in Rolanth?”
“Both.”
When he does not reply, she steps farther into the room, toward the windows.
“Did you come to tell me to stay away from Arsinoe? To spare her?”
“But that would be a wasted trip, wouldn’t it?”
“Then why?” Mirabella holds her hands out to her sides. “This is not what I imagined when I imagined seeing you again. It is not the way we left things that night on the beach, when you saved me from her bear and all I could think of was being parted from you. Has it been so long, since Beltane?”
“No,” he says softly. “It hasn’t.”
“When I saw you with William Chatworth—with Billy—I wanted to run to you. I lay awake last night, thinking you might find a way to come. I waited.” She looks at him and he looks away. “But I suppose you were with him. Not so far from my room, but with many locked doors and watchful Westwoods in between.”
“Mirabella—”
“I keep talking because I know that when I stop, it will be over. That is what you have come to tell me.”
“I came to say good-bye.”
Mirabella’s throat tightens. Her eyes sting. But she is a queen. A broken heart must not show.
“You chose her. Because you could not have me?” She would take that back the moment it leaves her lips. She hates the tone of it. The foolish hope.
“I chose her because I love her. I have always loved her.”
He is not lying. But it is not the whole truth. It is plain in the way he refuses to meet her eyes.
“Words,” she says. “You said you loved me as well once. You still . . . want me, Joseph.”
He does look at her finally, but what she sees in him is not lust. But guilt.
“Part of me may always,” he says. “And I will always care, about what happens to you. But I choose Jules.”
“As if there were a choice to make,” she says.
“If there were, if there truly were, my choice would be the same. What happened between us was a mistake. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t know where I was, or who you were.”
“And the night of the Hunt? We both knew better then. Are you still going to tell me it was a mistake? An accident?”
Joseph lowers his head. “That night was . . .”
Ecstasy. Passion. A moment of peace amid the chaos of the festival.
“. . . desperation,” he says. “I wanted to be with Jules, but she refused me. I thought I’d lost her.”
Bitterness rises in her throat. Jules wants him and has him, and now she gloats. She cannot even leave Mirabella her memories. But that is not fair, Mirabella thinks, and closes her eyes. I have always known that I was the trespasser into their story.
“Why have you come to tell me this?” she asks, and in her ears her voice sounds even and faraway.
“I suppose I didn’t want you to hope. I owed you that, didn’t I? I couldn’t just disappear, not after what happened.”
“Very well,” she says. “I will not hope. If I ever did.”
“I’m sorry, Mirabella.”
“Do not apologize. I do not need it. When do you sail back for Wolf Spring?”
“Tonight.”
She turns to him and smiles, her hands folded atop her skirt.
“Good. Sail safely, Joseph.”
He swallows. He has much more to say. But she will hear none of it. He takes his leave, and the textured wallpaper of the drawing room wavers before her eyes.
As his footsteps fade, Bree slips into the room and comes to take her in her arms.
“He chose her,” Mirabella says. “I knew that he would. He was hers before he was mine.”
“I heard,” Bree says softly.
“You were listening.”
“Of course I was. Are you all right, Mira?”
Mirabella turns her head. If she went to the southward-facing windows, she could watch as he left. She could know if he ever looked back.
“I am fine, Bree. It is over.”
Bree sighs. “No,” she says. “I saw the way he held you that night, Mira. And how he jumped in front of that bear. Half the island saw that. You are right: as a queen it must be over for you. But anyone with eyes can see that for him, it never will be.”
WOLF SPRING
The orchard is full when they arrive and so bustling with activity that no one even notices the arrival of a great brown bear.
“There they are.” Jules points. Two boys, both with red-gold hair, stand talking with Ellis and Madrigal. Madrigal flirts with them mercilessly.
“I hope they don’t expect me to giggle like that,” Arsinoe says.
“No one expects anyone to giggle like that,” Jules replies, watching her mother with a sour expression.
“Which one is Tommy and which is Michael?”
“Tommy is the bigger of the two. Michael, the more handsome.”
“Jules,” Arsinoe scolds. “When Joseph gets back, I’m telling him.”
She squares her shoulders. The unpleasantness can no longer be put off. She reaches out to Braddock and pats him. He is calm, blinking curiously at the activity and the food piled high on the tables.
Arsinoe takes a step toward the suitors and raises an arm in greeting, just as children come streaming out from between the trees. She falls in the midst of them, bowled over in the dirt as they squeal, caught up in a game of tag. Braddock grunts and joins in the fun. He rolls her back and forth on the ground. She rolls into chairs and upends them. Apples rain down like hail, and she covers her head as the bear lies down on top of her legs.
Someone shouts, and Arsinoe quickly holds her palms up.
“No, no, Braddock, back now,” she says. She rolls onto her knees just in time to see Jules twist a knife out of Tommy Stratford’s hands.
“Enough, Braddock, enough.” Arsinoe laughs, and shoves his large brown head.
“I’m sorry,” Tommy says. “I thought . . . I thought she was being attacked.”
Michael Percy works up his courage and moves past Tommy to offer her his hand.
“The bear’s a lot to handle,” he says as he helps her to her feet. “How do you manage?”
“Sometimes I don’t. As you’ve seen.” She smiles at him, and his expression flickers. No doubt he remembers the carnage on the Quick
ening stages. But the bear was not Braddock then. He was only a bear under a low magic spell. Angry and frightened.
Arsinoe slips her hand loose from Michael’s. There is nothing wrong with accepting a suitor’s helping hand. Only she cannot help wondering what Billy would say, and what he is doing in Rolanth, with her sister.
Tommy approaches from her other side.
“Are you all right?” he asks, speaking fast as if to cut off Michael’s questions. If they keep up like that she will be tired of them by the end of the day.
“Why have you chosen to pay court together?” Arsinoe asks them. “Sharing a barge for the Disembarking was odd, but this is truly uncommon.”
“Competitiveness,” Tommy says simply. He grins and shows bright white teeth in a pleasantly handsome face. He is more sturdily built than Michael, but with their shared red-gold hair and similar features, looking at them is like viewing one through open air and another through a magnifying glass.
“It’s true. We’ve always been this way,” Michael cuts in. He bends to help Luke right an upended table. Arsinoe smiles apologetically, but Luke only winks. No one seems to mind the cleaning up. As long as she has her bear, she can do no wrong.
“We’re cousins, you see,” Michael goes on. “Go to the same schools, spend summers on each other’s estates. When you spend so much time together, it’s hard not to engage in one-upmanship.”
“You must feel the same about the other queens,” Tommy says.
“It’s not exactly the same when you have to kill them,” says Arsinoe, and cranes her neck to look for Jules. Maybe she can take one of these boys off her hands. They were nearly as impressed by the sight of Camden as they were by Braddock.
She looks back at Tommy, and he glances away. It takes her a moment to realize why: he had been trying to peek at what is underneath her mask. Arsinoe cannot decide whether to laugh or punch him.
“Why did you request first suit with me?” she asks. “Did you think I would die first?”
Michael shakes his head emphatically.
“Not at all,” he says. “We just had to see the bear up close. We couldn’t wait.” He gestures, rather shyly, toward Braddock lumbering ahead of them. “May I?” he asks. “I mean, is he safe?”