Genevieve shows her hands. Empty.
“Then what are you after?”
“Only a word. I know you never listen to me. That you have no reason to value my advice. But I would caution you against allowing Mirabella to fight back the mist. She is already a legend to the people, and such an act is queenly. They will love her more.”
Katharine frowns. “You think I have not thought of that? She is too beautiful, too strong.” She balls her hands into fists. The dead queens raise their heads to sniff like hunting hounds at the mere mention of Mirabella. Even they . . . even they would choose her were they given the chance. “But what else am I to do?”
“I do not know. The mist must be dealt with; the port must reopen. I only know that Mirabella will steal the island even if she does not steal the crown.”
Genevieve dips her head and says good night. The queensguard moves aside to let her pass back into the castle.
Alone again, Katharine paces the length of the courtyard. Genevieve’s caution did nothing to ease her unrest, and her feet carry her through the dark, off the castle grounds. She does not really know where she is going until she smells the salt air rising from the harbor.
Now the queens scurry through her veins for another reason. They fear the mist and so fear the water—with every step closer that she takes, they pull against her skin. She takes a torch from one of the queensguard and motions for them to stay back. They do not need to be told twice.
“Stop,” she says to the dead queens as her heels echo against the wooden dock. “What do you have to fear? And why does she not fear it at all? What is so great within Mirabella that is not also great within you? Or within me?” She reaches the end of the dock and holds out the torch. The flame illuminates only a few paces in every direction, but the moon over the water is still mostly full and shows the mist clearly as it stretches toward her.
It curls around the dock, so thick she could use her dagger to slice it into sections. On the shore, the queensguard shifts like nervous horses.
“You are no use to me afraid,” she says to the queens, and they, obedient wraiths for once, slip to the surface. They rise to stand with her, and she feels them layering upon her skin like armor. Wisps and tendrils of mist surround the dock on all sides. It is horrifying up close—much worse than it was in the clearing at Innisfuil. It is as if she can see ghosts of shapes inside it. And sometimes, when it thickens, she would swear she senses a solid form.
“You see? It is like it was in the valley. It does not touch us. We are all of the blood. Even you. The old blood.”
She reaches out with a gloved hand, expecting the mist to shrink back. Instead, her hand disappears inside it. At first all she feels is mild surprise. A dull ache, as if from cold. And a sudden sense of sadness. Then she starts to scream.
Inside the mist, her hand is torn apart. She hears the snap of her index finger—the sharp pop as her thumb comes out of its joint. At the sound of her cries, the queensguard charges the dock.
“Stay back!”
She bares her teeth, gritting them. She calls to the dead queens, “Help me, stop it,” but they do nothing but screech. The sensation of them weakens as if they are leaking out of her with every fat drop of blood that splashes against the wood and falls into the water. Finally, she grasps her arm at the elbow and wrenches herself free, then runs toward shore as fast as her legs will carry her, where her queensguard waits just long enough to swallow her up before running alongside. Only when they reach the top of the hill does she dare look back, and sees the mist still gathered around the dock, still churning and searching for her, and in the dark, she hears splashes, like fish feeding in the water.
“Queen Katharine!”
The soldiers stare openmouthed. Their torches put the injuries to her hand in plain view, the broken, misshapen fingers, the red flesh mixed together with the black fabric of the glove. Blood soaks her to the elbow. It looks like she has been gnawed upon.
Katharine’s chest heaves as she pulls her injury close, cradling it.
“Say nothing of this,” she orders. “And find me a healer. A discreet one.”
SUNPOOL
Arsinoe wakes with a start and strikes out with her fists.
“What—what is it?” Billy asks groggily, jerking awake himself.
Arsinoe exhales and rubs her hands roughly across her face. “Nothing. Just a nightmare.”
“A Daphne nightmare?”
“Yes, but it was only a nightmare. It wasn’t one of the dreams she sends. Contrary to what you and Mira think, I can tell the difference.” She squints up at the windows; the light streaming through suggests it is already late morning. And they are on the floor. All they have are pillows and the small blanket that Arsinoe has kicked up against the wall. “What are you doing here?” she asks. “Why aren’t you in our room?”
“Because you’re not in our room. I found you here already asleep with your face against the wood. So I fetched these pillows and a blanket.” He sits up and stretches his back, wincing.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and squeezes his arm.
“It’s all right. Have you found anything?”
Arsinoe drags herself toward her work space: knives and bottles and half the inventory from the apothecary shop lay scattered on the solitary table as well as the floor. The jar that contained Madrigal’s binding sits open, the letter out and five blood-soaked cords still inside.
“I’m going to try this one.” She holds up a vial of rust-colored liquid. “It’s the regular tonic, but I stirred in one of Madrigal’s blood-soaked cords.”
“Well, that’s disgusting,” says Billy. “So much for breakfast.”
Arsinoe rubs her face. She is sick to death of this room, and it is a mess. She is not a careful poisoner and leaves drippings of her concoctions running down the table legs and pooling on the floor.
“Look at this.” She gets to her feet and takes up spilled bottles, angrily righting them, then grabs for a cloth and wipes at the spills, even though some have dried into sticky stains. “I never learn.” She throws down the cloth and lifts her fist. It takes everything she has not to shove every last bottle and blade onto the floor.
Billy stands behind her and puts his hands on her shoulders. “Hey, it’s all right.”
“It’s not. And don’t touch anything!” She slaps him away. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near this. Do you want to end up like those two suitors I killed?”
“That was an accident.”
“It doesn’t matter. They’re still dead.”
“Listen.” Billy reaches out and tugs her away from the table. “I know enough not to lick the spills. And if you’re being careless, it’s because you’re working too hard. How much sleep have you gotten? How much blood have you lost, cutting into yourself?”
She flexes her fingers. Drops of blood have been squeezed from every tip. And her arms are a battlefield of scabs. She thought her days of low magic were finished. Instead, she is into it deeper than ever, deeper than Madrigal, perhaps deeper than any practitioner that came before her.
“I’m not even her daughter, yet I am so like her.”
“Like Madrigal,” Billy says. “And will you wind up like her?” He gestures to the jars, the knives, and the cloths spotted with red. “There’s always a price, isn’t that what you said? Low magic always has a price. But you never know what it costs until it collects.”