Emilia unbolts Jules’s door, and the Milones and Billy stand outside, necks craned as Arsinoe administers it. She lifts Jules’s head and uses her sleeve to dab at the tonic that spills from the side of her mouth. Jules closes her eyes, and they wait. But aside from a shaky sigh, there is no change.
“Nothing,” Caragh whispers.
Arsinoe clenches her fists. She knows their disappointment is only because they love Jules so much, but she cannot help wondering what sort of miracle they expected her to perform with some of Madrigal’s blood and a piece of paper.
“Did you read the letter, Cait?” she asks.
“I did.”
“Then you know what’s in it. Or rather, what’s not in it. All Madrigal wrote down were the details of the binding spell and instructions for how to remove it if she died. Not much help now, considering it was removed when she was killed.”
“But there must be something,” Emilia says.
“If you’re so sure, why don’t you try looking.”
“Wait,” says Billy. “I’m no expert, but . . . you have the binding spell that Madrigal used. Couldn’t you just do the same spell again? Rebind the curse?”
“No,” Arsinoe says. “When Madrigal first performed the binding, Jules was a baby. Neither of her gifts had taken root yet. Trying to bind her war gift now would be like trying to stuff an oak back inside an acorn. But—”
“But what?”
She pauses and glances at Jules. Her heartbeat pounds in her ears and sends blood throbbing into her pricked fingertips.
“But maybe it could be tethered.”
“Tethered?”
“Tamed, tied down as a loose sail flapping in the wind. Perhaps it could be bound if it were tied to another person.” Arsinoe’s thoughts race ahead. It would not be a binding but a sharing. Whoever did it would help Jules to shoulder the load.
“Tethered to someone so that they could be the keeper of the curse?” asks Cait. “Like Madrigal was?”
“No. Not exactly. The curse would be . . . shared. And before you ask, I have no idea what that would mean for the other person. They could lose themselves to the curse as well, over time.”
Emilia pounds her fist on the table. “When can you do it?”
“I don’t even know if I should. It would be massive. Not like charming a false-familiar bear or even reaching out to old gifts. It’s bigger than anything I’ve ever tried.”
Emilia turns to Mathilde. “Do you have any particular feeling about this?”
“Nothing yet,” says the seer. “I have seen nothing about Jules’s fate. The thread has gone dark. I will keep listening. Keep reading the smoke for visions.” That is the only aspect of the gift she possesses, Arsinoe has learned. Visions and momentary flashes. The oracles say it is the stronger side of the sight, but Arsinoe does not know why. It would be much more useful to be able to cast the bones and have an answer when you need one.
“Could it harm Jules?” Ellis asks softly.
“It could harm everything,” Arsinoe replies. “It could all go wrong.”
“Arsinoe.”
At the sound of Jules’s creaking whisper, they turn. Jules lies on her bed of straw, but her eyes are fixed on them, her throat straining to speak. Arsinoe and Emilia nearly dive to her side. It is so good to hear her voice.
“Jules, Jules,” Arsinoe says. “You’re back.”
Emilia smoothes Jules’s hair away from her forehead.
“I knew you would be.”
They fall silent as Jules’s lips struggle to form words.
“You have to do it. You have to bind it. I can’t . . .” She squeezes her eyes shut and braces against a wave of pain.
“All right,” Arsinoe says. “All right, I’ll do it.”
Arsinoe lays supplies out across the small desk that has become an apothecary table. Bundles of herbs for burning. Candles to burn them with. Two thin, delicately made white scarves, a knife and bandages. Always bandages.
When Madrigal performed the first binding, she bled herself nearly to death and Jules, too. Innocent, tiny, newborn Jules. Arsinoe was not there, just a newborn herself at that time, but she can still imagine the baby’s fading, exhausted screams. She squeezes her eyes shut. At least Jules is not a baby anymore.
Across the room, Jules’s door opens and Emilia emerges. She looks wrung out, as she always does when she leaves Jules.
“I do not mean to disturb you,” the warrior says, leaning down to hug Camden roughly and offer her a strip of dried meat. “Is it . . . going well?”
“The original binding was cast in Wolf Spring, not far from the Milone property beneath the bent-over tree, and if I had a choice, that’s where I would attempt this.” She looks up at Emilia regretfully. Wolf Spring is too far, and too watched. Innisfuil Valley and the Breccia Domain are out, too, for much the same reasons. “But otherwise . . . all is going according to plan.”
“And what,” Emilia asks, “is that plan? Who are you going to tether? Who will carry the curse with Jules?”
Arsinoe’s brow furrows. That answer was obvious the moment the plan was hatched. “I will, of course.”
“You will.” Emilia’s mouth crooks. “A queen and our one low-magic practitioner. Brilliant. If the tether goes wrong and the curse takes you both, I cannot think of a worse person to have out of control. You might be even more dangerous than she is.” She walks to the table and sweeps her hand over the top of it like she would dash the ingredients to the floor. “And of course it would be you. So that Jules could be tied again to your fate. Hers with a queen’s.”
“How about because it’s dangerous and I would rather risk myself than anyone else?” Arsinoe looks away from her and continues working. “Besides, it can’t be just anyone. There has to be a bond there.”
“How do you know? What do you really know about low magic? Are you a master of it?”
“I’m not,” says Arsinoe. “It had a master; she is dead. But I learned from her. When Madrigal bound Jules’s curse, she did it out of love and desperation. A lot of love and desperation. That’s probably why it worked. Low magic is like a prayer, Emilia. A pleading, foolish, costly prayer.” She stares at the knife on the table and feels the scar of every cut, every thin, pink line that mars her arms.
“And what will it do to you?” Emilia asks. “Tethering a naturalist-and-war-gifted legion curse when you are already a poisoner?”
Arsinoe narrows her eyes at the warrior as the realization dawns. “You think I should tether it to you.”
Emilia stands taller. “I think you should. Why not?”
“A hundred reasons why not.”
“It might go easier with me, as I already carry the war gift. I may not even notice the extra burden. And then you could maintain your strength; you would not have to bleed yourself so much during the spell.”
Arsinoe turns away and selects a piece of amber to burn, for clarity. “Is that what you’re after? A stronger gift for yourself? Maybe even a legion curse of your own so you won’t have any need of Jules as your queen. But that’s probably not what’s—”