When Katharine walks out of Pietyr’s sickroom an hour later, tired and dazed, she stumbles directly into Edmund, Natalia’s old butler, carrying a tray of tea.
“I thought it might be welcome,” he says softly.
“It is,” Katharine says. “But I have had enough of sitting in that room. Perhaps in the drawing room or the solarium.” She trails off and puts her hand to her eyes.
“Perhaps right here on the floor. It is still your home if you wish it. A tea party on the carpet.”
“Just like we never used to have,” Katharine says. But she smiles at him, and they step aside as a maid enters Pietyr’s room. “Where are the healers?”
“They have clustered in the library,” Edmund replies. “And are demanding lunch.”
“I suppose that they will need to eat.” Katharine and the butler fall in step beside each other down the hall. “Poor Edmund. I have turned your household upside down.”
“Nonsense, my queen. It is good to have heartbeats in Greavesdrake again. Even the heartbeats of new staff and strangers. Since Natalia was killed, it has not felt like a great house so much as a shrine.”
How right he is. As they ascend the stairs, the sounds of people in its farthest corners, the bustle and occasional laughter of servants, make Greavesdrake feel alive again. Still draughty and dark, of course. But alive and no longer haunted.
It will feel haunted forever if Pietyr dies upstairs.
In the main floor dining room, they find Genevieve, reading a book over a half-eaten bowl of soup.
“How is he?” she asks, and sets the book down.
“Unchanged.” Katharine sits across from her as Edmund readies the tea.
“Unchanged,” Genevieve repeats, and sighs.
Katharine watches her carefully. Katharine was the one who “found” Pietyr, unconscious and covered in blood, just as she was with Nicolas the night her poisoned body killed him. Two lovers, one dead and the other unable to wake. Though Katharine was careful to dispose of all evidence of the low magic, Genevieve must still have her suspicions.
“He will wake,” Genevieve says, and tries to bolster Katharine with a smile. “He is too meddlesome not to.”
Katharine nods. She is about to bite into one of Edmund’s excellent crumbly shortbreads when they hear the front door open and the servants speaking in raised voices. Soon enough, a breathless messenger arrives in the doorway.
“Well?”
“She’s at the Volroy,” the messenger declares, her eyes wide.
“Who?” Genevieve asks. “Were we expecting someone?”
Katharine stares at the girl. She knows, by the way the messenger avoids speaking the name and the fearful wonder in her eyes, that she means Mirabella. Her powerful sister has come. The strongest of the triplets. The strongest queen in generations has come at her request.
Katharine’s legs twitch beneath the table. She is so eager to meet Mirabella, to look her in the eye under an offering of peace. But she is careful to control her reaction.
“Who?” Genevieve asks again, losing her patience.
The messenger opens her mouth but says nothing, trying to decide how to phrase it without breaking decorum. “The queen’s sister,” she says finally.
“Mirabella,” Katharine supplies, and Genevieve gasps.
“She—? She would come here?”
“She was invited.”
“By who?”
“By Luca,” Katharine says. “And I suppose, by me. Where is she now?” she asks the girl.
“Waiting for you at the Volroy. The guards are holding her in the throne room.”
“Has anyone seen her? Spoken to her? Anyone from my Black Council?”
“No, my queen.”
Katharine rises. “Then ride quickly back there ahead of me and make sure that no one does. No one is to see my sister before I do. Not Antonin or Bree Westwood. Not even High Priestess Luca. Is that understood?”
“Yes, my queen.”
“Good. Hurry. Take a fresh horse.”
Katharine and Genevieve share a carriage to the Volroy. Genevieve’s jaw has not unclenched since receiving the news, and she holds her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
“I am to be your eyes and ears. How? When you tell me nothing!”
“Luca and I told no one of this,” says Katharine. “Honestly, Genevieve, I did not think she would come.” She turns back toward the receding bulk of Greavesdrake and to the window of her old bedroom, wishing that the curtains would move and reveal Pietyr standing there. He would love to be at the Volroy for this meeting. And she does not know how she will fare without him.
“Why is she here?” Genevieve asks. “What good can she do?”
“She is another queen. She can help me win the war,” replies Katharine. “If I can trust her.”
“Neither of you are queens,” Genevieve says, her voice thick with disgust. “If you were, there would only be one of you left.”
THE VOLROY
“We have received word that the queen is on her way.”
“Thank you,” Mirabella says. They have put her in the throne room to await Katharine. The guard nods and leaves, closing the heavy doors. No doubt they are stationed three deep on the other side, afraid Mirabella will blast the door open with a gust of wind and set fire to the entire castle.
She snorts softly. She could, she supposes, be free of the Volroy within minutes if she chose. Her gift, now that she has returned to the island, has come back even stronger and quicker than it was when she left. Though she still may not be able to blast through the door. To do that she might need a different kind of gift. A gift like Jules has.
She unfastens her cloak and drapes it across a chair before the long, dark table beside the throne—the table where the Black Council must sit on days when the queen gives audience. She runs her fingers along the back of the chair. Who does it belong to? Bree? Or perhaps Luca? Probably not. This seat, directly to the right of the throne, is probably reserved for one of the Arrons. The eldest woman. Or that pale-haired boy of Katharine’s, Pietyr Renard.
Mirabella’s eyes roam over the room. The walkways of the stone and wood floor have been overlaid with carpets woven in designs of black and gold. The hammer-beam ceiling shows intricate carvings representing the gifts and many of the great queens, the wood itself very dark and the ceiling painted in stunning black and silver. Luca used to tell her about it all when she was a girl. She sat by Luca’s knee and daydreamed of the time when she would rule in the castle beneath all that history. She looks up and tries to spot the carving of lightning and thunderclouds for her favorite, Queen Shannon. And of course it does not take long to find the plaster and wood plaque crafted for Queen Illiann, as it is the only part of the ceiling painted blue.
Mirabella wanders to the throne and steps up beside it, her fingertips just grazing the gilded arm. Even now, it feels like it is hers, this thing she has been directed to, pointed at, since the day she was born. But it is not her portrait that hangs behind it. No portrait of fire and fierce storms, no elemental queen with her gown billowing behind her. Instead, the portrait that hangs there is Katharine’s, dark and still, and full of bloody bones.