“Do you want to sit in it?”
Despite herself, Mirabella jumps. And when she turns, there she is: wicked, deadly little Katharine, who slipped inside silently, without so much as the creak of a door or the rustle of a skirt.
“To pretend for a while that you won?”
“No,” Mirabella says. “Of course not.”
“Then get away from my seat,” says Katharine, and smiles. “Come and greet me properly.”
Properly, Mirabella thinks. Is she expected to kneel and kiss her ring? She could not bring herself to do it. She does not know if she can even steel her spine enough to touch Katharine at all, for fear of a poisoned blade quickly buried in her neck.
Katharine walks slowly forward. Her black eyes glitter. Unlike her guards, she seems not the least bit afraid.
Mirabella steps down and away from the throne, forcing her legs to move across the carpet. The sisters stop in the center of the room, no more than an arm’s length away from each other.
“Do not ask me to bow,” Mirabella says. “I am here as an ally, not a subject.”
“I will not ask you to bow any more than I will ask you for embraces.” Katharine’s mouth crooks. “Not yet.”
Mirabella relaxes slightly. They have not been this close since the banquet before the Queens’ Duel, when Katharine dragged her around the dance floor like a marionette shortly before Mirabella was poisoned by Billy’s father. But she remembers well the coldness of Katharine’s grip and the strength in her fingers.
“I am surprised that you came,” Katharine says, and crosses her arms. “You could not have been pleased that I cut that naturalist’s throat.”
“It was supposed to be a trade. The Legion Queen for her mother. No one was supposed to die.”
“And no one would have, if not for the mist. And if she had not tried to run.”
Mirabella swallows. Her mouth has gone completely dry.
“I did not turn to your side,” she says. “And I did not turn against Arsinoe. I turned against Jules Milone when I saw what the curse had done to her.” She narrows her eyes. “Or, I suppose, what you turned her into when you cut the blood-binding loose from her mother’s neck.”
Katharine cocks her head, indifferent. “All that did was reveal the monster she always was underneath. And what a monster she was. She will be a handful, even for you.”
She will be more than that, Mirabella thinks. The war gift that Jules hurled at her in the valley knocked her clean off her feet. And Jules had not even truly been aiming.
Katharine walks around Mirabella in a slow circle, and Mirabella straightens as she is appraised. The queen looks over the stains in the blue fabric of her dress, the torn and dirty lace. It is a rather poor fit as well—too tight in the bodice and bosom, cut for the thin, wiry figure of Billy’s sister, Jane. Mrs. Chatworth had brought in a tailor to make alterations, but the fabric had its limits.
As Katharine walks behind her, Mirabella is careful to keep her in her sights.
“Is that all?” Katharine asks. “All it took to make you desert the rebellion?”
“It was not all.” Mirabella looks down. “I am a queen. A true queen, in the blood. And the line of queens should not be set aside so lightly. Not even if the future of it resides in someone as terrible as you.”
Katharine whirls. She holds her hands together so tightly that they shake.
“An interesting choice coming to the Volroy dressed as a pauper,” she says finally, her voice light. “Was it intentionally symbolic, or could you just not manage anything else?”
“On the mainland, this dress was one of the finest in the city.”
Katharine raises her brows. “No matter. We will have you dressed in proper blacks and looking yourself again soon enough.”
“Would you want that? Should I not be dressed in a penitent cloak of gray? To show my shame and my deference to the crown?”
“The people do not need to be reminded of who wears the crown,” Katharine says. “And if you are here, I would have them see you. You, the great elemental queen, come to fight by my side. If you are here, you will be of use. But only when I choose. Guards!” The door to the throne room opens, and in moments, Mirabella finds herself surrounded again by the points of spears.
“Take my sister to the king-consort’s apartment.” She turns to Mirabella. “My sweet Nicolas did not have the chance to enjoy it before he was killed in the fall from his horse, and I will not have such fine furnishings go to waste. And of course, there are no chambers designated to hold a Queen Crowned’s sister.” Katharine pivots on her heel, and shining black curls bounce over her shoulder. “I will send Bree Westwood and the priestess Elizabeth to see you. I am sure you would be comforted by their presence. And then I will have a small meal sent up. But do not eat too much. Tonight you will dine with me.” She stops at the door and smiles at Mirabella broadly.
“We have much work to do.”
Katharine goes from the throne room to the Black Council chamber and shuts herself inside. The moment she is hidden from view, she begins to tremble as she hugs herself and paces.
She had been face-to-face with Mirabella again, and she had done well. The black crown emblazoned across Katharine’s forehead had acted like a shield, giving her courage and lending righteousness to her words. It had been hard not to shout. Not to strike out preemptively. Everything about Mirabella put her on the defensive: the way she stood in the throne room, beautiful and regal, even in that hideous wreck of a dress; the lingering bonds of affection she still holds with many members of Katharine’s Black Council.
Perhaps it was a mistake to bring her here. Perhaps she is falling right into Luca’s trap.
Even the dead queens, as they hissed and sniffed around her, also tugged against Katharine’s edges, drawn to the strength of the elemental gift that flowed off Mirabella in waves.
“You would leave me for her.”
Never, they whisper. You are ours. We are you.
But Katharine feels them pull against her skin. She feels them rise up and nearly slip out of her mouth. The dead queens had a taste of being outside her, of moving through another person when they left her to rush into Pietyr. And they liked it.
We are with you, always.
“Always,” says Katharine as a plan begins to form in her mind. She could be free of them, and free of them for good, if she is careful, and if she is more clever than they are.
SUNPOOL
Wolf Spring arrived in time for Madrigal’s burning. Cait and Ellis Milone, their backs straight and rigid as knives. Luke, cheeks wet, in a deep crimson vest and coat he was sure to have sewn himself. And much of the city came with them. Madrigal burned, in the salt spray and wind, atop the chest-high pyre of wood that the workers of the rebellion had built. The priestesses of Sunpool had wrapped her in crimson cloth and covered her in crimson petals. The rebels left offerings of wreaths and colored shells. Birds’ eggs to crack and sizzle in the heat.
Together Wolf Spring and the rebellion watched as the pyre blazed, turning to ash the body that was not really Madrigal Milone any longer but merely the very pretty shell that could barely contain her.
Madrigal, Arsinoe thinks now, in the echoing whispers of Sunpool’s great hall. Madrigal was the sum of her actions. She was a laugh in a quiet room. In life, she had never liked for anything to be easy, and in death she was the same.