“I thought you were dead, too.”
At his voice in her ear, Arsinoe turns and grasps Luke around the waist. “I’m so sorry,” she says, over and over, and only lets him go when his black-and-green rooster, Hank, begins to flap and spur holes into her only good pair of trousers. They sit down together at the nearest open place.
“Where’s your boy?” he asks.
Arsinoe gestures to Billy in the crowd, where he spoons meat and gravy onto plates. All through the burning he let her lean on him without being seen to be leaning. When the flames touched the crimson cloth, he held her close.
“Getting you food, eh?” says Luke. “He knows you well.” Then he lowers his eyes. “The funeral was well attended.”
Arsinoe nods. “You would think she was someone important.” Luke clears his throat, and she knows that Cait and Ellis are there.
“We wanted to wait,” she says to Cait. “But we didn’t know if you would be able to come.”
“Your letter reached us,” Cait says. “That is what matters. What of her sister? Has no one told Caragh?”
“I sent a letter to the Black Cottage, but—” Arsinoe shakes her head. “Maybe travel is slower . . . with the baby. . . .” She closes her mouth and looks to Ellis. Cait will be all right. She was made to bear. But Ellis—gentle, scholarly Ellis—he has doted on Madrigal since the day she was born.
In the crowd, Arsinoe spots a slew of familiar faces. A few of the Paces, and the Nicholses. Shad Millner and his seagull. Even Madge, who sold the best stuffed fried oysters in the Wolf Spring market. And Matthew. Of course Matthew.
“Matthew,” she says when he sees her, and he walks forward and scoops her up, almost like he did when she was a child.
“Hello, kid,” he says, and sets her back down on her feet. He wipes a tear from her cheek with his thumb and adjusts the knot of her crimson scarf.
Billy returns to the table with food and greets them all, especially Matthew, who he views as extended family through his connection to Joseph. His eye lingers on the crow on Cait’s shoulder. “Is that Aria?” he asks, speaking of Madrigal’s familiar.
“No,” Cait replies. “This is Eva. Aria flew away from the smoke. Where is Jules? In your letter you said she was unhurt but still unwell. What did you mean?”
Arsinoe rises. “I’ll take you to see her. But only you two,” she adds when Luke and Matthew move to join them. It would be too difficult for Luke to see her in that state, and Matthew—Matthew looks too much like Joseph. She does not want to think about how Jules would react if she opened her eyes and saw Joseph’s face. As Arsinoe and Billy escort Cait and Ellis from the hall, she stiffens with sudden realization.
“He doesn’t know.” She grasps Billy’s arm. “Matthew and the Sandrins, they don’t know about Joseph. They don’t know that he’s dead!”
“Dead?” Ellis exclaims as Billy shushes them both.
“I’ll tell them,” he says. “He was my brother, too, in a way. And I can describe what happened as well as you can.”
“Tell them where he’s buried,” Arsinoe says hurriedly. “Tell them about the headstone, the inscription—”
“I’ll tell them everything. Go. Take them to see Jules.”
Arsinoe nods and leads them on, almost in a daze. As they make their way up the stairs to the tower, she tries to prepare them for what they will find, telling them as gently as she can what happened: how the legion curse was cut free when Madrigal died and what a violent reaction it sparked in Jules.
“She might not even be awake,” she warns. “The tonics I craft to keep her calm sometimes make her sleep during the day.”
“The tonics you craft,” Cait repeats. “So the rumors are true. Our naturalist queen was only ever a poisoner.”
Arsinoe pauses with her hand on the door. “You raised a naturalist, and a naturalist I will always be. Though I do feel better about never being able to grow anything.”
To her surprise, Cait chuckles. “True. But we never schooled you in poisons, Arsinoe, as we didn’t know. Is it safe, what you’re doing?”
Arsinoe swallows. Safe? Nothing about the ingredients she must use feels safe. If she is not extremely careful in her measurements, Jules could simply stop breathing. But in Arsinoe’s use of it, she has discovered that there is an instinctual aspect to the poisoner gift. Her hands are always sure. She blends the tonics as if in a trance. But that would be difficult to explain to a naturalist. “There’s a healer here who fills in the gaps that my gift doesn’t.”
She opens the door of the outer chamber, and they go inside. At the sight of Cait and Ellis, Camden rises on her three good legs and grunts softly.
“You’re happy to see us at least,” says Ellis as he goes to her and strokes her soft, golden fur. “Shouldn’t she be with Jules?”
“It isn’t always safe. Camden is violent when Jules is unwell. And Jules . . . hurt her when the curse was cut free.” Cait and Ellis frown; for a naturalist, there are few crimes worse than the abuse of a familiar. So Arsinoe clears her throat and brightens her tone. “But when she’s quiet, Camden’s basically fine. Her old self. If Jules is resting, she can go in with you.”
She unbars the door. Inside, Jules lies on the pile of straw, pillows, and blankets that Arsinoe and Emilia arranged for her. Her hands and feet are chained. Ellis frees Camden from the wall, and the cougar trots quickly into the room. She circles Jules twice before lying down and resting her head in the hollow of Jules’s shoulder.
Without a word, Cait kneels in the straw and gathers her granddaughter into her lap. Ellis places his hand on her shoulder. It is harder to watch than Arsinoe expected, and her throat tightens.
“I’m so sorry, Grandma Cait.”
Cait takes Jules’s hand, so dug into the links of the chain that she has to pry it loose. “Don’t say that. It wasn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”
“If not mine, then whose?”
“No one’s,” Ellis says.
“They say she tried to save her,” Arsinoe whispers, her voice choked. “She tried to save Madrigal.”
“Of course she did,” Cait says. “That was always her way. Saving you, protecting you, trying to keep you out of trouble. And before you, there was Joseph. Our Jules was born a guardian, just as she was born a naturalist, and a warrior. Just as she was born cursed.”
After Cait and Ellis leave Jules and drift away to rest, Arsinoe remains. She stays in the tower of the castle with Camden, idly scratching between her ears and looking down on the city. There is much activity below. So many goods and supplies coming in that the gate is rarely closed. So many weapons being forged and horses being shod that the fires at the smithy are always burning. Sunpool, not so long ago a failing ruin, has come alive again with war.
When she hears footsteps on the stairs, she expects that it is Billy, but instead, a man knocks and enters, wearing the yellow-and-gray tunic of the seers.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she says, glancing at Jules’s barred door.
“Forgive the intrusion, but I need to know where to house the new naturalists. The newcomers from Wolf Spring.”