“I’m sorry that Pepper came in so suddenly,” says Elizabeth. “I couldn’t stop him!”
“No need to apologize,” says Bree. “He was perfect. He ruined Genevieve’s dignified exit.” She turns to Mirabella with wide eyes. “Did you see the way she snapped her fingers at me? Like I was her scullery maid!”
Mirabella steps back to get a better look at her friends. Bree with her quick eyes and colorful clothes. And Elizabeth, a grin from ear to ear, her dark hair wound in a braid that sticks out of her hood, and a curled hand of silver shining from inside her left sleeve. Pepper perches on Mirabella’s shoulder and pokes at her ear, intrepidly trying to find a way to burrow into her hair. She strokes his head and his little wings.
“So,” she says, and sighs. “What are they saying?”
Bree leans close. “You are not a prisoner. Not exactly. You are free to roam the castle and the entirety of the fortress grounds. But you are not to leave it without the queen’s express permission. The guards—there for your ‘protection’—have been recently armed with poison.”
“Poison to kill or merely sedate?”
Bree and Elizabeth trade a glance. Not even they can say for sure.
“Katharine said she would send you and Elizabeth to me for comfort. But then she sent you with Genevieve Arron. Another show of power? Another hint of control?”
Bree purses her lips. “Welcome to life at the Volroy.”
There is a knock at the door, and servants enter, carrying trunk after trunk of clothes and jewels. Elizabeth helps them to the table and directs the rest to the floor.
“Thank you,” she says. “We’ll see to the queen— We’ll see to Mirabella ourselves.” The servants curtsy and leave, and Elizabeth begins riffling through the trunks.
“There is not much,” Bree says. “No gowns of yours; there was no time to send for them from Rolanth. But the shops here are very good, and I had some of your jewels with me here.” She searches through cases until she finds a dark walnut box and hands it to Mirabella.
It is a necklace: three large fire-colored stones hanging from a short silver chain. Even in the box, without light, the stones appear to burn.
Mirabella runs her fingers over them. “These— I would have worn them the night of the Quickening. Had things not gone so terribly wrong.”
“So you will wear them now. For luck.”
Elizabeth pulls a black velvet gown from one of the trunks and spreads it out. It is relatively simple, without much embroidery. “How about this one? Something comfortable after such a long journey?”
“It is perfect. But I care nothing about these dresses. I want to hear about you. How have you fared? Elizabeth, how are you allowed to keep Pepper even in your priestess bracelets?” She looks at Bree. “How have you come to be on the Black Council?”
“One answer for two questions,” says Elizabeth. “The High Priestess sought to make amends with Bree for betraying you, so she offered her a place on the council.”
“And in order for me to play nice,” Bree says, “I demanded that Elizabeth be allowed to recall Pepper.”
Mirabella grins at the bird, who clutches on to the back of Elizabeth’s robes. “And how is the new council, Bree? And its mix of elementals, priestesses, and poisoners?”
“We were at each other’s throats. And we will be again once the business with the rebellion is settled.”
Mirabella would like to ask more. But it is plain that Bree and Elizabeth would rather she did not. They want this one evening to be themselves and to pretend like they are still back in Rolanth gossiping together at the Westwood house. One evening before everything begins. So Mirabella smiles and prods Bree in the shoulder.
“And?” she asks. “Who are you tumbling with these days? Some handsome queensguard soldier? Or perhaps another merchant’s apprentice from the city?”
“Who has she not tumbled with?” Elizabeth asks, and Bree throws a glove at her. “Since the moment she arrived in Indrid Down, boys have fallen over themselves to get into her path. Just last month, two from the kitchens nearly fought a duel.”
“A duel?” Mirabella laughs. “And who won? Which did you choose? The breadmaker? Or the cheese monger?”
“Neither!” Bree throws the other glove at Mirabella. “Though perhaps later I will choose both.” She raises her eyebrow as Mirabella and Elizabeth chuckle, but then she sighs. “In truth, there has been no time for any of that. When I arrived, I thought I would seduce Pietyr Arron—”
“Pietyr Arron? You mean Pietyr Renard?”
“Yes, but no one calls him that anymore. He shed his mother’s name like one of their snakes sheds its skin. He might as well be Natalia Arron’s own son for the reverence he gets around here.”
“You said you thought you would seduce him. So you did not?”
“I could not. He clings to Queen Katharine as tightly as he clings to his seat on the Black Council. Perhaps for the same reason.”
“That is not true,” Elizabeth says. “He loves the queen. He may not love anything else, but he does love her.”
“Good,” Mirabella says softly. “Even though she is wicked, I am glad that she is loved.” Her mind flashes back to Arsinoe and Billy—good, kind Billy, who certainly loves Arsinoe as much as anyone has ever loved a queen of Fennbirn.
“In any case,” Bree says, “he would have been the one to watch out for. He would have never trusted you. But it does not matter now.”
“Why?”
Bree and Elizabeth stare at her in surprise.
“You have not heard?” Bree asks.
“I have only just arrived. I have heard nothing.”
“Pietyr Arron was struck down. He was found in a pool of blood nearly two weeks ago.”
“He is dead?”
“Not dead. But he will not wake.”
A pool of blood. Mirabella blinks. “Was he stabbed?”
“There wasn’t a mark on him,” Elizabeth says quietly. “That’s the mystery. No one knows what could have caused it, a poisoner with a gift as strong as his. It seems impossible that he could be harmed by anything other than an arrow or a blade.”
“Queen Katharine has the best healers in the capital, and one from Prynn, tending to him. Trying to determine what happened. But none can say.”
“The poor queen,” Elizabeth says. “Him all covered in blood in her old rooms at Greavesdrake Manor, and she was the one who found him!”
Mirabella looks out the window, toward the grand house nestled in the hills. “And she was the one who found him.”
Katharine calls Mirabella for supper later than expected. As Bree and Elizabeth escort her up the stairs to the queen’s apartments, even the guards five steps ahead must be able to hear the rumbling of Mirabella’s stomach.
“It is a good thing Arsinoe is not here,” Mirabella murmurs. “She would have eaten half the furniture by now.”
Bree glances at her curiously. “What are you going to do about Arsinoe? Will you ask for mercy? Negotiate her pardon?”
Mirabella nods to the guards, and Bree quiets. There are too many ears in the Volroy and too many corridors that carry sound to corners she does not know.