They reach the heavy wooden door, and Bree and Elizabeth embrace Mirabella quickly.
“We will see you soon,” says Bree.
“Don’t be afraid,” says Elizabeth. “She is kind.”
They go, and Mirabella straightens her shoulders. “Maybe to you,” she grumbles, and reaches out to knock. The door opens. She is surprised to see not a servant answer but Katharine.
“Sister,” she says. “Come in.”
Mirabella steps into the warm, low-lit space, careful not to make the fire flare when she passes it. She seats herself across from Katharine. The table is round and small. Intimate.
“I like your jewels,” Katharine says. “And your gown. You look much better. Perhaps too much better. Perhaps I should make you wear mainland clothes so my people will not love you on sight.”
Katharine sits, pretty but restrained in a long-sleeved dress of black muslin, her hands hidden in black gloves. “I hope I did not keep you waiting. I had a special menu prepared.” She smiles with dark red lips. “And I wanted you hungry enough not to refuse it.” She lays her napkin in her lap and gestures to the covered dishes. “We will have to serve ourselves, I am afraid. I sent the servants away to have you all to myself.”
Mirabella uncovers her plate. The food underneath—a small hen stuffed with bread crumbs and herbs, roasted root vegetables shining with butter, and a slice of onion tart—looks perfectly ordinary and smells like a savory dream. But she has never in her life been so afraid of a chicken. Not even when Billy cooked it, she thinks, and chuckles.
“Is something wrong?”
“Nothing,” Mirabella replies. “Only that you extend an invitation of allyship and I arrive to threats and insults. I sit down to a meal that I am clearly supposed to be too frightened to eat. Is it because of the way you were raised?” She picks up her silver and cuts a sliver of onion tart. “Would Natalia Arron be proud?”
“It is what she would do,” Katharine says.
“Perhaps she would not do it in so heavy-handed a fashion.” Mirabella takes a bite of hen. “Natalia Arron was a woman of singular power. And those who are truly strong do not need to demonstrate it every five minutes. This is delicious, Queen Katharine. Thank you.”
Katharine leans back, and Mirabella forces herself to keep on eating, forces her gift down deep beneath her skin so Katharine will not detect any hint of nerves, no flickering candles, no gusts of wind. She very much doubts that the food is poisoned, even slightly poisoned only to make her ill. But she has not forgotten that her little sister is deadly, and that could change with the very next meal or even during this one, with a sleight of hand and something slipped into her drink.
Katharine looks down at her plate and spins the rings on her gloved fingers before picking up her fork. “Perhaps you should take my demeanor as a compliment. I know you were raised to play this game. The game of reigning. Of politics and favors. I was only raised to win. And then to be moved about like a puppet on a string.”
“Have you not met High Priestess Luca?” Mirabella smiles wryly. “The Arrons are not the only ones who are skilled in the art of puppetry. All queens would be made puppets. If they are not careful.”
For a moment, Katharine’s eyes soften. Then she laughs. “Am I to sympathize? How hard it must have been to be so gifted and such a favorite. Shall we compare scars, then? Did the cruel priestesses give you daily lashings to make your gift rise?”
“It is not a competition. And your own gift seems strong enough.”
“Yes. But my gifts took time. Sacrifice. Yours simply . . . was.”
Mirabella sits quietly, hoping Katharine will say more. But she returns to her meal with a sigh.
“Why have you come here, Mirabella?”
“Because you asked me to.”
Katharine scoffs.
“You asked me,” Mirabella goes on, “and it was made to seem I would be welcome. Was that not so? If you were pressured into this alliance or if you have changed your mind, you have only to say so, and I will go.”
“You think it would be so easy to leave?”
Mirabella narrows her eyes. She lets her gift loose, and the flame in the fireplace blazes. “I think you will never again take me alive down to those cells.”
Katharine stares at the fire, but she is less afraid than Mirabella expected. The way her gaze drifts along the flickers of red and orange seems almost curious. Almost eager, as if she would try to push back.
“I apologize,” Katharine says finally. “I do not know why I . . . I did not mean for our meeting to be this way. When I extended the invitation for you to come to Indrid Down, I meant it. I meant to welcome you. Perhaps contention between us cannot be helped. Perhaps it is in our nature. Like the legends say.”
“It was not so with Arsinoe and me. It was not so between any of us, once.”
“Yet you betray her now.”
“I do not betray her,” says Mirabella. “Ask me to harm our sister and I will refuse. Ask me to help you as you harm her and I will refuse.” She chooses her words with care and keeps firm control of her tone. “This is not about Arsinoe. It is not even really about you.”
“Then what is it about? What made you change sides from the rebellion to the crown? Was it that old ingrained loyalty to tradition? To the ways of the island?” Katharine leans forward, so Mirabella can better see the band of black marked forever into her forehead. “Or was it something else? Perhaps something you saw at Innisfuil that day when I killed Juillenne Milone’s mother and cut loose her legion curse.”
“Yes,” Mirabella says truthfully. She remembers well Madrigal’s last words to her. She is full of them. Full of dead. And she does not think she was referring to her daughter. The puzzle of those words drove Mirabella here as much as any urging from Luca. “It was Madrigal Milone. That is why I am here.”
“No.” Katharine slides out of her chair, her movements fast as a striking snake. She grasps Mirabella by the wrist and hauls her up with surprising strength.
“Where are you taking me?” Mirabella asks as Katharine pulls her through one room and then another, until she flings the shutters wide and pushes Mirabella flush to the open-air window so her hair is blown back by the bite of wind off Bardon Harbor.
“Look,” Katharine says as she holds her fast, and Mirabella stares out across the water rippling with moonlight. Not far past the northern outcropping of cliffs, not nearly out far enough, lies the mist, thick and constant as a wall. The sight of it makes Mirabella’s stomach drop into her shoes.
“The mist,” she breathes.
“Yes,” says Katharine. “It comes and goes as it pleases. But I saw you fight it back in the valley that day. And I know you fought your way through it to escape after the Queens’ Duel. The Legion Queen’s rebellion is a problem. But a problem that I can solve.” She shoves Mirabella forward again. “But that. That is why you are here.” She lets go, and Mirabella grasps the edge of the window, hands trembling.
“My Black Council is assembling below. Make yourself ready. You are to go before them.”
“Go before them to do what?”
“To plead your cause. To convince them that you are worth keeping alive.”