She is so sad, Jules thinks, and Joseph frowns, as if he can read her mind. He takes a breath and dives down with a great splash, loud enough that Arsinoe must know they are there, so Jules swims out a few strokes and smiles at her, squinting into the sun.
It has been strange, sharing the house with the sullen, black-haired little girl. She spends most of her time staring out the window for Mirabella’s lightning, or whispering Katharine’s name over and over under her breath, like a spell they do not know. But she eats (a lot), and she sleeps, and she is always polite. And to think that Jules feared the young queen would be constantly underfoot, hanging on her sleeve and getting in the way of her and Joseph’s fun.
Joseph surfaces and surges up and out onto land like a seal, grabbing the dock and rolling onto the wood beside Arsinoe without much grace. Still, he does it in one try. It takes Jules a lot longer, scrambling and huffing. Then they sit on either side of Arsinoe, and Joseph spreads out the things he has carried up from the bottom of the cove: three curved shells, black and white and speckled brown. He taps the shell in the middle, and a hermit crab’s legs poke out of its oversize home. He prods it again, and it waves its tiny antennae.
Jules taps one of the other shells, and the crab inside scuttles back. Joseph pulls Arsinoe to her knee. It takes a moment, but finally she gets curious enough to tap the last crab. For the next few minutes at least, her sister’s lightning is forgotten as the three children prod their crabs to see whose will be first to make it back into the water.
Six weeks after the Milones took the young queen into their house, Caragh lies on her back in the meadow beside Dogwood Pond, with her head on Matthew Sandrin’s stomach. Her familiar, Juniper, rests her brown snout in the crook of her arm, the hound’s back covered with yellow and white wildflower petals that Matthew shook over them both. The day is warm and lazy, and Caragh traces patterns along Matthew’s forearm, wrapped around her chest. It is not often that she gets a day to herself. Usually, she is too busy raising her younger sister’s daughter.
Jules is Madrigal’s child, but it has been years since Caragh has thought of her as anything but her own. Caragh watches her every day as she walks through the flowers and vegetables in the garden, coaxing their stalks and stems to grow up straight, urging their roots to run deep. She sees her love for the island, and for the Goddess who runs like water through the heart of it all. Jules is hers. The Goddess’s and Caragh’s. Jules is nothing like Madrigal.
“What are you thinking about?” Matthew asks.
“Nothing.”
He smiles, that rakish smile that Caragh worries will someday get Juillenne into the same kind of trouble with Joseph that she is in with Matthew.
“Nothing,” he repeats, and pulls her farther into his arms. “Liar.”
Caragh kisses him, pressed against his chest, and it is not long before Matthew’s hands change from gentle to searching. Juniper growls and grabs Matthew’s shirt, but before she stalks off, she licks his hand. Juniper is Caragh’s familiar, and because Caragh loves Matthew, so does she.
“Caragh Milone,” he says against her lips, and again as he kisses her neck, as she arches to meet his hands, fumbling at the buttons of her shirt. “Marry me.”
Caragh’s heart pounds between them. She slips her arm around his back and holds him fast when she says no.
He is not surprised. He has asked before and heard the same. His hand slides down, along her leg, and she holds her breath.
Afterward, when they lie entwined, half dozing in the late-afternoon sun, he asks why she said no this time.
“Because you don’t mean it,” she says quietly. “You’re only seventeen, Matt. And I have five years on you.”
“I don’t know why you keep telling me that. Like you think I haven’t heard. Or can’t count.”
Caragh smiles. Matthew thinks their ages are just right. Strong-gifted naturalists live long lives, so she will be one hundred and he will be ninety-five, and they will die together in their bed, on the same day. Caragh touches his face.
“If you can count, then count to three. And ask again then.”
“Three days?”
“Matthew.”
“Three months?”
She shakes her head.
“Three years, Caragh,” he says, “is forever to wait.”
“To you it is. And that’s why I’m saying no.”
Three Years Later
ROLANTH
Sara Westwood sits across from the High Priestess of Fennbirn Island. They have met in secret at an inn in Trignor, a coastal town with a port that smells as much of the sheep from the farms in Waring as it does of fish, but Sara does not mind the smell. She has quietly begged for this meeting for years, and this is as near as they could come to midway between Sara’s city of Rolanth and the High Priestess’s quarters in Indrid Down Temple.
“More ale?” she asks, and snaps her fingers for the serving girl. She does not call the High Priestess by her title, as she has come dressed in simple white-and-black temple robes that any priestess might wear. She does not even call her “Luca,” her name, which is known the island-over.
After the ale is poured, High Priestess Luca regards her with sharp blue eyes.
“How is everything in your household, Sara?”
“Lucky to be standing, truth be told,” Sara replies. “Thank the Goddess for reinforced roofs. They are most resistant to being torn off.”
Luca chuckles. “You are being dramatic.”
“High Priestess, I am not. The stronger she became, the more difficult she was to control. We have”—she pauses, ashamed—“we have taken to keeping her shut up in the basement.”
Inside, belowground and away from windows, Mirabella is manageable. But they have still had to brick over the fireplace. And the nailed-down shutters on the exterior of the windows are not fooling anyone.
“A queen? Locked up in a basement?”
“We are failing her. We were not prepared.”
Sara takes a large swallow of ale. They will do better. The Westwoods’ time is just beginning. The Arrons will fade, and the Westwoods will rise, building up their homes and the city until Rolanth rivals the capital city of Indrid Down. If only they can shepherd this queen.
“There have been rumors,” says Luca. “They say that she is a handful. But surely your letters were an exaggeration.”
“I am not in the habit of exaggerating. And certainly not to you. She has not forgotten her sisters.”
“A queen always forgets. Give her time.”
Luca’s voice is soothing but dismissive. She will seek to put Sara’s mind at ease and leave her with no more than a pat on the head, if Sara lets her. And Sara has written too many letters, and pleaded with too many interim priestesses, for that.
“The people wished for an elemental queen,” she says, her voice bitter. “They feared that there was nothing left to the Goddess but poisoners. And now that they have an elemental, they whisper that she is a handful. She is more than a handful. And we will fail if someone does not help us.”
“At first, the strong queens are always difficult.”
“It has been three years.”