Jules stares into her tea, so full of cream that it is almost white.
“We have to get through this spring’s Beltane first,” she says.
Luke only smiles. He is so sure. But in the last three generations, stronger naturalist queens than Arsinoe have still been killed. The Arrons are too powerful. Their poison always gets through. And even if it does not, they have Mirabella to contend with. Every ship that sails to the northeast of the island returns telling tales of the fierce Shannon Storms besieging the city of Rolanth, where the elementals make their home.
“You only hope, you know,” Jules says. “Like I do. Because you don’t want Arsinoe to die. Because you love her.”
“Of course I love her,” says Luke. “But I also believe. I believe that Arsinoe is the chosen queen.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. Why else would the Goddess put a naturalist as strong as you here to protect her?”
Arsinoe’s birthday celebration is held in the town square, beneath great black-and-white tents. Every year the tents heat up with food and too many bodies until the flaps have to be opened to allow the winter air in. Every year, most of the attendees are drunk before sundown.
As Arsinoe makes her way through, Jules and Camden follow closely. The mood is jovial, but it takes only a second for the whiskey to turn.
“It’s been a long winter,” Jules hears someone say. “But the madness has been mild. It’s a wonder more fishers haven’t been lost on their boats, taken a gaff to the side of the head.”
Jules presses Arsinoe past the conversation. There are many people to see before they can sit down to their own food.
“These are very well done,” Arsinoe says, and leans down to sniff a vase holding a tall spray of wildflowers. The arrangement is layered with the pinks and purples of hedge nettles and showy orchis. It is as pretty as a wedding cake, early bloomed by the naturalist gift. Each family has brought their own, and most brought extra, to decorate the tables of the giftless.
“Our Betty did them this year,” says the man nearest Arsinoe. He winks across the table and beams at a blushing girl of around eight, wearing a newly knit black sweater and a braided leather necklace.
“Did you, Betty? Well, they are the finest ones here, this year.” Arsinoe smiles, and Betty thanks her, and if anyone notes that a little girl can do such elegant blooms when the queen cannot open one rose, they do not let it show.
Betty’s eyes brighten at the sight of Camden, and the big cat walks close to let her pet and stroke her back. The girl’s father watches. He nods respectfully at Jules as they go by.
The Milones are the most prosperous naturalists in Wolf Spring. Their fields are rich and orchards bountiful. Their woods are full of game. And now they have Jules, the strongest naturalist in some sixty years, it is said. For these reasons and more, they were chosen to foster the naturalist queen and must take on all the responsibilities that go with it, including playing host to visiting members of the council. Something that does not come naturally.
Inside the main tent, Jules’s grandmother and grandfather sit on either side of the honored guest, Renata Hargrove, a member of the Black Council sent all the way from the capital city of Indrid Down. Madrigal ought to be there too, but her seat is empty. She has disappeared, as usual. Poor Cait and Ellis. Trapped in their chairs. Granddad Ellis’s cheeks will be sore later, from holding such a fake smile. On his lap, his little spaniel, Jake, grins a grin that looks less like friendliness and more like bared teeth.
“They only sent one representative this year,” Arsinoe says under her breath. “One out of nine. And the giftless one, at that. What do you think the council is trying to say?”
She chuckles and then pops an herb-roasted, buttered crab claw into her mouth. Arsinoe hides everything behind the same easygoing smirk. She makes eye contact with Renata, and Renata inclines her head. It is not much of an acknowledgment. Barely enough, and Jules’s hackles rise.
“Everyone knows her seat on the council was bought and paid for by her giftless family,” she growls. “She’d lick the poison off Natalia Arron’s shoes if she asked.”
Jules glances at the few priestesses from Wolf Spring Temple who have decided to attend. Sending one council member is an insult, but it is still better treatment than Arsinoe has received from the temple. High Priestess Luca has not come to her birthday even once. She went to Katharine’s, occasionally, in the early years. Now it is only Mirabella, Mirabella, Mirabella.
“Those priestesses should not show their faces,” Jules grumbles. “The temple should not choose sides.”
“Take it easy, Jules,” Arsinoe says. She pats Jules’s arm and changes the subject. “The sea catch is impressive.”
Jules turns to the head table, thoroughly stocked with fish and crabs. Her catch forms the centerpiece: an enormous black cod accompanied by two equally huge silver stripers. She called them from the depths early that morning, before Arsinoe had even gotten out of bed. Now they lie on piles of potatoes, onions, and pale winter cabbage. Most of their juicy fillets have already been picked clean.
“You shouldn’t brush it aside,” Jules warns. “It matters.”
“The disrespect?” Arsinoe asks, and snorts. “No, it doesn’t.” She eats another crab claw. “You know, if I make it through this Ascension Year, I would like a shark as my centerpiece.”
“A shark?”
“A great white. Don’t be cheap when it comes to my crowning, Jules.”
Jules laughs. “When you make it through the Ascension, you can charm your own great white,” she says.
They grin. Except for her severe coloring, Arsinoe does not look much like a queen. Her hair is rough, and they cannot keep her from cutting it. Her black trousers are the same ones she wears every day, and so is her light black jacket. The only piece of finery they could get her into for the occasion was a new scarf that Madrigal found at Pearson’s, made from the wool of their fancy, flop-eared rabbits. But that is probably for the best. Wolf Spring is not a city of finery. It is of fishers and farmers and folk on the docks, and no one wears their fine blacks except on Beltane.
Arsinoe studies the tapestry hung behind the head table and frowns. Normally, it hangs in the town hall, but it is always dragged out for Arsinoe’s birthday. It depicts the crowning of the island’s last great naturalist queen. Bernadine, who weighed orchards heavy with fruit when she passed, and had an enormous gray wolf for a familiar. In the weaving, Bernadine stands below a tree sagging with apples, with the wolf beside her. In the wolf’s jaws is the torn-out throat of one of her sisters, whose body lies at Bernadine’s feet.
“I hate that thing,” Arsinoe says.
“Why?”
“Because it reminds me of what I’m not.”
Jules bumps the queen with her shoulder. “There is seed cake in the dessert tent,” she says. “And pumpkin cake. And white cake with strawberry icing. Let’s find Luke and go have some.”
“All right.”
On the way, Arsinoe pauses to chat with people and to pat their familiars. Most are dogs and birds, common naturalist guardians. Thomas Mintz, the island’s best fisher, gets his sea lion to offer Arsinoe an apple, balanced on its nose.