Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(10)

‘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.

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.