Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(22)

‘Oh?’

‘Maybe we should both hold the tether. Like, you and I.’ Emilia frowns.

‘Is that how it works? Spread the legion curse like butter across a piece of bread? Why do we not bring Caragh, then, and give her a bit, too? Why not your Billy and’—she gestures back toward the door with a jerk of her head—‘the cat?’

‘I’m just saying—’

‘You’re saying you do not trust me with her on my own.’ ‘I don’t trust you with her on your own,’ Arsinoe says, and her eyes flash. ‘But that’s not what I meant. I’m saying it might ease the burden on you.’

Emilia looks down at the desk, perhaps a little guiltily. ‘Forgive me. I should not have been so sharp. But I think . . . I will be fine.’

‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe with your war gift you won’t feel the curse at all.’

‘But we are not only binding the war gift,’ Emilia says. ‘We are binding the legion curse. She will still be war-gifted?’

‘We’re making Jules well by any means necessary. I don’t really know what will happen. Maybe nothing. Maybe it will drive us all mad.’

‘It did not drive Madrigal mad,’ Emilia says. ‘And is it not the same spell? You aren’t changing much.’

‘I’m changing the intent. And it’s the intent that matters.’ Emilia exhales and looks to the ceiling, as if for patience. She does not understand the intricacies of low magic, its strength and its sinister nature. She seems nearly as skeptical as Billy when he first heard of it, and Arsinoe is possessed suddenly by the urge to prove it to her before they start, to slice through her skin and let her feel the rush of the magic.

‘It’s nearly time,’ Emilia says. ‘Will you tell me what it entails?’

Arsinoe stares into the light of a flickering candle. Days are so short in the winter, and the light coming into the keep has already begun to slant and turn gold. ‘Madrigal bled herself into a cord, and bound Jules tightly with it, round and round. Then she bled Jules into a cloth and tied that cloth up in bloody cord. The cloth knot she buried beneath the bent-over tree. The rest of the cord she kept, and that is what Cait brought to me.’

‘That sounds like a lot of blood and many cuts. I am going to tie the cat.’ Emilia goes to the wall and unfurls the rope that is attached to it.

‘She should be near. Jules might need her.’

‘Aye, she might need her to rip our throats out.’

‘I can’t explain it, Emilia. But her familiar should be at hand.’

‘Very well.’ Emilia stalks to her and snatches her knife, then uses it to cut the rope free from the wall. ‘I will hold her, then, while you make the cuts to Jules. And I will hope for your sake that she doesn’t get away.’

In the room, on Jules’s legs, Camden has begun to hunch her back, sensing their intent. She hisses as Emilia tosses the loop of rope around her neck and digs her claws into the floor as she is dragged away from Jules.

‘It is not for long,’ Emilia says to her through her teeth. But Camden keeps on hissing and spitting just the same.

With Camden secured, Arsinoe brings her supplies into the room and spreads them out on the floor. A small sharp knife, whose blade glows orange in the light. Two lengths of thin white scarf. The herbs. The oil, for anointing Jules and Emilia, to be mixed with Arsinoe’s queensblood. It will be her link to them, as she is not a part of the tether.

‘Not even cut yet and my hands are shaking,’ she whispers.

‘You are not the only one,’ Emilia says as she keeps the cougar’s rope taut. ‘I have never before seen low magic cast. I am wondering about the price. They say that there always is one.’

‘Yes. And it’s usually more than you want to pay.’ ‘Jules’s mother practiced this magic often. Do you think she paid with her death?’

‘Maybe.’

‘It would seem an unfair price,’ Emilia says, ‘when the collection of it undid the low magic it was purchasing. But then again . . . for seventeen years of her daughter well . . . and I think she would say it was a bargain.’

‘You didn’t know Madrigal very long, did you?’ Arsinoe asks, and Emilia laughs.

‘Maybe it was not the price at all,’ Emilia says. ‘Perhaps our price will be something we will never know. A man from some small village falling off the other side of the mountain. Some girl in the capital run over by a carriage.’

‘Is that better?’

‘It is less painful, since we would never know.’ Emilia’s eyes harden. ‘And it doesn’t matter. There is no other way. What price in the world would be too high? What cost would keep you from trying to save her?’

Arsinoe looks down at Jules. At her bloodshot eyes watching her with nothing but hatred.

‘Those scars you have,’ Emilia says, ‘that you would hide behind a mask. They are the finest part of you. Now let us earn a few more.’

Arsinoe takes up her knife. With the first cut across the back of her hand, the air in the room changes. It becomes charged, fresher, as if the keep itself is inhaling. Her queensblood drips into the bowl of oil, and the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as she dips her finger and bends to smear the blend across Jules’s forehead. Jules—whose lips had drawn back to show the tips of her teeth—relaxes. Her eyes lose their predatory edge. She does not so much as blink when a little of the blood runs down the bridge of her nose to pool in the corner of her lid.