Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(26)

‘And what about me?’

‘You liked a fat one with a porcine nose. You named him Herbert. He rests in a cluster with three of Arsinoe’s favorites, set into the southern wall. If we go around, I can point him out.’

Katharine stares at her.

‘I do not remember any of that. Why do you remember those things when I do not?’

‘I do not know. Perhaps because from the moment I could speak, Willa treated me like the oldest. To learn and be serious. To grow up. You and Arsinoe, she let be little children. Me, she only allowed to be a little queen.’

Katharine adjusts her hands in her lap. One of them is stiff and nearly immobile. Mirabella nods to it.

‘Your arm is hurt. What is wrong with it?’

Katharine does not reply.

‘You tried to face the mist.’

‘How did you know?’ Katharine asks.

‘I have noticed you favoring it,’ Mirabella replies. ‘And then, when I saw how Eamon cradled his injured arm . . . I just knew.’

Gingerly and with a grim smile, Katharine strips off her glove. The hand that is revealed is a dark, angry scab, stitched through with black thread. There are so many cuts, it is a wonder any healer was able to put the skin back together. Two of her fingers are splinted and bruised. Two more are missing their fingernails, but those injuries appear to be much older.

‘It is healing well,’ Katharine says. ‘I always heal well.’ ‘What happened to your fingernails?’

‘That? That is from the night of the Quickening at the Beltane Festival. When I was lost and stumbling through the dark woods.’ She holds the fingers up to her face. ‘I thought they would grow back. But oh well. I do not feel it.’

The Beltane Festival directly preceded Katharine’s miraculous return. And shortly after that was when they began to call her the Undead Queen.

Mirabella stares at the missing nails as Katharine lays her hand back in her lap. Katharine looks out the window and nods. ‘Down that street is the best confectionery in the city. They specialize in poison sweets but have untainted offerings as well. I shall send a box to the king-consort’s apartment. You must have been missing the finer things in the rebellion’s wreck of a camp.’

‘We were not with the rebellion long.’

‘Ah,’ Katharine says. ‘I thought not. And where were you before that?’

They are seated directly across one another, close enough that their skirts touch. Katharine is much more frightening in small spaces. She could slice Mirabella across the cheeks with a poisoned blade before she saw the flash of the steel. ‘We were on the mainland, with Billy Chatworth’s family.’

Katharine’s eyes go dark. ‘His father murdered Natalia, you know. He strangled her. Right inside the Volroy. It was probably happening as you and Arsinoe were escaping. When the guards were distracted and she had no one to call to for help.’

Though she is sorry for that, Mirabella remains carefully silent. Katharine’s pretty, angled face has turned sharp.

‘What happened to Billy’s father?’ she asks finally. Katharine’s teeth stop clenching. ‘Rho Murtra carved him up. Slipped her serrated blade between his ribs and sawed right through the bone, through lungs and heart. He outlived Natalia by mere moments.’ She looks down ruefully. ‘Even if High Priestess Luca had not chosen Rho for a Black Council seat, I should have given her one just for that.’

Mirabella’s brow knits. Poor Billy, waiting so long for a father who was dead the moment they left.

‘You are pale,’ Katharine says. ‘Are you really so sympathetic to mainlanders?’

‘I am not sad for Billy’s father. But I am sorry for Billy.’ Katharine scoffs. ‘One day, I will do something similar to him and his whole family. Genevieve and I will cross the sea and poison them until their eyes bleed.’

‘You should not do that. Billy is not like his father. And his mother and sister . . . they do not deserve to be poisoned.’

‘If they are so beloved, then why did you return? What brought you and Arsinoe back to the island after you so recently escaped it?’

‘If you are searching for information about the rebellion, you can stop right now. But I suppose it cannot hurt to tell you: it was Arsinoe. She was having dreams. Strange dreams of the Blue Queen. They seemed to indicate we should return. That we were needed.’

‘And so you are.’ Katharine leans back, and Mirabella breathes a little easier. She wishes Katharine would put the glove back on. Looking at her hand on her lap, like a mangled piece of meat, has begun to make Mirabella sick to her stomach.

‘Queen Illiann,’ Katharine says.

‘You know her.’

‘Of course. I would be a foolish queen indeed if the mist rose and I did not at least look into the history of its creator. I ordered Genevieve to research Queen Illiann and the mist as soon as it began to rise unbidden. Arsinoe’s dreams—what did they tell her? What does she know?’

‘That is what we returned to find out,’ Mirabella replies. ‘But if she has discovered anything, she did not tell me. And perhaps that is for the best. For if she had, I would have to tell you.’

Katharine chuckles. ‘So you would.’ She points out the window at a pretty town house of red brick, where Bree and Elizabeth stay. ‘It is odd, is it not? The mist rises and Arsinoe dreams of its creator. Dreams that send you home. Mirabella Mistbane, the only one on the island who is strong enough to banish it.’