Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(27)

‘Mirabella Mistbane?’

‘It is what I am calling you. Mirabella Mistbane and the Undead Queen. We are legends already. But it is strange. I feel the working of something larger, moving us about.’

‘Perhaps bringing us together. To fight.’

‘Or to die. But I am not alone in this, am I? You do feel it?’ ‘I do,’ Mirabella admits. ‘The moment I stepped back onto the island I felt the hand of the Goddess casting about me like a net. I do not know why, yet. But I intend to find out.’

Katharine inhales deeply. ‘I am giving you more freedom to move about the capital. So long as you remain hidden from public view and in disguise until we announce our allegiance.’

‘Thank you, Katharine.’ She bows her head respectfully, and to hide her smile. If she is free to move, she is free to try and solve Madrigal’s puzzle.

‘Do not thank me yet. When we meet Arsinoe and Juillenne Milone in battle, I will have to kill them. And Billy, whom you are so fond of. He may not have murdered Natalia, but he has committed his own crimes. He is a rebel now. And he backs the wrong queen.’

Katharine puts her glove back on and leans forward to look out the window. ‘We are here.’

‘Where?’ Mirabella asks as the carriage slows to a halt. The door opens, and she follows Katharine outside. The city lies behind them now, and before them, Bardon Harbor, stretched as far as the eye can see. ‘We are on the northern cliffs.’

‘Very good. Now come!’ She reaches for Mirabella’s hand. Mirabella flinches, and Katharine’s expression falters. For just a moment, her large eyes are the eyes of the little girl Mirabella once knew.

‘I thought you would like it. I know you have places like this in Rolanth.’

Mirabella thinks of the dark basalt cliffs of Shannon’s Blackway. This place is a little like that, a similar cut to the rock. Not white like the cliffs of Sunpool but pale and brown like sand. ‘Yes, Bree and I used to race across them.’

‘Then what is the matter?’ Katharine holds her hand out again, and Mirabella steels herself and takes it.

Katharine leads her closer to the edge, so close that they can lean over and look upon the beach and see the waves striking the rocks. ‘According to Genevieve, these very cliffs are where the mist was created. This is where the Blue Queen cast her spell and called it to us, and all the years since, it has preserved our way of life. Protected us from the outside world.’ Katharine snorts. ‘Well, until recently.’

Mirabella stares at the ground where they stand. Did Queen Illiann once stand in the same place? Queen Illiann, the Blue Queen, who Mirabella feels like she almost knows, thanks to Arsinoe’s account of her dreams as Daphne, Illiann’s lost sister.

‘Look,’ Katharine says, and points out over the water, where the mist has risen to swirl angrily, darting closer as if it would crash against the sides of the cliffs.

‘What does it mean?’ Mirabella asks, unsure whether she is asking Katharine or Arsinoe or even Illiann, so long ago.

‘I think it means it does not like you standing here. I think it means it is afraid.’ Together they watch the mist recede. ‘I used to be so jealous of you. Jealous of everything you are. Maybe I am jealous still, that you remember what we used to be.’

‘Arsinoe started to remember. Maybe you will as well now that we are together.’

Katharine looks down, perhaps regretfully.

‘I am not like you,’ she acknowledges. ‘I can be cruel. As I can be kind. And I am a better queen than you would have been because of it. It is time for us to return. So you may enjoy your new freedom! And I can announce our allegiance. And begin preparing for the parade.’





SUNPOOL




The morning after Jules’s reawakening, Arsinoe finds herself once again crowded inside the rebellion’s makeshift council chamber.

‘Can this not wait?’ Arsinoe asks, looking from Billy to the Milones for support. ‘She’s barely had a moment to breathe.’

‘I know it is not the best time,’ Emilia says. ‘But the matter of Mirabella’s defection must be addressed.’

Arsinoe shakes her head. But no one disagrees. Not Mathilde, nor even Cait or Caragh. And Jules, though calm, seems weak and deflated despite a long night of sleep.

‘It must be made known that Mirabella has gone over to Katharine,’ Emilia says.

Arsinoe’s jaw clenches.

‘We don’t know that’s what’s happened. She might have been taken. The note might have been staged.’

‘She wasn’t taken. I know everything that happens in this city. Down to the routes that the rats take to feed.’

‘Well, that’s probably overstating things,’ Billy says quietly, but Emilia pretends he is not even there. Arsinoe opens her mouth to argue, but Mathilde steps in between them.

The seer has a calming way about her. Arsinoe has seen her silence a room by simply walking through it. Now she uses that stillness to shush Emilia and fixes Arsinoe with her steady gaze.

‘All of her things are gone. And Mirabella would not have been taken easily. Can you think of a reason that Mirabella would go?’

‘No,’ Arsinoe says. She crosses her arms over her chest. Mirabella never supported the Legion Queen. But neither had she, not really. And that was certainly no reason to go to Katharine. ‘But—’ She looks at Billy. ‘Did she overhear us talking about the cave?’