Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns, #4)(69)

‘Not that queen,’ Pietyr says, looking at Jules with a curled lip.

Emilia dismounts and shoves him hard. ‘She is the only queen we have. So speak if you will.’

‘You brought him all the way out here?’ Arsinoe asks. ‘We have eyes on the roads. Birds in the sky. The forest is secure.’

Jules looks at Arsinoe and sighs, then crosses her arms. With Camden seated beside her, the cougar’s head nearly reaching her waist, she gestures for Pietyr to come closer.

‘What do you want, Master Renard?’

He frowns, like his name on her lips hurts his ears. ‘To thank you, I suppose. For making me well again.’

‘You’re welcome. Though it’s not me you should be thanking but Arsinoe. It was her low magic that did it.’

‘I know.’ He frowns again. ‘I can feel it like mold growing across my skin.’

Arsinoe snorts. ‘That’s some thank-you.’

‘I . . . apologize. I should not complain. Since it was low magic that got me into this mess in the first place.’

‘You?’ Emilia asks. ‘An Arron was practicing low magic? For what purpose?’

Pietyr glances between Jules and Arsinoe. ‘Should we not have this conversation someplace more private?’

‘Say what you would say.’ Jules lifts her chin. ‘Emilia and Mathilde are leaders in this cause. We have no secrets.’

‘Very well.’ His hands have begun to tremble, and he stuffs them into his pockets. They have put him in a thick gray coat, but he wears no scarf, and the skin of his neck and chest are exposed at the open collar. The healer in Arsinoe resists the urge to wrap him in a cloak. He is still weak and should be in front of a cozy fire with a hot bowl of soup.

‘How is it that I have come to be here?’ he asks. ‘I gather that I was stolen from the capital.’

Emilia shoves him again. ‘You are here to give information, not get it.’

‘Emilia.’ Jules shakes her head, then returns her attention to Pietyr. ‘You were stolen from your sickbed in Greavesdrake Manor. From what we have heard, you had been there for a long time.’

‘You don’t remember anything?’ asks Arsinoe.

‘Have you ever been unconscious, Queen Arsinoe?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you should know that is a stupid question.’

She frowns. In her mind, she takes away his bowl of soup.

‘I was performing low magic in order to help the queen,’ Pietyr says, looking back at Jules. ‘Needless to say, it did not work.’

‘Help her to do what?’

‘Help her to rid herself of the dead queens who have inhabited her since the night of the Quickening Ceremony. When she fell into the Breccia Domain. The rumors are true, you see. “Undead” is not just an honorary epithet.’

Dead queens. Katharine is possessed by dead queens. To the credit of those assembled beside the wood cart, no one cries out or falls over into the snow. They only go very quiet. The shock and disbelief are as plain on their faces as Pietyr’s enjoyment watching them.

‘That is why she seems so strong,’ Mathilde says. ‘And at times, so monstrous. That is how she survived.’

‘Yes,’ says Pietyr. ‘And I was trying to get them out. Using low magic taught to me by Madrigal Milone.’

‘Is that why Katharine killed her?’ Jules asks. ‘Because she was helping you?’

‘No. Katharine did not know.’

‘But it did not work, you said.’ Emilia’s face is still as stone. ‘You could not get them out.’

‘She did not want them out. She said she did—she thought she did—but in the end, she used them to . . . Well, you saw the state I was in. She was not trying to kill me, but—’

Jules snorts. ‘You don’t think she was trying to kill you?’

‘If she was or they were, I would be dead. The boy murdered on the docks, your mother—those were not Katharine. It was them. They have taken her over more and more. I thought if they were gone she would go back to being my Katharine. I was a fool.’

Despite his effort to remain cold, he sounds miserable. And still in love. Even Emilia seems to soften, like she might reach out and give him a bracing punch in the shoulder. Their sympathy makes Arsinoe want to scream.

‘Who cares about your romantic foibles? The Queen Crowned is full of the dead! That’s why the mist is rising! Why everything is going wrong! And Mirabella doesn’t know!’

‘She does not know?’ Pietyr smiles. ‘I thought perhaps that was why she went. Abandoning the weaker queen for the stronger.’

‘How did you know she was even there?’ Mathilde asks. ‘If you were asleep for all that time?’

‘I have not been asleep for the last day. And no one in the Lermont house seems concerned about what I might overhear.’

Mathilde looks ashamed. But she is not responsible for the voices of every oracle. Nor can the oracles really be blamed, when they are unused to keeping prisoners.

‘Could that be why she left?’ asks Emilia. ‘She ran to the stronger queen?’

‘No,’ Arsinoe says. ‘She wouldn’t.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ says Jules. ‘All that matters now is what do we do about it.’ She looks around the circle. Not even Emilia has a ready answer. How do they attack a queen who is not only one but dozens?