One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(2)

But wherever that Katharine is, it is not here.

“Antonin,” Genevieve murmurs once she finds her voice. “He is already here?”

“Of course,” Natalia replies. “I asked him back first.”

Shocked as Genevieve is by the sight of the queen, she does not even pout. Katharine sweeps forward and takes her by the wrists, and if she notices the way Genevieve recoils at the sudden, uncharacteristic gesture, she does not show it. She simply smiles and drags her farther into the room.

“Do you like my presents?” Katharine asks, gesturing to the packages. They are all beautiful, wrapped in colored paper and tied with satin ribbon or large white velvet bows.

“Who are they from?” asks Genevieve. “The suitors?”

“Not ‘from,’” Katharine says. “But for. As soon as I have put on the last loving touches, they will be dispatched to Rolanth, for my dear sister Mirabella.”

Katharine caresses the nearest bit of ribbon with a black-gloved finger.

“Will you tell us what is inside them,” Natalia asks, “or must we guess?”

Katharine tosses a tendril of hair over her shoulder. “Inside she will find many things. Poisoned gloves. Tainted jewels. A dried chrysanthemum bulb painted with toxin, to bloom into poisoned tea.”

“This will never work,” Genevieve says. “They will be checked. You cannot kill Mirabella with prettily wrapped poison presents.”

“We nearly killed that naturalist with a prettily wrapped poison present,” Katharine counters in a low voice. She sighs. “But you are probably right. These are only a bit of fun.”

Natalia looks over the boxes. There are more than a dozen, of various sizes and colors. Each will likely be transported individually, by separate courier. Those couriers will be changed several times, in different cities, before arriving in Rolanth. It seems a lot of trouble to go to for just a bit of fun.

Katharine finishes inking a gift tag with dark stars and swirls. Then she sits on the gold-and-white brocade sofa and reaches for a plate of belladonna berries. She eats a handful, filling her cheeks, mashing them with her teeth until the poison juice shows at the corners of her lips. Genevieve gasps. She turns toward Natalia, but there is no explanation to give. When Katharine recovered from her wounds, she turned to the poisons and began to devour them.

“There is still no word from Pietyr?” Katharine asks, wiping juice from her chin.

“No. And I do not know what to tell you. I wrote him immediately after you returned, to summon him back. I have also written to my brother inquiring about what is keeping him. But there has been no response from Christophe either.”

“I will write to Pietyr myself, then,” says Katharine. She presses a gloved hand to her stomach as the belladonna berries take effect. If Katharine’s gift had come, the poison should not cause her pain. Yet she seems able to bear more than she ever could before, taking in so much that every meal is like a Gave Noir. Katharine smiles brightly. “I will have a letter ready before I leave for the temple this evening.”

“That is a good idea,” Natalia says. “I am sure you will be able to persuade him.”

She motions to Genevieve so they might leave the solarium. Poor Genevieve. She does not know how to behave. No doubt she would like to be mean, to pinch the queen, or slap her, but the queen before them looks like she might slap right back. Genevieve frowns, and drops a lazy curtsy.

“Has her gift come, then?” Genevieve whispers once she and Natalia have mounted the stairs. “The way she ate those berries. But I could feel that her hands were swollen through the gloves. . . .”

“I do not know,” Natalia replies quietly.

“Could it be the gift developing?”

“If it is, I have never seen any gift develop similarly.”

“If her gift has not come, she must take care. Too much poison . . . she could harm herself. Damage herself.”

Natalia stops walking.

“I know that. But I cannot seem to stop her.”

“What happened to her?” Genevieve asks. “Where was she for those days?”

Natalia thinks back to the shadow of a girl who walked through her front door, gray-skinned and cold. Sometimes she sees the figure in her dreams, lurching toward her bed on the stiffened limbs of a corpse. Natalia shivers. Despite the warmth of the summer air, she craves a fire and a blanket around her shoulders.

“Perhaps it is better not to know.”

Katharine’s letter to Pietyr consists of only three lines.

Dearest Pietyr,

Return to me now. Do not be afraid. Do not delay.

Your Queen Katharine

Poor Pietyr. She likes to imagine him hiding somewhere. Or running through scratchy brambles and twigs that sting like lashes, just as she did the night he met her beside the Breccia Domain. The night he threw her down into it.

“I must take care with my words, Sweetheart,” she says softly to the snake coiled around her arm. “So he will still think me his gentle little queen.” She smiles. “I must not scare him.”

He probably thinks that he will be put into the cells beneath the Volroy when he returns. That she will allow some war-gifted guard to beat his head against the walls until his brains run out. But Katharine has not told anyone about his role in her fall that night. And she has no plans to. She told Natalia that she stumbled into the Breccia Domain on her own as she fled in a panic from Arsinoe’s bear.