One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(43)

Elizabeth looks up into a nearby tree, and the tufted woodpecker cocks his head at her.

“Pepper almost never does exactly as he’s told,” Elizabeth says, and smiles. “Our familiars know what we feel, and we know what they feel. We are joined, but we’re each still ourselves. A familiar that strong . . . it may be hard to curb him when he’s angry.”

“It does not matter,” Mirabella says finally. “We will see all of that bear that we want to, and more, during the festival.”

Bree stands on tiptoe to look past Mirabella’s shoulder.

“What?” Elizabeth asks. “Is there some handsome naturalist boy?”

Bree’s eyebrow raises, but then she pouts.

“No. It is only Billy, coming back from bringing his chicken to his fosters. Not that he is not perfectly handsome. If he were not a suitor—” She stops when Elizabeth throws an acorn at her.

Billy said he was going to bring Harriet to the Sandrins for safekeeping, but Mirabella knows he will have gone to see Arsinoe.

“I will be back,” she says to Bree and Elizabeth.

“Do not wander far!”

“I will not.” She could not, with so many priestesses watching.

She jogs until she reaches Billy, and falls in step beside him. He glances at her, then back at the ground.

“Is this how it is, then?” she asks after several moments. “One visit to my sister and we are no longer friends?”

He stops at the crest of a hill and squints out at the sun sparkling off the ripples in Sealhead Cove.

“I wish we weren’t. When my father sent me to Rolanth, I swore that I would hate you. That I wouldn’t be a fool like Joseph and get myself stuck in between.” He smiles at her sadly. “Why couldn’t you be wretched? Don’t you have any manners? You should’ve had the courtesy to be terrible. So I could despise you.”

“I am sorry. Shall I start now? Spit in your eye and kick you?”

“That sounds like something Arsinoe would do, actually. So I would find it endearing.”

“Did you tell her that I know the truth?” Mirabella asks. “That I know she did not try to kill me?”

Billy shakes his head, and inwardly, Mirabella’s heart aches. She wants Arsinoe to know. She wants to tell her so herself and to shake Arsinoe by the shoulders until her teeth rattle for not telling her the truth about the bear that day in the Ashburn Woods.

“Arsinoe would say that a lack of hatred does not change anything. But I think,” Mirabella says slowly, “that I could stand to die. If I knew that the sister who had to do it . . . if I knew that she loved me.” She laughs at herself. “Does that make any sense?”

“I don’t know,” says Billy. “I suppose so. But I resent like hell that you and Arsinoe have to think that way.”

He looks at her regretfully.

“I don’t want to hate you after this. But I might. I might hate all of you if she dies.”

Mirabella gazes out at the sea. It is so pleasant here. In another life, things might have been different. Arsinoe would have greeted her when she rode into town and shown her the marketplace and the spots where she and Jules used to play as children.

“Do not be so quick to say ‘after this,’” Mirabella says. “We are here only for a festival. Perhaps nothing will happen at all.”

“Mirabella,” Billy says softly. “Don’t lie to yourself.”





THE WOLVERTON INN





Genevieve has not stopped glaring in the direction of Wolf Spring Temple since they set foot in their rooms at the inn. She paces and grumbles and crosses and uncrosses her arms. She is upset that Mirabella arrived in Wolf Spring first. Katharine rolls her eyes as Genevieve stalks to the window. She cannot possibly see the temple. The inn is too deep in the heart of the town for that, no matter how hard she presses her nose to the glass.

“Come away from there,” Natalia says. “It is better to arrive last than in the middle. There was no arriving first with Arsinoe already here.”

Katharine ignores them as they prattle on about appearances and security, like it matters at all. She slides the edge of a short throwing knife against a whetstone and listens to it scrape. Sharper and sharper. She will need them all in perfect condition and a crossbow and plenty of bolts besides.

“Kat,” Natalia says, and in the corner of her eye, Katharine sees Genevieve stiffen at the sight of the knives. “What are you doing?”

“Getting ready.”

“Ready for what?” Genevieve asks. “You do not need those. You are perfectly safe.”

“Natalia,” she says, ignoring Genevieve. “What would you edge these with?” She passes the tip of her finger across the blade, paper light. It cuts her skin so quickly that it does not hurt and takes a moment to bleed. “I need something strong enough to take down a bear.”

“Do not fear the bear,” says Genevieve.

“I am not afraid of it.” Katharine smiles. “I have a plan.”





THE FESTIVAL OF MIDSUMMER





“She is making a mistake.”

“Even so, Jules, it’s her mistake to make. You can’t push her.” Jules and Joseph are in his upstairs bedroom, studying the movements of Wolf Spring through his window using a long black-and-gold spyglass given to him by Billy’s father.