One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(5)

But in her mind, Katharine offers no reply.

Little Katharine. When they were children, her hair was the longest. And the shiniest. Her face had the sharpest little features. She would float on her back in the stream behind the cottage, with her hair clouded around her like black widgeon grass. Mirabella would send currents through it, and Katharine would laugh and laugh.

Arsinoe thinks of Jules’s face, contorted in pain. Little Katharine is not to be trifled with.

Impulsively, she reaches forward and tears the hemlock out by the root. She should not have those fond memories anyway. She would not, if not for Mirabella and her cursed sentimentality, making her remember things that might never have been true.

“And even if they are,” Arsinoe mutters, “Jules is right.” Before the year is over, two of them will be dead. And no matter how hesitant she is to kill, she does not want to be one of the fallen.

She sniffs the hemlock blossom. It smells terrible, but she jams it into her mouth. The rancid smell takes on a new note as her chewing brings out the juices.

The hemlock does not taste good. Yet it tastes . . . satisfying. What she feels chewing poison must be something like Jules feels when she ripens an apple, or Mirabella feels when she calls the wind.

“Later I’ll go take a nap in a bed of poison ivy,” Arsinoe says, and chuckles as she eats the last of the flowers. “Or perhaps that is going too far.”

“What’s going too far?”

Arsinoe steps quickly away from the hemlock plant. She drops the last of the stems and kicks them about to be lost in the grass.

“Good Goddess, Junior,” she barks. “You sure know how to sneak up on somebody.”

Billy grins and shrugs. Somehow he never seems to have enough to do. And he always manages to find her. She wonders if that is some mainlander gift. The gift of being a busybody.

“What are you doing?” he asks. “Not more low magic?”

“Cait sent me out after blackberries,” she lies. Blackberries are not even in season yet.

Billy cranes his neck and looks over the shrubbery.

“I don’t see any berries. Or a basket to carry them.”

“You’re a pain in the arse,” Arsinoe mutters.

He laughs. “No bigger one than you.”

She walks past him, leading them away from the hemlock.

“All right, I’m sorry,” she says. “What are you doing here? I thought you would be with Joseph and Jules, at the Lion’s Head.”

“They need their time alone together.” Billy plucks a fat blade of grass and puts it between his thumbs to whistle. “And Jules says you’ve had news of your suitors.”

“So that’s why you’ve come running.” She grins, and the grin pushes up the side of the black lacquered mask she wears to cover her facial scars.

“I didn’t ‘come running,’” he insists. “I’ve always known this would happen. I knew they’d be after you once they saw that bear. Once they saw you up on that cliff at the Disembarking.

“And everyone else knew too. Down at the pier, we have boats lined up to have their hulls scraped and repainted. No one in Wolf Spring wants to seem like they care what the rest of the island thinks. But they are lying.”

Wolf Spring. A hard, farming, seafaring town full of hard, farming, brutal people. They value their land, and their waters, and the swing of their axes.

Arsinoe puts her hands on her hips and looks out over the meadow. It is beautiful. Wolf Spring is beautiful just as it is. She does not like to think of it changing to please some so-called illustrious guests.

“Tommy Stratford and Michael . . . something or other,” she says. “Are you worried I’ll like them better than I like you?”

“That’s just not possible.”

“Why? Because you’re so irresistible?”

“No. Because you don’t like anyone.”

Arsinoe snorts.

“I do like you, Junior.”

“Oh?”

“But I have more important things to think about right now.”

Billy has let his hair grow since coming to the island, and it is long enough now to almost move a little in the wind. Arsinoe catches herself wondering what it would be like to run her fingers through it and promptly stuffs her hands into her pockets.

“I agree,” Billy says, and turns to face her. “I want you to know that I’ve refused to go to your sisters.”

“But your father. He will be furious! We’ll stop the letter. Did you send it by bird or by horse? Do not say by boat. Jules can’t call one of those back.”

“It’s too late, Arsinoe. It’s done.” He steps closer and touches the cheek of her black-and-red mask. He was there that day, when she had foolishly led them into a bear attack. He had tried to save her.

“You said you didn’t want to marry me,” she whispers.

“I say a lot of things.”

He leans toward her. No matter what she says about putting off thoughts of the future, she has imagined this moment many times. Watching him from the corner of her eye and wondering what his kisses would be like. Gentle? Or clumsy? Or would they be the way his laughter is, confident and full of mischief?

Arsinoe’s heart beats faster. She leans into him, and then she remembers the hemlock that still coats her lips.