One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(55)

“Caragh!”

The front door of the cottage opens, and her aunt Caragh steps cautiously outside.

“Juillenne?”

“Yes,” Jules says. Her shoulders sag. They ache beneath Arsinoe’s weight. “It’s me.”

Caragh does not speak, but her chocolate hound bounds through the door and down the stone steps to jump at the horse and bay happily.

“Aunt Caragh, help us!” The words come out thin as air as she slides sideways out of the saddle, dragging Arsinoe’s body with her. But she does not hit the ground. Caragh’s arms are there to catch her.

“Jules,” Caragh says. She cups Jules’s face between her hands and then feels all up and down her bones. Beside them, her hound sniffs excitedly all over Camden, collapsed in the grass. Finally, Caragh pushes Arsinoe’s short black hair away from her face. Her lips tremble when she sees the scars.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” Jules whispers.

Footsteps shuffle through the cottage door onto the porch, and Jules looks up at an old woman dressed all in black and stout as a small ox. Stark white hair falls over her right shoulder in a long braid.

“Caragh,” she says. “They cannot stay here.”

“Who is she?” Jules asks. “I thought you were alone. I thought your banishment . . . your punishment was to be alone here until the new queens come.”

“That’s Willa,” Caragh explains. “The old Midwife. Someone had to teach me.” She looks toward the old woman. “I won’t turn my niece away.”

“It is not her I care about.” Willa nods toward Arsinoe. “That is a dead queen. And no queen may return here once she has grown. Not unless she is carrying her triplets.”

“She’s not dead!” Jules shouts. “And you will help her!”

Willa snorts.

“Such orders,” she grumbles as she walks down the steps. “I see the resemblance now between you and your aunt.”

“Turn her, Jules,” Caragh says. “Let me see.”

“Be careful. Don’t touch it. It’s a poisoned bolt.”

Caragh’s hand stops in midair.

“A poisoned bolt? Jules, there’s nothing to be done about that.”

“No, you—” Jules hesitates. But what does it matter if Caragh knows their secret? Everyone on the island thinks Arsinoe is dead. That she is really a poisoner makes no difference now.

Jules opens her mouth to speak, but stops when she sees Willa’s unsurprised expression.

“You knew,” says Jules. “You knew all along.”

Willa reaches down and grasps one of Arsinoe’s arms.

“Get her inside,” she says gruffly. “She is barely alive, but we will see what can be done. I am a poisoner as well. I can handle the bolt.”

Jules jerks awake in an unfamiliar bed. It is full dark out, and she reaches across the blankets to Camden so the big cat can soothe her with a purr. Then she remembers. They are at the Black Cottage. With Arsinoe. And Caragh.

Removing the poisoned bolt, cleaning and sewing the wound closed went easier than Jules had expected, mostly because Arsinoe never regained consciousness. Willa’s sure hands twisted and pulled, rubbed and tugged until the queen lay beneath a soft blanket, looking as calm and serene as if it were no more than a well-earned nap. Afterward, Caragh helped Jules down the hall to another room, where she and Camden were asleep as soon as they closed their eyes.

Jules slides out of bed, still in her clothes and shoes, and Camden stretches and jumps to the floor. There are lights casting shadows in the hall. Caragh or Willa must still be up somewhere.

Jules slips softly to the room where they put Arsinoe and peeks inside. The queen’s breathing is shallow but visible in the steady light of the candle on the bedside table. Jules watches for a few moments, but Arsinoe will not wake tonight. So she tiptoes farther toward the other source of light, hoping to find her aunt.

The Black Cottage is no small place. It is larger than the Milone house and full of fine things: silver candelabras, glorious oil paintings, and rugs so plush that she cannot resist wriggling her toes in them. She pauses briefly to peer up a long, dark staircase and then follows the light and sounds through the sitting room to the kitchen.

The chocolate hound hears them coming and trots out. She dances a happy, sniffing circle around Camden before leaning her long body against Jules.

“You’re awake,” Caragh says when Jules enters the kitchen, which is brightly lit by several yellow lamps. “How is Arsinoe?”

Jules sits down at the table opposite her. “Still resting. Still breathing.”

“From the look of you when you arrived, you should still be sleeping as well. That poor horse of yours is snoring in the barn, you can be sure.”

“He’s not mine,” she says, though she supposes that he is, now. “I stole him. From Queen Katharine.”

“Hmph,” says Willa, who had crept up behind her very quietly for someone using a cane. “What in the world is happening with this Ascension Year?” She sets down bundles of goldenrod and yarrow beside Caragh as she grinds oils and herbs with a mortar and pestle. “It is a good thing she came when she did. These are all in bloom.”

“We have more,” Caragh says. “Jarred and hanging dried in the storeroom.”