One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2)(85)

“I know. But I was thinking of you, Joseph.”

“It’s all right. Arsinoe comes first.” He chuckles. “I stopped being jealous about that when we were eight.”

“You were jealous for two years?”

“Just about. I guess it took that long for me to love her, too. And because . . . you have always been the most important person to me. Everybody has that, I think. And for me, it will always be you.” He sighs. “At least for these last forty-eight hours.”

“Don’t say that,” she says fiercely. “We will get out of here. That day in your bedroom . . . It won’t be our only day.”

“Best day of my life,” he whispers, and she hears him shift in his cell. “Jules?”

“Yeah?”

“If something does go wrong . . . if we can’t save Arsinoe . . . I want you to come away with me. Off Fennbirn. I could make a life for us out there, someplace we won’t see her ghost every time we look outside.”

Jules swallows. If she cannot save Arsinoe, she will see her ghost every day. No matter where she is.

“Arsinoe will find a way out of this. She always does.”

“I know,” says Joseph. “But if she doesn’t . . . if she can’t . . . will you go with me?”

Jules looks down at Camden, who blinks up at her with hopeful, yellow-green eyes.

“Yes, Joseph. I’ll go with you.”





THE HIGHBERN HOTEL





Billy waits with his father at the Highbern, staring out the window with his arms crossed over his chest. They have been waiting for so long he could burst. He wants to pace, but his father would only give him that disappointed look. So instead he stares at the Volroy, thinking about Arsinoe trapped inside. Hoping she is giving the guards a hard time.

Perhaps Jules’s aunt Caragh was right and he should have stayed with them and helped them mobilize the warriors. It has been too long with no word from the Council, and as outsiders, he and his father will be among the last to receive news. The sky outside has darkened to gray. The woods in the distance are visible only as a blurry smudge. Caragh will not have waited this long. Their plan will have already begun, and he will be left out of it.

Caragh. She was not at all what he expected after hearing Joseph’s and Jules’s fond remembrances of her. In his mind, she was a nurturer, kind and comforting, a woman who would give up her freedom for the love of a child even when the child was not hers. But the woman he met was hard and decisive. Perhaps the Black Cottage had changed her. Or perhaps there were more sides to a woman than he had ever understood.

The knock at the door surprises him. It is the Volroy messenger, but he did not see him ride up. The young boy hands Billy’s father a sealed letter and bows before leaving.

“What does it say?” Billy asks as his father reads. He knew Arsinoe would not have to stay in the cells long. Perhaps they have already been released.

William stuffs the letter into his jacket pocket. His face betrays no feeling, no interest one way or the other. It almost never does, and that has kept Billy off-balance for most of his life.

“The crowning is tomorrow,” his father says.

“What crowning?”

“The queen’s,” William says impatiently. “Queen Katharine. Your future bride.”

Billy blinks. He cannot comprehend this news. Not his future bride. Never his future bride.

“But what of Arsinoe? What of Mirabella?”

William shrugs.

“According to the letter, the Wolf Spring girl has probably been executed already. The other one will survive until after the crowning—and after your wedding—to be executed publicly.”

“You have to stop it,” Billy says. His father raises his eyes, and Billy backs up a step. “Make a deal with the Arrons. Keep Arsinoe and Mirabella alive in secret. I know that you can. I know that you’ve been working with them since before this started!”

“Stay calm. You knew what would happen.”

“It’s different now.”

“It is. We’ve won.”

His father turns away. Billy can practically see him forget that his son is there, as visions of expansion roll through his head. Plans for their new stream of assets. Exclusive trade with the island for the next generation. And the backing of the poisoners to silence any competitor who does not like it.

“You’ve done well,” his father murmurs distractedly. “I’m proud of you, son.”

“And I have long wanted that,” Billy whispers. “But why are you proud, Father, when I have done nothing but try to undermine you? I fell in love with the wrong queen. And I wouldn’t poison Mirabella, so you had to poison her yourself. I hadn’t figured that part out, to be honest. I didn’t until Luca said that Katharine hadn’t done it by touch. Then I remembered you lingering by our table that night.”

“It didn’t kill her. And it kept the alliance. It made you a king.”

“If I accept.”

His father stares.

“And I will accept,” Billy goes on. “As long as you go to the Arrons now and stop Arsinoe’s execution.”

“Let her go. She’s as good as dead. She probably is already.”

“It won’t hurt to try.”