Queens of Fennbirn (Three Dark Crowns 0.5)(19)
She steps in, and Katharine walks eagerly to the center of the stone floor. She marvels at the cabinets full of poisons, dried and liquefied and preserved, glittering malevolently in their vials. She reaches out to touch the long table of sealed wood, topped with glass, and Natalia grasps her by the wrist.
“Take care. Your gift has not come. You must wear gloves before you touch anything in this room. No matter how meticulously it is maintained, I will not take any chances with your tolerance.”
She goes to a closet and selects a pair of small, lined gloves for Katharine to wear.
“Now,” she says, and smiles, “shall we make something pretty? Something pretty, and something deadly.”
The poison that they craft is called Winter’s Blush, since it kills by constricting the blood vessels and making the body go cold all over. Sometimes the constriction causes the capillaries to burst as well, making the name even more fitting. It is a popular poison lesson for beginners, because it has only four ingredients and because of the pretty lilac color that it turns, and the way that it fizzes.
Katharine holds the stoppered vial gleefully between gloved fingers, admiring the purple hue. “It is like Miss Genevieve’s eyes,” she says.
Natalia chuckles. “She would love that you said that. But though it is beautiful, you must treat it with respect. As you must treat all poisons. A poison is not a plaything. It is sacred and serious business. As the head of the Black Council, I must concoct poisons to administer as punishment to those on the island who would do harm. Who commit crimes. Sometimes I must punish them to death. And as queen, you must do so as well.”
The young queen slides the poison into the cuff of her sleeve, practicing her sleight of hand. She is still not very good at it. But she is no stranger to death and has heard such words before. Each time she turns a little less green.
“I will do what I must.” Katharine looks at her in sudden alarm. “But you will be there with me?”
Natalia begins to clean the table, returning ingredient bottles to shelves and drawers, carefully brushing stray bits and dust into a bin to be destroyed. Queen Katharine may be small, and some, like Genevieve, may think her weak, but Natalia disagrees. She is small, and softhearted. She is kind. But she is also resilient and dutiful. She has never refused or hesitated in the face of poisoning. She will make a fine queen.
“Yes, Queen Katharine. I will always be with you.” She wipes the blade of one of the short knives she used to cut a sliver of root and finds it so sharp that it sinks into her finger. She gasps as blood runs down her knuckle. “Foolish. Foolish and careless of me.”
“Natalia, you are bleeding!” Katharine reaches for her hand and quickly wraps it in a clean cloth. She looks so concerned as she pats Natalia’s fingers and squeezes them gently. And over such a small thing. “Is that better?”
“All better,” says Natalia. And then she laughs and pulls the queen close. “You are such a strange girl, Kat. Such a strange and dear girl.”
WOLF SPRING
Arsinoe and Joseph walk behind Jules and her mother by at least a dozen paces. They watch the pair suspiciously and wonder who this strange woman is, the strange woman with the beautiful face, whose very presence turns their friend Jules into an affectionate pet. Joseph pulls up a long bit of big bluestem out of the meadow grass and thwacks the other stalks as Aria the crow flaps overhead. She is never far from Jules’s mother. Perhaps she is afraid of being left again.
Arsinoe tugs at the collar of her black shirt. She is the only one who has to wear black year-round, even in high summer, when it soaks up the sun and makes her so hot she might have a stroke.
“You should quit wearing black all the time,” Joseph says, and he makes it sound so easy that she wants to hit him.
“Arsinoe!”
She looks up—they both do—and sees Madrigal waving for them to come on. She is smiling, and the blades of grass move around her in a dance. She is hard to resist. Joseph runs at once, and after a moment, Arsinoe, the most skeptical and sullen queen born for at least the last thousand years, goes, too.
Madrigal grabs Arsinoe, and Arsinoe grabs Joseph, and Joseph grabs Jules, and they spin through the grass, churning up their own wind. Arsinoe and Joseph laugh, and Jules and Madrigal throw their heads back, and the butterflies come. All the butterflies it seems, from every crick and corner of Fennbirn. Monarchs, wood whites, orange tips, and black-and-yellow-striped swallowtails. They swirl into the meadow and fly over and under and around them. In the corner of Arsinoe’s eye, flashes of blue and brighter yellow ignite in the grass: the wildflowers all blooming at once.
Finally, they fall apart onto their backs, laughing. Madrigal pulls fresh blooms of flowers to her nose, and Aria lands on her chest to eat a blue butterfly. Delicate wings cover Madrigal from head to toe, opening and closing in all colors. They are on Jules, too, but Jules does not seem to notice. She stares at her mother with such love it makes Arsinoe jealous, only she is not sure who she is jealous of.
“That was a very good game, Funny Eyes,” Madrigal says. She reaches a finger out to touch her daughter’s nose, and Jules’s smile fades.
“I like your eyes, Jules,” says Joseph. “I wish I had them.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like them,” Madrigal says. “I only said they were funny. Which they are.” She touches Jules’s hair. “It’s a pity, though, that I didn’t find a boy that Beltane with black, black hair. The butterflies look so pretty in Arsinoe’s.” She lets go of Juillenne and leans toward the queen.