Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(106)

By the time they return to the castle, to Emilia guarding the locked door, they are out of breath.

“I thought you would never arrive.”

“Was it so long?” Arsinoe asks as Emilia picks up the end of a rope. The rope is attached to a noose that she has managed to loop around Camden’s neck. “That can’t have been easy.”

“Or safe,” Billy adds.

“The hard part comes now,” Emilia says, looping the length of rope around her hand. “Are you ready?”

“Should you—” Billy takes her arm. “Should you really go in there alone? I know it’s Jules, but . . . it doesn’t sound like Jules.”

“It will in a few minutes.” Arsinoe pulls out the bottle of greenish liquid. “All right, Emilia.”

“Pay no attention to her eyes,” Emilia says gravely. “It is only broken blood vessels.”

Arsinoe heads for the door, and Emilia jerks back on the rope. The sight of poor Camden struggling at the end of it, snarling and charging, reaching with her claws, makes her want to weep.

She turns the key in the lock and slips inside, closing it up and locking it tight again. Then she stops. And listens. Her belly pressed to the wall.

“Jules. It’s me.” She cannot hear anything. The screaming and crashing, even Camden’s struggles outside have stopped. She cannot even hear Jules breathing.

“Arsinoe.”

“Yes.” She sighs and turns around. “Thank the Goddess, Jules—” The plank of wood flies straight for her throat. She dives and hits the floor hard, covering her head and sliding through debris. Every piece of furniture is broken, bashed into pieces and strewn about, the remains so small that she cannot tell whether she is looking at what is left of a bed or a chair or a table.

And pressed against the opposite wall is Jules. They have managed to bind her arms and legs with heavy chain. Twisted and on the floor, small as always, she does not look a threat. Except for the hatred on her face and her bloodred eyes.

Only the burst vessels, Arsinoe thinks. But if it is, she has burst every one. Not a speck of white remains. Just pure, bright red, her pretty blue and green irises set in the centers like gems.

“Arsinoe, help me.”

“That’s what I’m here to do, Jules.”

“Help me!” she screams, and Arsinoe is blown back. Her head strikes against the stones hard enough to bounce, and her vision wavers. Using every ounce of courage, she scrambles across the floor and grasps Jules by the neck. She wraps her legs around her, too, and pulls out the bottle.

“This will not taste good,” she says, and forces it between Jules’s teeth, pink with blood. It takes Arsinoe a moment to realize that Jules has bitten part of her own lips off.

“Oh, Jules,” she whispers, and squeezes her tight. When the bottle is empty, she hooks both arms around Jules’s chest and hangs on as she convulses. By the time it is over, Arsinoe is weeping harder than she has ever wept in her life, but Jules’s eyes are closed. She is asleep.

The door to the room opens, and Camden bounds inside to lie beside Jules and lick her face. She licks Arsinoe’s hand, too, and grunts at her, as though ashamed.

“It’s all right, cat.”

“It worked,” she says to Billy at the door between Emilia and Mathilde.

“We know. Camden stopped fighting. Just all of a sudden, she stopped fighting the rope.”

Emilia shoves her way inside, wiping tears from her face and neck. She takes Jules from Arsinoe and nestles her onto her lap.

“Don’t take off the chains,” Arsinoe says. She starts to get up, and Emilia grasps her by the wrist.

“Thank you, Arsinoe.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Even if she didn’t do it for you,” Billy says, and puts his arm around Arsinoe’s shoulders as they leave. “Are you all right? She didn’t hurt you?”

“No.” She kisses his fingers. “But I need to go and find my sister.”

“Of course. I’ll . . . stay here. Keep an eye on Jules for you.”

She finds Mirabella in the rear cloister, seated on a stone bench with a cloth of cheese and bread. Daphne’s words echo through her mind. My elemental sister had to die to make the mist. And yours must die to unmake it.

“Arsinoe!” Mirabella sees her and comes quickly. “You are safe! And Billy?”

“He’s fine. Braddock, too. We brought him along.”

“To Sunpool?”

“No. To the mountain.” She presses her hand to her temple. She is exhausted, and still there is more to do. Find a way to ease Jules’s legion curse. Inform the people of Sunpool not to hunt for bear in the nearby woods. And kill her sister. “No,” she whispers. “Never. Not even for the entire island.”

“What for the entire island?”

Mirabella leads her back to the bench and they sit. She stuffs bread and cheese into Arsinoe’s hands. How Arsinoe would like to tell her what Daphne said, if only to promise that they will find another way. But until she finds one, she thinks it is best not to.

“Have you seen Jules?” Mirabella asks. “Is she still . . . ?”

“I crafted a tonic. A sedative. She’s resting now.”

“Good,” Mirabella says. “I knew she would be fine.”