Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(28)

“So what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe it won’t happen again.”

Mirabella takes her sister by the arm. “Neither you nor I believe that,” she says. “So you had better take me back to where it started. Let us go back to Joseph’s grave.”

“You haven’t been back here, have you?” Arsinoe asks as she leads Mirabella down the groomed path of the cemetery.

“No.” Not since the day they erected the grave marker. Mirabella has thought about it and about him, many times, but she has never visited. “It does not feel that I have the right when she cannot.”

“I don’t think Jules would begrudge him visitors.”

“Perhaps. But that is not the only reason. I also do not like to think of him rotting underground when he should be ashes on the wind. Ashes in the water.”

“When he should be alive.”

“Yes,” Mirabella agrees. “When he should be alive.”

They reach Joseph’s grave and step into the shade of the elm trees. It is hard to believe that he is really there, under that dirt, beneath that smooth patch of green grass. Mirabella cannot feel him. But then, they had so few days together. Sometimes she does not trust her own recollection of his eyes or his smile. The sound of his voice. But she had loved him. He had loved Jules, but Mirabella had loved him for those brief few days.

“Why here?” Mirabella asks as Arsinoe drops to a crouch beside the headstone. “Why at Joseph’s grave?”

“I think it started here because he’s a piece of the island.” Arsinoe touches the earth. “I think, with him and me together, she was able to find me. And maybe because of . . .” She makes a fist.

“What?”

“Madrigal said once that low magic was the only kind of magic that worked outside of the island. And maybe because I’ve done so much of it, the island is able to find me.” She pulls up her sleeve and studies her scars. “Maybe I burn like a beacon.”

Mirabella’s eyes wander over the slashes of raised pink on her sister’s arm. The pocked marks inside her hands. They are different from the bear’s claw marks across her face. There is something about them. Something disturbingly useful.

“If that is true, then I like this even less,” Mirabella mutters. “Low magic has never been trustworthy.”

“It saved me often enough,” Arsinoe says.

“Not without cost. And not only to you.” Mirabella’s eyes flicker to the dirt of Joseph’s grave. It was an unconscious movement, but Arsinoe sees it and grimaces. “I did not mean that, Arsinoe. I only mean . . . We should hope the dreams are only dreams.”

“And the shadow queen is only what?”

“Another dream.”

“Mira, I was awake.”

“Barely.” Arsinoe scowls and Mirabella softens her tone. “Tell me what you dreamed of this morning, when you fell asleep again.”

Arsinoe hesitates, as though she would keep it to herself. When she finally tells her, she keeps her eyes on the dirt.

“I dreamed that I was her again.”

“Who?”

“Daphne.” Arsinoe cocks her head and shrugs, a gesture she has taken up from the mainlanders. “The lost queen of Fennbirn.”

“There is no lost queen of Fennbirn.”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

Mirabella exhales and motions for her to continue.

“I dreamed we stole away on a ship bound for Fennbirn. To help Henry Redville in his suit.” She closes her eyes as though remembering and sniffs, searching for scraps of the dream as if they might carry through the memory. “Her plan is to befriend the queen. To enter into her confidence so she can steer her toward Henry. But I think she’s going to want Henry for herself—”

“And then what?” Mirabella interrupts. “After she stowed away, what happened?”

“Then we were back on Fennbirn. We got off the boat dressed as a boy and made our way to the queen.”

“You met Queen Illiann? You met the Blue Queen?”

Arsinoe nods gravely. “I have been back there. Back on the island. Back on the docks in Bardon Harbor, and in the Volroy.”

Mirabella turns away, shaking her head. This cannot be real. The more Arsinoe talks, the closer the island feels, as if she could look out past the bay and it would be there, leering back at them.

She squeezes her eyes closed. “So this . . . missing queen . . . she has met the Blue Queen and not been recognized? How? Did she truly believe Daphne was a boy?”

“No. Illiann saw past that right away. But Daphne moves like a mainlander. She talks like one. And according to everyone on the island, Illiann’s sisters have all been dead for a very long time. She’s never had to look over her shoulder and guard her crown. She was the Queen Crowned since birth. Not like us.”

“And this Daphne . . . she knows nothing?”

“Nothing,” Arsinoe says sadly. “She doesn’t even know she’s an elemental. Her gift has been so long stunted. But I’ve seen her moods affect the weather. Subtle changes. Her gift is dormant from so many years away from the island, but it’s still there.”

“Wait. If Daphne truly is—was—a lost elemental queen, then why is she speaking to you? Why not me?”