Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(53)

“Queen Katharine.” Genevieve takes her by the arm. “We must get you back to the hotel.”

At the hotel, shut up safely inside with queensguard posted around the building, the members of the Black Council gather in the queen’s room. It takes a while for them all to arrive, and every time the door opens, Katharine sighs with relief. Luca and Bree and Antonin are there. Genevieve and Pietyr were the first to the hotel with her. Renata Hargrove scurries through the door last, shivering in a gray cloak, and after several moments, Katharine begins to panic, worried about Cousin Lucian until she remembers that he remained in Indrid Down, with Paola Vend and the priestess Rho.

“How many are gone?” Katharine asks. “How many were taken?”

None can say. Eyes come to rest on Renata, since she was the last to arrive.

“It is too early to tell, Queen Katharine. Not all have been found. And when I was running . . . it was still happening.”

But it is over now. Katharine was at the window the moment they reached the top floor, scanning the city for Moorgate Park. She saw the mist, spread out in thick white fingers. Saw it hover over the festival grounds and hesitate at the edges of the city streets. The air was still full of people’s screams, the sound made small by the distance, and somehow even more frightening.

“It receded,” she says, and Renata shudders. “I watched it from the window. It returned to the river and back out to sea to disappear.”

“It took them so quickly.” Antonin pours tainted brandy for himself and the other poisoners, and drinks it all down at once, his hand shaking. “And the way their screams cut off . . . like they were being choked.”

“Some passed through the mist unharmed,” Luca notes. “But others . . .”

“Others we will find torn to pieces and decomposed. Bobbing in Bardon Harbor when we return to the capital.” Genevieve pours more brandy. She is so rattled that she even pours a cup of untainted wine for Luca.

“Do you think Lucian and Paola are all right?” Antonin asks. “Is it happening there as well? Or only here?”

“Rho is there,” Luca says vaguely, as if that makes all the difference.

Katharine turns to Bree.

“Bree. Are your mother and Elizabeth safe? Did they get out of the park unharmed?”

“They did. They were right beside me. I left them to come here, and they went on to seek refuge at the temple.”

“The temple,” Katharine murmurs. “Good.” No doubt many sought refuge there. Most of the city would flee toward it. Perhaps on the way, they would stop by the hotel with torches and raised fists. They would have a good enough reason.

She wanders away from the group, back toward the window. The area surrounding the festival grounds is quiet now. Deserted. But the rest of the city seethes with frightened activity.

She feels Pietyr’s hands on her shoulders.

“Do you know what this is, Kat? Do you know what it wants?”

“No, Pietyr.” She shakes her head miserably.

“Do they?”

At the mention of the dead queens, she jerks loose and darts a glance of warning between him and the nearby ears of the council.

“If they do, they have not told me.”

They have not told her, but they are racing through her blood like spooked fish. They make it impossible to think. Impossible to stand still.

“What must be done?” She holds her hands out to Genevieve. To Luca. She turns to Antonin and Renata and even Bree. But no one answers. Finally, Katharine clenches her fists and shrieks. “What must be done?”

“We do not know.” Luca scrunches her wizened old shoulders. “You may as well ask the air. Or the Goddess. Nothing like this has happened within our lifetimes. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

Katharine stares at the floor. As she dressed that morning, she had not noticed the pattern of the rug beneath her feet. It is a weaving of Queen Illiann, the Blue Queen, standing atop the black basalt cliffs with her arms outstretched and black hair billowing like a cloud. In the sea, the mainland ships wreck against her waves, and between them, the mist rises like a shroud. Katharine glares at it. It is as though she is being mocked by the mist’s very creator.

“Is this where it happened? Here on Shannon’s Blackway? Was the mist created here?” She turns on Genevieve. “If it was, you should have known, and we should never have come to Rolanth!”

“Battles were fought up and down the coast,” Genevieve stammers. “But the mist was created at Bardon Harbor. Not here. She is depicted here perhaps because she was an elemental—”

“And you have learned nothing else? About her. About this?” She gestures to the mist in the weaving, but Genevieve shakes her head. It is all legend. Another ancient secret that the island keeps.

Katharine frowns. She wills the dead queens to help her, to guide her, but they remain agitated and silent.

“Get reports,” she says finally. “Find out who is missing. Take accounts from those the mist touched but did not harm. Pietyr, Renata, and”—she searches their faces—“Bree will do this. The people of Rolanth will speak to her and to you, if you are with her.”

She nods to Antonin. “Antonin, take the queensguard back to the park. Secure it and then disperse soldiers through the city to provide aid.”