Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(61)

“Even if those rebels are backed by every warrior in Bastian City?”

Katharine slaps her hand down, and their arguing ceases.

“There is still too much I do not know. About the mist. About the Blue Queen. And now about these rebels and Juillenne Milone, if that is indeed who she is.” She turns to Genevieve. “I need an oracle.”

“I told you, my queen, none will come. They have refused us.”

“They cannot refuse the crown!” Katharine barks. “Send the queensguard and arrest one! And bring her back here for questioning.” She presses one hand to her cold belly, where she can feel the dead queens beginning to quicken. “Then we will know what to do.”





THE BLACK COTTAGE




“Well?” Jules asks as she and Camden help Caragh brew another of the endless pots of nettle leaf tea. “How bad is it?”

At the counter, chopping herbs and trying to keep cougar breath from blowing them everywhere, Caragh frowns. “It’s not good, Jules. Every day she bleeds. And every day it’s harder to stem the pains.”

“How long will it be before it’s safe for the baby to come?”

“Maybe it is not only the baby we should be worrying about.”

Jules swings the hot water kettle away from the fire and wraps the handle in cloth. “Don’t tell me you believe that low magic nonsense.”

“Whatever you think about the rightness or wrongness of it, low magic exists,” Caragh says. “And my sister has become the closest thing that the island has to a master of it.”

“Maybe. But this time she’s wrong. Have you heard her talking about the baby? She keeps calling it ‘he.’ A boy. When we all know that Milone women only bear girls. Two girls.”

“The old Milone rule,” Caragh says softly. “The old Milone curse. We have more than our fair share of those, don’t we?”

Jules brings the pot, and Caragh ties the herbs in cheesecloth and drops the bundle in. The nettle tea will be bitter enough to pucker Madrigal’s cheeks, but Willa says that they cannot add even one drop of honey.

“We thought you were dead,” Caragh says quietly. “Or at least gone. And then Worcester came with strange news: the mist was rising without cause and leaving dead bodies in its wake. Rumors of a legion-cursed naturalist who would go to war.” Caragh narrows her eyes. “I didn’t believe it was you, of course. I thought it must be an impostor. But your mother knew it had to be true.”

“How did she know?” Jules asks.

“Perhaps she knows her daughter.”

“She doesn’t know me. You know me. You raised me.”

“And then she raised you,” says Caragh. “After I came here.” She reaches out and tucks Jules’s short hair behind her ear. “You even look like a queen these days.”

Jules brushes her away with a smile. “I never thought we would get this far. Even when Mathilde’s crazy stories started to work and people started to believe . . . and then, maybe I started to believe.”

“Madrigal would say that is what destiny feels like.”

“How do you know what Madrigal would say?”

“She’s my sister, Jules. Thinking she’s dying has made her almost sweet. She’s trying to make amends. So am I, in case she’s right.” Caragh looks at her meaningfully, but Jules just sticks her lip out and blows hair away from her forehead. The baby will be fine, and Madrigal will be up to her old tricks in no time.

She gathers a cup and saucer and assembles Madrigal’s afternoon tea service, piling on a few of the almond biscuits she likes, the only thing that Willa will consent to her eating alongside the tea.

Halfway down the sunlit hall, Jules hears Emilia’s laughter bubble out from Madrigal’s room. It is a pretty sound, and her unwell mother sounds in good spirits, laughing back. But for some reason, the fur on Camden’s tail begins to puff with apprehension.

When Jules enters, all is innocent. Emilia has just returned from foraging in the woods, her hands black with dirt, her burlap sack heavy with roots and herbs.

“What did you find?” Jules asks.

“Big patch of fanroot.” Emilia reaches into the bag and pulls some out, a pale tuberous root still attached to its bright green leaves shaped like tiny fans. Hence its name. “I will go out again after dinner. Willa says it will keep well enough in the cellar. Before long, the frost and snow will get to the leaves, and it will be that much harder to find.”

“More fanroot. How delicious,” says Madrigal sarcastically.

“What brings you in to see my mother?” asks Jules, and Emilia shrugs.

“We got on well together, after you left us for the queens at Bardon Harbor. Your mother understands the virtue of the war gift and the possibilities of your so-called legion curse.”

Jules sets the tray of tea down beside Madrigal’s bed. She pours some of the bitter liquid into the cup and points to it. Then she takes Emilia by the arm and pulls her out of the room and down the hall.

“What?” Emilia asks. “What is the matter?”

“I know why you were in my mother’s room.”

“Yes. I told you. Because it is nice to converse with someone who understands our cause—”