Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(63)

“I’ll get her some water.” Emilia pauses on the way and looks gravely at Jules. “You should perhaps go and be with your mother.”

Jules walks down the hallway on legs made of wood. And she does not have Camden to lean on, since she stayed back on the rug with Aria.

She turns the knob and swings the door open. Her knees nearly buckle when she sees Caragh slick with bright red blood.

“Jules,” Caragh says, and gently moves her back into the hall.

“Is it over? Was he born?”

Caragh wipes her hands.

“He will not come out.”

“Jules! I want my Jules!”

At her mother’s cry, Jules pushes past her aunt and bursts back into the room. Madrigal is covered, her legs squirming beneath the blankets in pain. Willa stands to the side of the bed, wiping her hands on a towel.

“She has lost a lot of blood,” says the Midwife. “Not making much sense.”

Jules goes to the bed and takes Madrigal’s hand.

“How are you doing?”

“As well as I expected to.” She smiles. She is almost unrecognizable under so much paleness and sweat, thinner everywhere but in the belly. She resembles a gray corpse, like the one she said she saw in her vision. “I did a wrong taking Matthew from my own sister. Making the charm to keep him.”

“Nothing more wrong than what you always do,” Jules says, and presses a cool, wet cloth to her forehead.

Madrigal laughs breathlessly.

“Should I apologize? Is there time?”

“There’s plenty of time,” says Caragh, “when you’re up and out of this bed. I’ll accept that apology, with you down on one knee.”

Madrigal laughs harder.

“You know you’re nothing like me, Jules. You’re like her. So tough. So mean.” She touches Jules’s cheek with her fingertips. “Except that you’re crying.”

Jules sniffs. She had not realized. “Just hurry up, Madrigal, will you? I’m tired of waiting for this baby.”

Madrigal nods. She looks past Jules to Willa, who has uncovered her tray of knives.

“Will it be fast?” Madrigal asks.

“It will be fast, child.”

“What are you going to do?” Jules asks, eyes wide. “Will she survive it?”

Willa frowns. “I do not know.”

“It’ll be all right, my Jules. I’m paying the price of my low magic.” Madrigal lays back. “Put him on my chest when it’s over. So I might see him a moment.”

“Madrigal?” Jules stumbles backward as Willa approaches the bed. “Mother?”

Her eyes are blurry, but had they been clear, Caragh would have still been hard to see. She moved so fast. One second Willa was leaned over Madrigal’s belly, and the other, she had been shoved out into the hall and the door locked behind her.

“Caragh,” Madrigal says. “What are you doing?”

“Maddie, you have to push now.”

“No. Let Willa back in here. I’m tired. Go with Jules into the kitchen. Or outside.”

But Caragh does not listen. She takes up position at the foot of the bed and puts her hand on her sister’s knee.

“Madrigal, push. You aren’t done yet.”

“I can’t.”

“Aunt Caragh,” Jules says quietly, “maybe let her rest a minute.”

“She rests, she dies.” She slaps Madrigal across the hip. “Push!”

“I can’t!”

“Yes you can, you silly brat! You just think you can’t because of some foolish vision! Now get up and push!”

Madrigal forces herself up onto her elbows. She bares her teeth. There is so much blood in the bed. So much sweat on her face.

“What do you care? You’ll have everything you wanted! My baby. My Jules. You’ll have my children and Matthew back, too, so why don’t you cut him out of me and leave me alone!”

The room falls quiet. The only sound is Madrigal’s labored breathing until Caragh reaches out and sends everything on her table crashing to the floor. A pitcher and bowls of water, bloody cloth, sharpened knives, herbs, and tea, it all clatters and splashes and breaks into pieces.

“I don’t want your baby! I want you! I want my sister to live, and you want it, too.” Her hound bays miserably as she dives for the floor, and the discarded knives, pressing a blade into her arm. “If the low magic wants a price, then I’ll pay it.”

“Stop! Caragh, stop. I’ll do it. I’ll push.”

“You’ll live,” Caragh says. “You’ll live because I won’t have it any other way.”

It is not easy. Madrigal is already weak and has lost so much blood. But in the hours before dawn, Jules’s baby brother is born. Madrigal names him Fennbirn, for the island. Fennbirn Milone. Fenn, for short. She names him and then loses consciousness with him on her chest. But she lives.

In the days after the baby is born, Jules lingers at the Black Cottage, watching her mother and aunt become close again. Whether it will last is anyone’s guess, but it is still nice to see.

“Jules Milone,” Emilia says as they walk through the north woods with Camden, “how long do you intend for us to stay here staring at that baby?”