The old woman’s mouth twists wryly. “No doubt just as pleased as you are about certain other survivals.”
“What do you want?” Katharine asks. “To turn in your council seat? Change sides again and run back to your precious Mirabella?”
Luca stares at the crown inked into Katharine’s forehead. How bitterly she must regret placing it there. But place it she did.
“A queen once crowned,” Luca says, “is crowned forever.”
“So you mean to stay? You will not join the temple to the rebellion?”
“The temple would never join with a rebellion,” Luca snaps. “Not with a rogue queen at its head and certainly not with one who is legion cursed. I will serve on the Black Council for as long as is Queen Katharine’s pleasure.” She folds her hands over her white robes. “But I have come to speak to you about Mirabella.”
“High Priestess, my soldiers are routed. Many wounded or still missing. We are fighting a war on two fronts already, with the naturalist and with the very mist itself. So as much as it might displease her, my sister may just have to wait.”
Luca sighs and glances at Pietyr. “Is there any wine in this tent that is not tainted?”
“Of course.” He reaches for a cup and pours from a green bottle. “Here you are.”
“Thank you.” She sips and turns to Katharine. “Do not think of your sisters and the rebels as separate problems. They are one and the same. Traitors or not, with both of them standing beside Jules Milone, the Legion Queen’s rebellion is too strong. It will gain more support. Maybe even enough to take Indrid Down.”
“So what do we do? I will kill them both, as is my right. But when? Not now in the middle of—”
“I would suggest another course,” Luca says. “Consider why Mirabella would support Jules Milone? She is a queen in the blood. She, even more than most, understands that the crown cannot be worn by just anyone.”
“She supports the naturalist because Arsinoe supports the naturalist,” Pietyr says, and Luca nods, her eyes full of meaning. “But you think she is unconvinced.”
Luca takes a large swallow from her cup and walks around them to refill it. “I know my Mira. I raised her. What Natalia Arron was to you, Katharine, I was to her. And she would not in good conscience support the wresting of a crown from a rightful queen.”
“And in her eyes, I am a rightful queen?”
“She and Arsinoe fled,” Luca says. “Abdicated. If not you, then who else?”
“Even if she does feel that way,” Pietyr interjects. “What of it? She stands with the rebels.” He narrows his eyes. “You think she can be brought over.”
“No.” Katharine glares at her. “Never.”
“Do not be so quick to dismiss the idea,” says Luca. “I have done what I can with the temple, to restore the faith of the people in the Goddess and her rightful queen, but it is not enough. If Jules Milone is seen to have the backing of both of the other queens, you will not win this war.”
Katharine clenches her jaw. She grasps her wrists and rubs at them through her gloves. “I felt the blast of that legion-cursed gift. I may not win either way.”
“What are you truly suggesting, High Priestess?” Pietyr asks with disgust. “That Katharine extend an invitation to Mirabella? To rule together, side by side?”
“Of course not. I am asking that the queen allow her sister to return and fight for her, as a loyal subject and ally.”
“You will never get her to submit to that,” he spits, but old Luca only smiles.
“I will get her to agree. But I do not have much time. I ask for your permission.” She looks to Katharine.
Mirabella returned. And still so regal, so arrogant in those mainlander clothes. She could never be loyal. Never be trusted. But it is worth a try.
“I will welcome my sister back with open arms,” Katharine says. “In exchange for her allegiance.”
The High Priestess bows; she takes Katharine’s hands and kisses them.
“How will you find her?”
“I have my ways,” says Luca. “But I must hurry before those ways are too far off to catch up with.” She smiles at them again and ducks out of the tent.
“For someone so old, she is certainly quick.” Pietyr sets his cup down and refills it for a third time. “Maybe she is lying about her years.” He takes a swallow and pauses. “Welcoming another queen into the capital, with no threat of death over her head . . . Katharine, this has never been done.”
“Many things we have done have never been done,” she replies. “This one gives me hope.”
“Hope?”
Katharine lifts her scarred hand and clenches it in a shaking fist. The dead queens know what she is thinking. She can feel their fear and their anger and their dead fingers clutching at her to soothe and plead.
You made me kill Madrigal Milone. You loosed the curse, the one thing I did not want to do.
They say that they are sorry. They promise to be calm. But she is not angry with them. They cannot help being what they are.
You will be at peace, dead sisters. You have done what you set out to do. And with you gone, perhaps the mist will quiet. With you gone, perhaps all will be well.
Katharine looks at Pietyr, eyes shining. “If Mirabella will fight for me, then I will have need of no one else. I can put the dead sisters to rest.”
“Katharine. Are you certain?”
“I am.”
He smiles and sighs a sigh that relaxes his whole form. “I am proud of you, Kat. And I think I have found a way.”
THE WESTERN WOODS
Mirabella is only a few miles into the woods, retreating after Emilia and the other rebels, who have rushed ahead carrying an unconscious Jules, when Pepper flies past her.
“Pepper,” she gasps, and stops.
The little bird flits from her shoulder to a tree and back again, all the while making high-pitched, piping calls. Mirabella looks around just in time to see them come through the trees on the back of an unsaddled horse.
“Bree! Elizabeth!” she cries, and they dismount and run. When they crash into her, she catches one in each arm and immediately begins to weep. “What are you doing here?”
“I am on her council.” Bree gasps and buries her face in Mirabella’s hair. Poor Elizabeth cannot even speak. All she can manage are tiny squeaks in between great heaving sobs, the squeaks not too dissimilar to her woodpecker’s.
“Calm, Elizabeth.”
“Can’t be calm. Mira!” She grins, face wet. “I might vomit.”
Mirabella and Bree laugh. “Take slow, deep breaths. You should not have followed me.”
“How could we not?” Bree asks. “When we saw you . . . Everyone said you were dead, but I knew it could not be. Not the way they told it. Not in a storm.”
“But it almost was.” She smooths Bree’s hair back from her cheek. So beautiful, still. And somehow, she seems to have grown. The Bree she remembered did not have such somber eyes, did not own such an austere gray-blue dress.
“Now I know what Pepper was trying so hard to tell me,” says Elizabeth, her breath lighter. “He found you, didn’t he? He saw you when he brought word to the rebels.”
“He flew into me so hard his beak tore my clothes.”
“And what clothes they are,” says Bree, stepping back to study her. “A far cry from island black.”
“Who cares?” Elizabeth says. “We have trunks and trunks of it to change her into. You are back, aren’t you, Mira? Back for good?”
“That is an excellent question.”
Bree and Elizabeth twist in her arms—as Luca appears through the trees on a tall white mare.
“They were so desperate to see you,” she says, “that they did not turn around to see if they were being followed.”
“I am sorry, Mira.” Bree takes her hand. “We were not careful.”
Elizabeth steps in front of them and throws out her arms. “Stay away from her, High Priestess! Please!”
Luca’s brows raise. “Such dramatics. I am not here to hurt her.”