Luca sets their teacups before them.
“So,” Elizabeth says. “We are leaving in the morning, then?” She sips her tea and studies the High Priestess over the rim of her cup. “Don’t be worried, High Priestess. Bree and I will keep her safe until we find Queen Arsinoe in her woods.”
Mirabella tenses.
“I do not need to be kept safe. I need to find my sister and to do my duty by her. And I would not wait for morning, Luca. I would leave tonight.”
Luca takes a sip of tea, using the cup to hide her smile.
“For so long I waited for you to find the heart to kill your sisters,” she says. “And now I worry that you are too rash.”
“I am not rash. I am ready. Arsinoe sent her bear for me, and it killed our people and our priestesses. It cannot go unanswered.”
“But the Ascension Year has barely begun. We could make opportunities for you. Just as the Arrons are sure to arrange for Katharine.”
Mirabella’s mouth tightens. Luca practically raised her. Mirabella knows the tone in her voice, and she knows when she is being tested.
“I will not waver in this,” she says. “And this Ascension will be over far sooner than any anticipated.”
“Well then.” Luca nods. “Take my mare at least.”
“Crackle?” Elizabeth asks.
“I know she is not as fine as the white horses of the temple,” Luca says, “nor as beautiful as the black horses who will draw your decoy carriage to Indrid Down, but she is tough and fast and has been my trusted mount for many years.”
“Tough and fast,” Mirabella muses. “You think I will need to run.”
“No,” Luca replies softly. “But I must still try to protect you where I can.” She reaches across the table to lay her hand atop the queen’s, when a shriek cuts through the walls of the chamber. All three quickly stand.
“What was that?” Elizabeth asks.
“Stay here,” Luca orders, but Mirabella and Elizabeth follow her, down the stairs and through the door to the long east hall and the upper storerooms.
“The main storeroom!” Elizabeth points.
The scream tears through the hall again. It is so full of panic and pain. Priestesses are shouting, barking frightened orders. When Mirabella bursts through the door it is chaos, white robes flashing as priestesses run back and forth.
In the corner of the room, a young initiate jerks and cries, held still by four shouting novices. She is practically a child, perhaps fourteen at most, and Mirabella’s stomach goes cold at the sound of her screams. It goes colder when Rho, the war-gifted priestess with the bloodred hair, takes the initiate by the shoulder.
“You little fool!” Rho shouts. Baskets of goods topple; voices grow louder, talking over one another to soothe and question the girl.
Mirabella’s voice rings out over the erupting room.
“What has happened? Is she all right?”
“Stay back, Mirabella, stay back!” Luca says, and rushes to the corner. “Rho, what is it?”
Rho grasps the novice by the neck and jerks her arm upright. It is bloody to the wrist. Blisters rise and burst as they watch, traveling farther down the arm as the poison makes its way deeper into her body. Toward her heart.
“She has put her hand into a poisoned glove,” Rho says. “Stop squirming, girl!”
“Stop it!” the initiate begs. “Please, make it stop!”
Rho grimaces in frustration. There is no saving the girl’s hand. She holds up her serrated knife, considers it a moment, then tosses it clattering to the floor.
“Someone bring me an axe!” She bends the girl down across a table. “Hold out your arm, child. Quickly. We can take it at the elbow now. Do not make it worse.”
More priestesses join Rho to hold the girl and shush her gently. A priestess runs past Mirabella with a small silver hatchet.
“It was all I could find,” she says.
Rho grips it and flips it over, testing its weight.
“Turn her face away.” She raises the blade to strike.
“Turn yours as well, Elizabeth,” Mirabella says, and pulls her trembling friend close to hide her eyes and tuck the edge of her hood closed so the tiny, tufted woodpecker nestled in Elizabeth’s collar cannot fly out and be seen.
The hatchet comes down, one hard, chopping thud into the table. It is a testament to Rho’s war gift that she did not need to strike twice. The surrounding priestesses wrap the poor girl’s bleeding arm and steal her away to be tended. Perhaps they have saved her. Perhaps the poison, meant for Mirabella, has been stopped.
Mirabella clenches her teeth to keep from screaming. It was Katharine who did this. Sweet little Katharine, who Mirabella knows not at all. But Mirabella is smarter now. She made the mistake of sentimentality with Arsinoe. She will not make it again.
“When she is healed, I will have a spade fashioned for her. Just like mine. We will tend the gardens together. She will not miss her arm at all,” Elizabeth says tearfully.
“That is kind of you, Elizabeth.” Mirabella says. “And when I am finished with Arsinoe, I will silence Katharine so no one will have to fear poisoned gloves out of the capital ever again.”
That night, Mirabella and Bree and Sara Westwood meet Luca and the priestesses before the temple courtyard. Mirabella’s black dress is covered in a soft, brown cloak, and her riding boots are laced up tight. Bree, Elizabeth, and her escort of guards and scouts are all similarly outfitted. Anyone who sees them pass might mistake them for traveling merchants.
Mirabella strokes the muzzle of one of the long-legged black horses who will pull the decoy carriage toward Katharine and Indrid Down. The carriage is a beautiful, empty shell, lacquered and trimmed in silver, the horses so dark they would be shadows if not for the shine off their bits and buckles. They will be enough of a distraction for Katharine and the Arrons. Just enough to keep them from interfering with her in Wolf Spring.
“Here is Crackle,” Luca says, and places her stout brown mare’s reins into Mirabella’s palm. “She will not fail you.”
“I have no doubt.” Mirabella scratches the horse beneath the forelock. Then she moves to Crackle’s side and swings into the saddle.
“What are these?”
Mirabella turns. Her party is mounted, but one of the priestesses is tugging on Bree’s saddlebags.
“Leave off!” Bree nudges her horse a step forward. “They are pears.”
“We have not inspected any pears,” the priestess says.
“That is because I picked them myself, from the orchard at the edge of Moorgate Park.”
“They should not go,” the priestess says to Luca.
“And yet they are going,” Bree insists. “Queen Katharine is not so devious as to poison these three particular pears from one particular tree in one particular orchard in one of the many parks in Rolanth. And if she is,” she says to Mirabella through the side of her mouth, “then she deserves to win.”