Billy waits with his father at the Highbern, staring out the window with his arms crossed over his chest. They have been waiting for so long he could burst. He wants to pace, but his father would only give him that disappointed look. So instead he stares at the Volroy, thinking about Arsinoe trapped inside. Hoping she is giving the guards a hard time.
Perhaps Jules’s aunt Caragh was right and he should have stayed with them and helped them mobilize the warriors. It has been too long with no word from the Council, and as outsiders, he and his father will be among the last to receive news. The sky outside has darkened to gray. The woods in the distance are visible only as a blurry smudge. Caragh will not have waited this long. Their plan will have already begun, and he will be left out of it.
Caragh. She was not at all what he expected after hearing Joseph’s and Jules’s fond remembrances of her. In his mind, she was a nurturer, kind and comforting, a woman who would give up her freedom for the love of a child even when the child was not hers. But the woman he met was hard and decisive. Perhaps the Black Cottage had changed her. Or perhaps there were more sides to a woman than he had ever understood.
The knock at the door surprises him. It is the Volroy messenger, but he did not see him ride up. The young boy hands Billy’s father a sealed letter and bows before leaving.
“What does it say?” Billy asks as his father reads. He knew Arsinoe would not have to stay in the cells long. Perhaps they have already been released.
William stuffs the letter into his jacket pocket. His face betrays no feeling, no interest one way or the other. It almost never does, and that has kept Billy off-balance for most of his life.
“The crowning is tomorrow,” his father says.
“What crowning?”
“The queen’s,” William says impatiently. “Queen Katharine. Your future bride.”
Billy blinks. He cannot comprehend this news. Not his future bride. Never his future bride.
“But what of Arsinoe? What of Mirabella?”
William shrugs.
“According to the letter, the Wolf Spring girl has probably been executed already. The other one will survive until after the crowning—and after your wedding—to be executed publicly.”
“You have to stop it,” Billy says. His father raises his eyes, and Billy backs up a step. “Make a deal with the Arrons. Keep Arsinoe and Mirabella alive in secret. I know that you can. I know that you’ve been working with them since before this started!”
“Stay calm. You knew what would happen.”
“It’s different now.”
“It is. We’ve won.”
His father turns away. Billy can practically see him forget that his son is there, as visions of expansion roll through his head. Plans for their new stream of assets. Exclusive trade with the island for the next generation. And the backing of the poisoners to silence any competitor who does not like it.
“You’ve done well,” his father murmurs distractedly. “I’m proud of you, son.”
“And I have long wanted that,” Billy whispers. “But why are you proud, Father, when I have done nothing but try to undermine you? I fell in love with the wrong queen. And I wouldn’t poison Mirabella, so you had to poison her yourself. I hadn’t figured that part out, to be honest. I didn’t until Luca said that Katharine hadn’t done it by touch. Then I remembered you lingering by our table that night.”
“It didn’t kill her. And it kept the alliance. It made you a king.”
“If I accept.”
His father stares.
“And I will accept,” Billy goes on. “As long as you go to the Arrons now and stop Arsinoe’s execution.”
“Let her go. She’s as good as dead. She probably is already.”
“It won’t hurt to try.”
“Billy,” William says firmly. “You’ll do as I say.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
“I won’t!” Billy shouts, and his father draws his hand back as if to strike him. But he stops short when Billy does not flinch. Billy has never noticed before, that his father is not as large as he once was. That as the years passed, Billy has actually grown to be the taller.
William looks down in disgust and searches his coat for a cigar.
“You won’t throw away everything for one girl,” he mutters.
“You’re wrong, Father,” Billy says, right before he turns and walks out the door.
THE QUEEN CROWNED
THE CROWNING
Katharine stands on the wooden block, studying her reflection in the mirror as Natalia straightens the skirt of her gown.
“Some naturalist sympathizer has freed the bear,” Natalia says. “We are searching the city but have not yet found him.”
“Let him go,” says Katharine. The bear does not matter anymore. All that matters now is the black satin against her skin. And the guests gathering in the inner chamber of the Volroy.
“When you dressed me last year for my birthday, did you think that we would ever be here? Moments before my crowning?”
“Of course I did, Kat,” Natalia says. But Katharine knows the truth. She has surprised them all.
Natalia helps her down from the block, and Katharine twirls once. The gown is simple but elegant. She wears no jewels, and her hair is loose and similarly unadorned. She looks strangely innocent. Almost like the girl she used to be.
“You are beautiful, Queen Katharine.” Natalia slides Katharine’s hair back over her shoulder. “I wonder that Pietyr is not here to see this. It seems a shame.”
Katharine frowns. “Oh well,” she says. “I will not miss one guest amongst so many.” And she refuses to think of Pietyr on a day like today. Soon she will be crowned. Then she will murder her sister Arsinoe, for real this time, with no escaping. And then she will be married.
She adjusts the fingers of her simple black gloves and smiles.
“So you are not disappointed?” Natalia asks. “That all of this must be done in such haste?”
“Not at all,” replies Katharine. “I only care that it is done.”
Katharine’s crowning is small by crowning standards. The public is not allowed to attend. Only the Black Council, and the temple priestesses, and members of the Arron family. It is a solemn affair with no joy on the faces of the priestesses. No joy on the faces of the Arrons either. Only nervousness. At her ceremonial crowning during next spring’s Beltane Festival, they will do better.
High Priestess Luca presides over the affair, straight-backed and imposing in her formal robes, especially for someone so old. She begins by reading the Council and the temple’s joint decree: Katharine would be crowned and Arsinoe and Mirabella executed by her. The decree does not mention her sisters by name. After today, they will never be mentioned by name again.
The air inside the chamber is cool and stale as Katharine kneels before the High Priestess. Luca will set the crown upon Katharine’s head herself, symbolically uniting the Council and the temple once more.
Katharine tries not to smirk. It cannot be easy for the proud woman to admit that she was wrong.