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Where is the little girl with her large foolish eyes and tightly braided bun? The skinny girl who bows her head and only laughs after someone else laughs first? But wherever that Katharine is, it is not here.
No doubt she would like to be mean, to pinch the queen, or slap her, but the queen before them looks like she might slap right back.
“Once, I was a mouse,” she says, and strips off her glove. She reaches into the cage to stroke the rodent’s tiny bald haunches. “But I am not anymore.”
Not even two months passed between the crippling of Camden in that attack and the crippling of Jules by poison. It is as if the Goddess cruelly intended for them to match.
“And besides, what happened with Joseph . . . it was a mistake. He doesn’t love her. He never left my side during the poison.”
Girl don’t even do that to yourself leave his broke ass
Perhaps that is how all men love. More with their eyes than with their hearts.
“You will not have your way this time,” Katharine says, her lips close enough to the obsidian to kiss it. “We are coming for you.”
Joseph shakes his head. He should have stayed still. Too many still hate him for saving Mirabella at Beltane. Some hate him just because he has lived too long on the mainland.
I hate you because you’re a dick
Arsinoe lives or we both die, and that is always the way it was going to be.”
More than one gift is too much for a mind to bear.”
“Maybe? I’m not sure. I wasn’t raised like you were. We never made any plans. So now I just do things.”
“Mirabella,” Arsinoe whispers. “Yes?” “When you go after Katharine, don’t hesitate. I know she was our little girl whose hair we braided full of daisies, but she isn’t anymore.”
She does not want to do it. Mirabella saved her at Beltane. Mirabella loves her. But if Jules was hurt, they will all be hurt.
“Arsinoe!” her sister screams. “Where did you go? Where are you hiding?” “She doesn’t really expect me to tell her, does she?”
“Don’t be daft,” he says into her hair. “No matter how far I go, I’m still your person.
“Much of what we eat is bitter or has little taste. But there is something in the sensation of it. It is like eating power.”
I have been eating poison since I was a child. Now I am practically made of it.”
“There is no suitable apology for that,” she says. “So I will make none.” “Good. I would have spat it back in your face.”
“This is how it will be,” Billy says, his voice low. “I will taste for you, and I will smile. I will appease my father.” He feeds her another bite of sweet apples. “And I will be back with my Arsinoe before she can even miss me.”
“I haven’t worn a dress since I was six years old. It was half the reason I was crying when they came to take us from the Black Cottage.”
It is hard to imagine that he is the same bear who tore apart those people on the Quickening beach. But he is, and someday she will see those claws again, tearing someone open.
“I hope they don’t expect me to giggle like that,” Arsinoe says.
“I’ve known girls like you before. Not queens, of course, but very rich, very spoiled girls who have grown up hearing nothing but praise. Nothing but talk of their family’s important place in the world. And I never liked any of them more than just to look at.”
“The queen who is crowned is the queen who was meant to be.” Billy sighs. “My God. Isn’t it exhausting to parrot back temple rhetoric? Do you ever think for yourself?”
“Why would she when I didn’t? It wasn’t like I read in books. A thunderclap. Eyes meeting. Tortured glances. With Arsinoe it was more like . . . having cold water poured down your back and learning to enjoy it.”
Folk in Bastian City who have uncanny accuracy with knives and bows. Near-impossible shots made so clean that it is almost as if the weapon were pulled on a string.
“Grandma Cait says the binding might be all that’s keeping me sane.” “Or all that’s holding you back.”
She is not more than two months pregnant, but already her belly shows.
Uh, suspicious
“Arsinoe would say that a lack of hatred does not change anything. But I think,” Mirabella says slowly, “that I could stand to die. If I knew that the sister who had to do it . . . if I knew that she loved me.”
“Arsinoe has always been mine to protect. I’ve known that since the moment I set eyes on her when we were children.”
“A poisoned knife is still a knife,” Jules says.
It was always going to be Arsinoe she hunted, the one from Wolf Spring, the one who would die here, in front of her own city. It seems only fitting.
She looks at Mirabella through blurry eyes. “You run,” Arsinoe says. “Save yourself. They have already caught me.” She turns and cups her hands to yell. “Come and get me, you poisoner cowards! If you’re brave enough to go where your horses can’t follow!”
“And what a monster they have made of you, little Katharine. Scars or no scars.”
“Katharine is wicked,” Mirabella whispers. “I am so sorry, Arsinoe, that I did not take care of her a long time ago.”
Katharine holds her cup high. “So I toast to Queen Arsinoe, my sister, whom I killed with mercy. It will not be so when I kill Queen Mirabella. Queen Mirabella will suffer.”
“Do not worry too much. She was always the toughest of them, even when she was a girl.”
“I wanted her to have everything,” he says, staring at her hand. “I wanted to have everything with her.”
“The cursed deserve compassion. Understanding. Not to be pecked to death like a chicken with a dark spot.”
“The way she looks at me,” Arsinoe says when she and Jules are alone, “it’s like she doesn’t see any scars at all.”
I’ll leave here old and bent, like Willa. And you don’t need my blessing if you want to live my life for me.”
He should not wear it when they go to the capital, still mourning for a fallen queen when he has declared for Mirabella. But no one will ask him to take it off. And the crimson will win them more favor from the naturalists.
“They can dress that little witch up any way they like. But she’ll still be a monster.”
“I told you to stay back and that I would watch out for her. Didn’t you trust me? And how did you slip away from Joseph?” “Oh, like it was hard,” Arsinoe says sarcastically. “Ditching Camden was the real challenge.”
Katharine’s eyes narrow as she watches Mirabella. Her pretty sister, so easily beloved by the island. So easily gifted. Everything for her so easy but never earned. Never deserved.
“You are the strongest,” she says. “You could be the one. But up close, you are such a disappointment. Your eyes are wary as a kicked dog’s, when you and I both know you have never been kicked in your life. Not like me, who has been kicked down with poisons and popped blisters and made to vomit until I weep. “That is why I am going to win,” she goes on as they twirl. “I may be the weakest, but I am a queen, through and through. All the way down to my dead blood and bones.”
“Are there oracles too?” Arsinoe asks. “Can they tell us what’s going to happen and relieve us of the suspense?”
“You are dead!” Katharine shrieks. “I killed you!” “You should have checked,” Arsinoe yells back.
“I don’t think there was ever any saving us,” Arsinoe replies grimly. “I just didn’t want to be what they thought I was.”
“We are a curse on the ones we love,” Mirabella says. “Yes. But what were we supposed to do? Die like we were told?”
