One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns, #2)

by Kendare Blake

“You’re alive,” he whispers, his smile a flash in the shadowy hall. “I should wring your neck.”

Poor old Luca. Her eyes wobble with doubt, as though that was too easy. As though she should have asked for more in exchange for her queen.

If she cannot save Arsinoe, she will see her ghost every day. No matter where she is.

Or perhaps there were more sides to a woman than he had ever understood.

“I wanted to show you,” Katharine says brightly. “So there would be no confusion. So that no one could tell you lies. I wanted you to see my crown for yourselves.” Arsinoe swallows. “Is that what that is?” she asks. “I thought you must’ve rolled across a piece of coal.”

“Let them come and tell us this news. You should go, Queen Katharine. And if you return”—Arsinoe rises onto her tiptoes to look farther down on her smaller sister—“bring a box to stand on.”

The poor girl crumples like a dropped sack of potatoes. Jules would be proud.

“Good. We have to get out of here now. Are you strong enough? Can you fight?” Jules clenches her fists. “That’s a silly question.”

They hesitate to raise weapons against queens. Especially one who seems able to come back from the dead.

Jules lifts his shirt. She and Mirabella wrap him up tight, using so much of the skirt that Mirabella’s legs are visible over the tops of her boots.

Just let them be poly

Poor Nicolas. He lay with a queen, and he died for it.

“How can you say that to her and smile?” Arsinoe asks. “How can you talk at all?” Billy asks, panting.

But that life—that good, familiar, and precious time—is over.

The storm is as fine a storm as Mirabella has ever seen. She would be in love with it were it not trying to stand in their way.

“I don’t want to go without you,” Arsinoe whispers. “I know. But you have to.”

“I love you, Arsinoe.” “Jules, come back!” She turns around. “It’ll be different, you’ll see!”