she said.
She leaned forward to kiss her—their tongues twined and then Vada pulled her down so that Agnes fell on top of her on the bed, laughing as Vada left a trail of kisses down her neck.
There was a light tap on the door.
“Pardon the intrusion,” Ambrosine said, and Agnes scrambled to her feet, her cheeks burning as she adjusted her dress and smoothed back her hair.
“Um, oh no, it’s fine,” she said, completely mortified and trying not to show it.
“I was wondering, Agnes, if I might speak to you in private,” Ambrosine said.
Vada was on her feet in an instant. “I will go find Sera and Leo,” she said. “We did not get to have a proper welcome.”
She gave Ambrosine another awkward bow and left.
“How do you find your accommodations?” Ambrosine asked.
“It’s a very nice room,” Agnes said. “This whole estate is beautiful.”
Her grandmother smiled. It wasn’t the sort of smile Agnes had pictured, full of warmth and joy like her mother’s smile in the photograph. There was something sly and almost aggressive about it.
“Why don’t we sit,” she suggested. There were two brocade armchairs nestled in a corner between the stone wall and the grass one, and Agnes took a seat opposite Ambrosine, her heart skipping erratically.
“Leo informed me your father told you nothing of me, or your mother, or this side of your family,” Ambrosine said.
“No,” Agnes said. “We weren’t even allowed to mention the Byrne name. Eneas would sometimes slip and give me little details, but nothing concrete. Nothing that made her feel real.”
There was a darkening in Ambrosine’s eyes at the mention of Eneas, but then her expression smoothed out. “She was very real, I promise you that,” she said. “And she loved you very much.”
“She never even knew me,” Agnes said.
“She held you in her arms,” Ambrosine said softly. “And kissed your tiny little hands and whispered your name.”
“But . . .” Agnes tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “But how could you know that? Leo and I were born in Kaolin, in some private facility outside Old Port.”
Ambrosine traced the pattern on the arm of her chair with a finger. “No,” she said. “You were not. You were born right here, on this estate.”
If her own chair were to suddenly swallow her up, Agnes could not have been more surprised. She . . . was born . . . in Pelago.
“Why would my father ever agree to that?” she said.
“We made an arrangement,” Ambrosine said. “One that he did not honor, of course.”
Agnes recalled the words from the letter Eneas had written Phebe. A deal was made and a deal was broken.
Before she could ask, Ambrosine continued, “But that is neither here nor there. We both know the sort of petty, conniving man your father is—I should not have entered into any agreement with him in the first place. And besides, there are more important matters to discuss.”
Agnes’s head was spinning and the best she could muster was a confused, “Huh?”
“The past can wait. It is the future that concerns us now.”
Agnes blinked. “The future?”
Ambrosine rubbed her hands together. “Yes, my dear. The heir to Culinnon has come home at last. There is much you need to learn about this country, this island, our family’s history, but there will be plenty of time for that. For many years now, the Byrnes have been subjected to the most brutal character attacks from the Triumvirate. They are jealous of our power, of the wealth of Culinnon and the mystery it is shrouded in. Many Byrne matriarchs have thought to separate themselves from Ithilia’s control, but none have had the courage or the force of will to actually do something about it.”
Agnes felt a sudden squirming of nerves in the pit of her stomach.
“The northern islands are loyal to us, loyal to Culinnon,” Ambrosine continued. “Why should we submit to western rule? It would be far better to rule ourselves. I have spoken to the head families on all the major islands. They are with me, at last. The Malleys took some convincing—Ragna can be such a stubborn old witch—but everyone has agreed. Their ships are mine, their people mine, their loyalty mine. And now with Braxos in our sights and Kaolin ships attacking Ithilia, it is the perfect time to declare.”
Agnes’s palms went clammy. “Declare what?”
Ambrosine straightened her shoulders. “Why, declare our independence, my darling girl. To form our own state, with our own queen. And just one, not three who fight and