Emilia objects.
“No. It’s out of the question.”
“But—”
Jules presses her fingers to her forehead, and Cait moves to disband the meeting.
“You heard my granddaughter,” she says. “She is the Legion Queen, and she will decide. Now let’s leave her to her rest.”
They all file out, even Billy. Emilia’s eyes flash indignantly at Arsinoe as she goes, but not even she will speak against Cait. When they are gone, Arsinoe lingers with her hand on the door.
“Do you need anything? Water? Wine? A haunch of something for Cam?”
“Just you,” Jules says. “Stay.” She walks to the hearth and warms her hands. Arsinoe steps back inside.
“How are you feeling? Are you sleeping? I could craft you a sleeping draught.”
“I’m fine, Arsinoe. I’m well. You saved me again.”
“Does that make us even?” Arsinoe asks, burying her fingers in the cougar’s scruff. “Or do I need to save you one more time?”
Jules smiles wanly. Her brown hair hangs in unkempt waves to her chin, and they fall into her eyes as she picks at her bandaged wrist.
“I feel like I’ve been asleep for a hundred years.”
“It’s not easy to step right back into things. Emilia pushes too hard.”
“It’s not Emilia’s fault,” Jules says. “I just don’t trust myself. I remember what I did.”
“You weren’t you.”
“Then who was I?” She looks down at her bandages, and at her bad leg, weakened and made painful by the poison she ate, poison that helped Arsinoe discover her true gift. “I’m broken in body,” she says. “And broken in mind.”
“Is that what you see when you look at yourself?” Arsinoe asks. “Because it’s not what I see.”
“It doesn’t matter what I see. No one should follow me. What I’ve done . . . I’m no leader. But Mirabella is.”
Arsinoe looks at her in surprise.
“I know I had my reasons to dislike her,” says Jules. “But she was the one. So strong. Strong enough to end us all, yet not a killer. You’re not a killer either, Arsinoe. I’m sorry that I tried so long to make you one.”
“It’s okay,” Arsinoe whispers, not knowing what else to say. “And you know . . . that Mirabella doesn’t want to be the Queen Crowned.”
“But you know her, don’t you?” Jules asks. “If she’s needed, she’ll do it anyway.”
INDRID DOWN TEMPLE
The initiate priestess leads Mirabella, disguised in a hood and veil, through the austere interior of Indrid Down Temple, past the rows and rows of pews in carefully preserved oiled walnut, and past the Goddess Stone that winks to her from behind its barrier of ropes. She leads her behind the altar and through the cloister and up, up, up the stairs that lead to the room Luca has taken for herself. Or rather, that she has taken back. Her old quarters from the time before she came to know Mirabella and before she abandoned the capital and the semblance of neutrality to live with her in Rolanth.
Mirabella inhales and smells cold stone. There are so many stairs that her legs have begun to burn. They must be high enough to lean out a window and pat the heads of Arsinoe’s favorite gargoyles.
“I hope you will forgive the distance,” says the priestess ahead of her, carrying a torch to light the path. “Many were surprised when the High Priestess elected to reclaim her old rooms. We had thought to prepare some more comfortable space on the ground floor.”
The ground floor. Luca would never submit to that. She would force them to carry her up and down on their backs first.
They reach Luca’s door, and the initiate bobs a curtsy and takes her leave, a little careless with her torch as she passes it near Mirabella’s face. Perhaps the girl had the gift of fire before she came to the temple and has not yet learned to be mindful of it.
Mirabella knocks once and enters Luca’s chamber. What she sees inside is so familiar that for a moment she is transported across the island to those afternoons in Rolanth when she would race up to the High Priestess’s quarters for tea.
“Look at you,” Luca says, bent over her desk and pouring a steaming cup. “Out and about, with no escort.”
“The queensguard is waiting below with the carriage,” Mirabella says. She pushes back her hood and removes her veil, walking to one of Luca’s couches piled always with too many soft pillows. She unfastens her cloak and slings it across the arm. Then she nods to the tea. “Honey and lemon?”
“Honey and preserved lemon,”