the sea, half expecting to see the mist net rising. “It will not let me go. Didn’t Joseph tell you?”
“It will be different this time,” he says. “This boat isn’t from Fennbirn. It’s mine, and it comes and goes as it pleases.” He touches the mast as if stroking the neck of a horse. “I sent for it. The last time my father went home, I had him tow it back for me. A gift for Joseph, I said. For he and I to sail.”
Hope rises in Arsinoe’s throat. He makes it sound possible.
“Billy. You have been a good friend to me. As good as I have ever had. But I can’t go. Besides, you ought to have faith. Even with this ruined face, I may still win.”
“No you won’t,” he snaps. “Arsinoe. They’re going to kill you. And not before next year’s festival. Not someday—some months away. Now. My father told me what they’re planning. That is why he sent his letter. The priestesses of this bloody, godforsaken island. They’re going to tear you and Katharine apart. They’re going to throw you into the fires in pieces and crown Mirabella before the dawn of the next day.”
“That is not true,” she says, and then listens as he tells her what he has learned about the plot and the Sacrificial Year.
“Arsinoe, do you believe me? I wouldn’t lie. I could never come up with it.”
Arsinoe sits quietly. To her right lies the island—permanent and unbothered by the waves. Anchored down deep. If only there were a way to snap off the lot of it and set it to drift. If only it were just an island rather than a pretty, sleeping dog with sand on its paws and cliffs on its shoulders, waiting to wake and rip her open.
“Your father could be wrong,” she says.
But he is not. Billy is telling the truth.
Arsinoe thinks of Luke and the Milones. She thinks of Joseph. She thinks of Jules.
“We were going to fight,” she says. “Even though it was a losing battle. But I thought I had more time. I don’t want to die, Junior.”
“Don’t worry, Arsinoe. I won’t let you. Now, grab that rope. Help me go faster.”
THE BELTANE FESTIVAL
Innisfuil Valley
THE WESTWOOD ENCAMPMENT
“They have not found anything. No trace of her. She was not hiding in a Wolf Spring attic, and the boats have dragged nothing up in their nets but fish. Arsinoe is gone.”
“She cannot be gone,” Mirabella says, and Bree purses her lips.
“May not be, might not be,” Bree says. “But she is.”
“That is good,” says Elizabeth. “If she has fled, no one can force you to harm her. And she will be unable to harm you.”
Harm. It is a mild word for what they must do. But she would not expect anything harsher from Elizabeth.
Mirabella stands before the tall mirror as Bree laces her into a long black dress. It is a comfortable one, loose and not too heavy. Good for lounging about in on a day when she does not have to be seen.
Elizabeth kneels on the floor, searching through their many trunks for a soft hairbrush. As she does, she forgets her injury and knocks the stump of her wrist against the corner of one of the lids. She hugs her arm tightly and bites her lip. Pepper the woodpecker flies fast to her shoulder.
“Elizabeth,” Mirabella says. “You do not have to do that.”
“Yes, I do. I must learn ways to use it.”
Shadows pass by outside. Priestesses, always close at hand. Always watching. In Mirabella’s lavish black-and-white tent, laid out with thick rugs and a bed, soft pillows and tables and chairs, it is easy to forget that it is not a room with dense walls but canvas and silk, where they are easily overheard.
Bree finishes lacing the dress and stands beside Mirabella in front of the mirror.
“Have you seen some of the boys here?” she asks loudly. “Putting up tents in the sun with their shirts off their backs? Do you think that naturalist boys are really as wild as they say?”
Mirabella holds her breath. Naturalist boys. Like Joseph. She has not told Bree and Elizabeth about what happened between them. Though she longs to, she is afraid to say it out loud. Joseph will be at the festival. She could see him again. But he will be with Juillenne Milone. And no matter what happened between Mirabella and Joseph on the beach, and in the forest, no matter that they were so tangled in