and insults. I sit down to a meal that I am clearly supposed to be too frightened to eat. Is it because of the way you were raised?” She picks up her silver and cuts a sliver of onion tart. “Would Natalia Arron be proud?”
“It is what she would do,” Katharine says.
“Perhaps she would not do it in so heavy-handed a fashion.” Mirabella takes a bite of hen. “Natalia Arron was a woman of singular power. And those who are truly strong do not need to demonstrate it every five minutes. This is delicious, Queen Katharine. Thank you.”
Katharine leans back, and Mirabella forces herself to keep on eating, forces her gift down deep beneath her skin so Katharine will not detect any hint of nerves, no flickering candles, no gusts of wind. She very much doubts that the food is poisoned, even slightly poisoned only to make her ill. But she has not forgotten that her little sister is deadly, and that could change with the very next meal or even during this one, with a sleight of hand and something slipped into her drink.
Katharine looks down at her plate and spins the rings on her gloved fingers before picking up her fork. “Perhaps you should take my demeanor as a compliment. I know you were raised to play this game. The game of reigning. Of politics and favors. I was only raised to win. And then to be moved about like a puppet on a string.”
“Have you not met High Priestess Luca?” Mirabella smiles wryly. “The Arrons are not the only ones who are skilled in the art of puppetry. All queens would be made puppets. If they are not careful.”
For a moment, Katharine’s eyes soften. Then she laughs. “Am I to sympathize? How hard it must have been to be so gifted and such a favorite. Shall we compare scars, then? Did the cruel priestesses give you daily lashings to make your gift rise?”
“It is not a competition. And your own gift seems strong enough.”
“Yes. But my gifts took time. Sacrifice. Yours simply . . . was.”
Mirabella sits quietly, hoping Katharine will say more. But she returns to her meal with a sigh.
“Why have you come here, Mirabella?”
“Because you asked me to.”
Katharine scoffs.
“You asked me,” Mirabella goes on, “and it was made to seem I would be welcome. Was that not so? If you were pressured into this alliance or if you have changed your mind, you have only to say so, and I will go.”
“You think it would be so easy to leave?”
Mirabella narrows her eyes. She lets her gift loose, and the flame in the fireplace blazes. “I think you will never again take me alive down to those cells.”
Katharine stares at the fire, but she is less afraid than Mirabella expected. The way her gaze drifts along the flickers of red and orange seems almost curious. Almost eager, as if she would try to push back.
“I apologize,” Katharine says finally. “I do not know why I . . . I did not mean for our meeting to be this way. When I extended the invitation for you to come to Indrid Down, I meant it. I meant to welcome you. Perhaps contention between us cannot be helped. Perhaps it is in our nature. Like the legends say.”
“It was not so with Arsinoe and me. It was not so between any of us, once.”
“Yet you betray her now.”
“I do not betray her,” says Mirabella. “Ask me to harm our sister and I will refuse. Ask me to help you as you harm her and I will refuse.” She chooses her words with care and keeps firm control of her tone. “This is not about Arsinoe. It is not even really about you.”
“Then what is it about? What made you change sides from the rebellion to the crown? Was it that old ingrained loyalty to tradition? To the ways of the island?” Katharine leans forward, so Mirabella can better see the band of black marked forever into her forehead. “Or was it something else? Perhaps something you saw at Innisfuil that day when I killed Juillenne Milone’s mother and cut loose her legion curse.”
“Yes,” Mirabella says truthfully. She remembers well Madrigal’s last words to her. She is full of them. Full of dead. And she does not think she was referring to her daughter. The puzzle of those words drove Mirabella here as much as any urging from Luca. “It was Madrigal Milone. That is why I