Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1) - Kendare Blake Page 0,12

of his father’s daysailers and helped them try to run away.

Jules leans against Arsinoe’s shoulder. It is the same reassuring gesture they have done since they were children. No matter what their attempted escape has cost them, Jules has never regretted trying. She would try again, if there were any hope at all.

But there is none. Beneath the dock, the sea whispers, just like it did against the sides of their boat as it held them captive in the mists that surround the island. No matter how they set the sails, or worked the oars, it was impassible. They were found, cold and scared, and bobbing in the harbor. The fishers said they should have known better. That Jules and Joseph might have made it, to be lost at sea, or perhaps to find the mainland. But Arsinoe was a queen. And the island would never let her go.

“What do you think he is like, now?” Arsinoe wonders.

Probably not still small, with dirt on his jaw and under his fingernails. He will not be a child anymore. He will have grown up.

“I am afraid to see him,” says Jules.

“You are not afraid of anything.”

“What if he has changed?”

“What if he hasn’t?” Arsinoe reaches into her pocket and tries to skip a flat stone across the water, but there are too many waves.

“This feels right,” she says. “Him coming back. For this. Our last year. It feels like it was supposed to happen.”

“Like the Goddess has willed it?” Jules asks.

“I did not say that.”

Arsinoe looks down and smiles. She scratches Camden between the ears.

“Let’s go,” says Jules. “Catching a chest cold won’t improve the situation.”

“Certainly not, if your eyes get red and your nose swells.”

Jules shoves Arsinoe forward, back toward the marina and the long winding road up to the Milone house.

Camden trots ahead to bump against the backs of Arsinoe’s knees. Neither Jules nor the cat will sleep much tonight. Thanks to Renata Hargrove, every memory they have of Joseph is coursing through their heads.

As they pass the last dock, Camden slows, and her ears flicker back toward town. A few steps ahead, Arsinoe laments the lack of strawberry cake in her stomach. She does not hear. Jules does not either, but Camden’s yellow eyes tell her that something is wrong.

“What is it?” Arsinoe asks, catching on.

“I don’t know. A scuffle I think.”

“Some drunks left after my birthday, no doubt.”

They jog back toward the square. The closer they get, the faster the big cat moves. They pass Gillespie’s Bookshop, and Jules tells Arsinoe to knock and wait inside.

“But, Jules!” Arsinoe starts, except Jules and Cam are already gone, racing down the street, past the now-empty, flapping tents and toward the alley behind the kitchen of the Heath and Stone.

Jules does not recognize the voices. But she recognizes the sound of fists when they begin to swing.

“Stop!” she shouts, and jumps into the middle of the fray. “Stop it now!”

With Camden by her side, the people reel backward. Two men and a woman. Fighting over she does not care what. It will cease to matter in the morning, after the ale wears off.

“Milone,” one of the men sneers. “You’re a bully with that cougar. But you are not the law.”

“Aye, I’m not,” Jules says. “The Black Council is the law, and if you keep on, I’ll let them have you. Let them poison you out of your wits, or maybe even to death, in Indrid Down Square.”

“Jules,” Arsinoe says, and steps out of the shadow. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine,” says Jules. “Only a brawl.”

A brawl, but an escalating one. There is a small club in the drunk woman’s fist.

“Why don’t you look after the queen,” the woman says, “and get out of here.”

The woman raises the club and swings. Jules jumps back, but the end of it still catches her on the shoulder, striking painfully. Camden snarls, and Jules clenches her fists.

“Idiot!” Arsinoe shouts. She steps between Jules and the woman. “Do not push her. Do not push me.”

“You?” the drunk man asks, and laughs. “When the real queen comes, we’ll offer her your head on a pike.”

Jules bares her teeth and lunges. She gets him square in the jaw before Arsinoe can grab her arm.

“Send him to Indrid Down!” Jules shouts. “He threatened you!”

“So let him,” Arsinoe says. She turns and shoves the man, who holds his bleeding jaw. Camden is hissing, and the other two back off. “Get out of here!” Arsinoe yells. “If you want your chance at