says, and studies the crimson stain. She drops the ear into her sister’s lap and runs her fingertip along the shears’s sharp edge.
“Careful not to cut yourself. Our queenly skin is fragile. Besides, my birds will want you whole. Eyes in your head and ears attached. Do not drink. She has turned our wine to blood.”
“Who?” Mirabella asks, though she knows very well.
“Wine and blood and back again, inside our veins and into cups.”
Somewhere through the tower a little girl’s voice sings; it rises up the stairs and round and round like a noose tightening.
“She is not my sister.”
Her sister shrugs. Blood rolls down in a slow waterfall from the open hole on the side of her head.
“She is and I am. We are.”
The shears open and close. The other ear falls into her sister’s lap.
Mirabella wakes with her mouth tasting of blood. It was only a dream, but a vivid one. She almost expects to look down and see pieces of her sisters clenched in her fists.
Arsinoe’s ear landed so softly in her lap. Though it was not really Arsinoe. So many years have gone by that Mirabella does not even know what Arsinoe looks like. People tell her that Arsinoe is ugly, with short, straw-like hair and a plain face. But Mirabella does not believe it. That is only what they think she wants to hear.
Mirabella kicks her sheets aside and takes a long drink of water from the glass on her bedside table. The sprawling estate of Westwood House is quiet. She imagines that all of Rolanth is quiet, even though the sunlight tells her it is nearly noon. Her birthday celebration went long into the night.
“You are awake.”
Mirabella turns toward her open door and smiles weakly at the petite priestess who has stepped into her room. She is a small thing, and young. The black bracelets on her wrists are still real bracelets, not tattoos.
“Yes,” Mirabella says. “Just.”
The girl nods and comes inside to help her dress, along with a second initiate who had been hidden in her shadow.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Quite,” Mirabella lies. The dreams have gotten worse of late. Luca says that is to be expected. That it is the way of the queens, and after her sisters are dead, the dreams will stop.
Mirabella holds very still as the priestesses brush her hair and put her into a comfortable dress after the night’s revelry. Then finally, they step back into the shadows. They are always with her, the priestesses. Even in Westwood House. Ever since the High Priestess saw the strength of her gift, she has been under temple guard. Sometimes, she wishes they would disappear.
She passes Uncle Miles in the hallway that leads to the kitchen, pressing a cold compress to his forehead.
“Too much wine?” she asks.
“Too much of everything,” he says, and bows clumsily before going back toward his room.
“Where is Sara?”
“In the drawing room,” he answers over his shoulder. “She has not moved from there since breakfast.”
Sara Westwood. Her foster-matron. A kind, devout woman, if a bit prone to worrying. She has cared for Mirabella well, and is quite gifted, specializing in the element of water. When Mirabella settles into the sitting room for tea, Sara’s moans occasionally echo up the stairs from where she is likely reclined on the drawing room sofa. Overindulgence has its price.
But the night was a success. Luca said so. All the priestesses said so. People of Fennbirn will talk of it for years. They will say they were there when the new queen rose.
Mirabella puts her feet up on the green velvet chair opposite the couch and stretches out. She is spent. Her gift feels like rubber in her stomach, wobbly and uneasy. But it will come back.
“That was quite a show, my queen.”
Bree leans against the door and then lazily twirls inside. She flops down beside Mirabella on the long satin couch. Her shiny, chestnut-and-gold hair is loose from its usual braid, and though she too looks exhausted, it is only the best kind.
“I hate it when you call me that,” Mirabella says, and smiles. “Where have you been?”
“Fenn Wexton was showing me his mother’s stables.”
“Fenn Wexton.” Mirabella snorts. “He is a laughing fool.”
“But have you seen his arms?” Bree asks. “And he did not do so much laughing last night. Tilda and Annabeth were there for a while. We took a jug of honeyed wine and lay on his barn roof under the stars. Nearly fell through the rotted thing!”
Mirabella gazes up at