like a warm, muscular bracelet. Natalia will wear a black mamba. A small snake bracelet is not as fancy as one draped across one’s shoulders, but Katharine prefers her little adornment. She is prettier; red and yellow and black. Toxic colors, they say. The perfect accessory for a poisoner queen.
Katharine touches the glass, and the snake lifts her rounded head. Katharine was instructed to never give her a name, told over and over that she was not a pet. But in Katharine’s head, she calls the snake “Sweetheart.”
“Don’t drink too much champagne,” Giselle says as she gathers Katharine’s hair into sections. “It is sure to be envenomed, or stained with poisoned juice. I heard talk in the kitchen of pink mistletoe berries.”
“I will have to drink some of it,” says Katharine. “They are toasting my birthday, after all.”
Her birthday and her sisters’ birthdays. All across the island the people are celebrating the sixteenth birthday of the newest generation of triplet queens.
“Wet your lips, then,” says Giselle. “Nothing more. It is not only the poison to be mindful of, but the drink itself. You are too slight to handle much without turning sloppy.”
Giselle weaves Katharine’s hair into braids, and twists them high upon the back of her head, wrapping them around and around into a bun. Her touch is gentle. She does not tug. She knows that the years of poisoning have weakened the scalp.
Katharine reaches for more makeup, but Giselle clucks her tongue. The queen is already powdered too white, an attempt to hide the bones that jut from her shoulders and to disguise the hollows in her cheeks. She has been poisoned thin. Nights of sweating and vomiting have made her skin fragile and translucent as wet paper.
“You are pretty enough already,” Giselle says, and smiles into the mirror. “With those big, dark doll’s eyes.”
Giselle is kind. Her favorite of Greavesdrake’s maids. But even the maid is more beautiful than the queen in many ways, with full hips, and color in her face, blond hair that shines even though she has to dye it to the ice blond that Natalia prefers.
“Doll’s eyes,” Katharine repeats.
Perhaps. But they are not lovely. They are big, black orbs in a sickly visage. Looking into the mirror, she imagines her body in pieces. Bones. Skin. Not enough blood. It would not take much to break her down to nothing, to strip away scant muscles and pull the organs out to dry in the sun. She wonders often whether her sisters would break down similarly. If underneath their skin they are all the same. Not one poisoner, one naturalist, and one elemental.
“Genevieve thinks that I will fail,” Katharine says. “She says I am too small and weak.”
“You are a poisoner queen,” says Giselle. “What else matters but that? Besides, you are not so small. Not so weak. I have seen both weaker and smaller.”
Natalia sweeps into the room in a tight black sheath. They should have heard her coming; heels clicking against the floors and ringing off the high ceilings. They were too distracted.
“Is she ready?” Natalia asks, and Katharine stands. Being dressed by the head of the Arron household is an honor, reserved for festival days. And the most important of birthdays.
Giselle fetches Katharine’s gown. It is black and full-skirted. Heavy. There are no sleeves, but black satin gloves to cover the poison-oak scabs have already been laid out.
Katharine steps into the gown, and Natalia begins to fasten it. Katharine’s stomach quivers. Sounds of the party assembling have begun to trickle up the stairs. Natalia and Giselle slide the gloves onto her hands. Giselle opens the snake’s cage. Katharine fishes out Sweetheart, and the snake coils obediently around her wrist.
“Is it drugged?” Natalia asks. “Perhaps it should be.”
“She will be fine,” Katharine says, and strokes Sweetheart’s scales. “She is well-mannered.”
“As you say.” Natalia turns Katharine to the mirror and places her hands on her shoulders.
Never before have three queens of the same gift ruled in succession. Sylvia, Nicola, and Camille were the last three. All were poisoners, raised by Arrons. One more, and perhaps it will become a dynasty; perhaps only the poisoner queen will be allowed to grow up and her sisters will be drowned at birth.
“There will be nothing too surprising in the Gave Noir,” Natalia says. “Nothing that you have not seen before. But just the same, do not eat too much. Use your tricks. Do as we practiced.”
“It would be a good omen,” Katharine says softly, “if my gift were