images.
“It would be impossible to describe,” she says.
“Was it about,” Elizabeth asks hesitantly, “the other queens?”
The other queens, yes. Her sweet sisters, dead and stuffed upright in chairs with greening skin and stitched-shut mouths. Then a flash of Katharine, lying on her back with her chest cracked open, nothing inside but a dry, red hole. Finally Arsinoe, screaming at her without sound because her throat is too clogged with thick, dark blood.
Mirabella, they said. Mirabella, Mirabella.
“I held them underwater,” Mirabella whispers. “In the stream beside the cottage. The water was so cold. Ink came out of their mouths. They were only children.”
“Oh, Mira,” Bree says. “That is awful, but it is only a dream. They are not children.”
“They will always be children, to me,” Mirabella says.
She thinks of what it felt like when Arsinoe and Katharine went limp, and rubs her hands together as though filthy.
“I cannot do this anymore.”
Luca will be disappointed. She has put faith in her and raised her to rule. So have the Westwoods, and the city, and the Goddess herself. She was created to rule. To become the queen the island needs. If she goes to see Luca in the temple, she will tell Mirabella that exact thing. That these dreams, and these feelings, have been put in her path for a reason. As a test.
“I have to leave,” Mirabella says. “I have to get away from here.”
“Mirabella,” says Elizabeth. “Be calm. Take some water.”
She accepts the glass, and drinks, if only to please her friend. But it is hard to swallow. The water tastes like something has died in it.
“No. I have to go. I have to leave.” She goes to her closet and pushes open the doors. She rifles through cloaks and dresses, all black, black, black.
Bree and Elizabeth stand up. They hold their hands out to try to stop her, to try to soothe her.
“You can’t go,” says Elizabeth. “It’s the middle of the night!”
“Mira, you will not be safe,” Bree adds.
Mirabella selects a dress of lined wool. She puts it on over her nightclothes and opens a drawer for long stockings.
“I will go south. I will not be seen.”
“You will be!” Elizabeth says. “They will send a party after you.”
Mirabella pauses, still trembling. They are right. Of course they are right. But she has to try.
“I have to go,” she says. “Please. I cannot stay here anymore and dream of my sisters talking to me from dead bodies. I cannot kill them. I know that you need me to; I know that is what I am meant to do . . .”
“Mira,” says Bree. “You can.”
“I won’t,” she says fiercely.
Elizabeth and Bree have moved to block the door. They are sad, and worried, and moments from waking Sara and alerting the temple. Mirabella will spend the rest of her time until Beltane locked in Luca’s rooms and under constant guard.
Mirabella steps into her boots and laces them. Whoever they send after her will certainly catch her, but they will have to work for it.
She steps forward, ready to force her way through her friends.
“Wait,” Elizabeth says. She holds up one hand and goes out the door. If she calls down the hall, there may not be time for Mirabella to run. But Elizabeth does not call out. She comes back into the bedroom carrying her white priestess’s cloak.
“Take this,” she says. “Keep the hood up and your hair covered.” She smiles her sweet, gentle smile. “No one looks twice at a priestess. They only bow and get out of the way.”
Mirabella hugs her gratefully. The cloak is a little short. But it is large, cut to cover Elizabeth’s ample curves, and covers Mirabella’s dress completely.
“Elizabeth,” Bree says but then stops. She takes Mirabella by the arm. “Let us come with you, at least.”
“No, Bree,” Mirabella says gently. “I would not have you know anything of this. When they find me gone, they will seek someone to blame. Someone to punish. Do not let it be you or Elizabeth.”
“I promise,” Bree says. “We will look after each other.”
Mirabella smiles sadly and touches Bree’s face.
“I have never seen you look so frightened,” she says, and hugs her tightly. “Please understand, Bree. I love them. Just like I love you. And I cannot stay here and let the temple force me to kill them.”
She releases Bree and holds her arm out for Elizabeth. She has been lucky to have them.
By the time Mirabella makes her way south, through and out of the Westwoods’ grounds,