the entrance and wait. When the healer finally arrives with two priestesses in tow, to burn the wounds closed and pull them tight with string, they shove Jules and Billy out of the way.
“What is this?” one of the priestesses asks. “How did she get these wounds? It was not another attack from Rolanth? Did Mirabella come again, through the woods?”
“No,” Jules says. “It was a bear.”
“A bear?”
“We—” Jules says, and stops. Everything happened so quickly. But she should have known. She should have protected her.
“We were walking,” Joseph says from behind her. “We went off the path. The bear came upon us suddenly.”
“Where?” the priestess asks, and touches the serrated knife hanging from her hip. “I will send a hunting party.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Jules says. “I killed it.”
“You?”
“Yes, her,” Joseph says with a tone of finality. “Well, her and a mountain cat.”
He slips his arm around Jules’s waist and turns her away from any more questions. They walk slowly to stand near Billy, who kneels, stroking Camden’s head. The cat still cannot walk, but she is purring.
“Joseph?” Jules asks. “They will live, won’t they?”
“You made Camden strong,” he says, and squeezes her tightly. “And you and I both know that Arsinoe is meaner than any bear.”
GREAVESDRAKE MANOR
There is no shortage of poison in Greavesdrake Manor. Open any cabinet or drawer, and one is likely to find some powder, or tincture, or jar of toxic root. It is whispered in the streets of Indrid Down that when the Arrons are ousted, the Westwoods will have the place gutted. That they fear that every wall has been tainted. The fools. As if the Arrons have been so careless with their craft. As if they would ever be so careless about anything.
Natalia stands before the fireplace in the poison room, taking late-morning tea with Genevieve. Katharine is beyond them, laboring at the tables. Mixing and blending in her protective black gloves.
“It has finally happened,” Genevieve says. “The weather has turned, and the fire is too hot. You shall have to start opening windows.”
“Not here,” Natalia says. Never here. In this room, the right breeze passing over the wrong powder could instantly mean a dead queen.
Genevieve scowls and half turns in her chair. “What is she doing back there?”
“Working,” Natalia replies. Katharine has always worked very well at her poisons. Ever since she was a child, she bent over the tables and vials with such enthusiasm that Genevieve would drag her away and slap her, to try to force more seriousness. But Natalia put a stop to that. That Katharine takes joy in crafting poisons is the thing about her that Natalia most loves.
Genevieve sighs. “You have heard the news?” she asks.
“Yes. I assume that is why you have come home? To make sure that I heard the news.”
“But it is interesting, is it not,” Genevieve says. She sets down her teacup and brushes biscuit crumbs from her fingers and onto her plate. “First the attempt in the Masthead Woods and now Arsinoe is near death in her bed?”
Behind them, the clattering and clinking goes quiet as Katharine stops to listen.
“They say it was a bear attack,” Natalia says.
“A bear attack on a naturalist queen?” Genevieve narrows her eyes. “Or is Mirabella simply more clever than we assumed? An ‘accidental’ death like this would not look like a strike against her.”
“She was not concerned with strikes against her when she left Rolanth to murder Arsinoe in the forest,” Natalia says. She glances at Katharine. That attack rattled them all. Masthead is only a half day’s ride from Indrid Down. The upstart elemental had come far too close.
Natalia leaves the fireplace and crosses the room to put a hand on Katharine’s small shoulder. The table is a mess. It seems that she has pulled poisons from every shelf and every drawer.
“What do you have here, Kat?” she asks.
“Nothing yet,” the young queen replies. “It must still be boiled down and concentrated. And then it must be tested.”
Natalia looks down at the glass jar, filled with two inches of amber liquid. There is no end to the combinations that can be created here. In many respects, the poison room at Greavesdrake is superior even to the chamber at the Volroy. It is more organized, for one. And it houses many stores of Natalia’s own special blends.
Natalia runs her hand fondly across the wood. How many lives has she dispatched from this table? How many unwanted husbands or inconvenient mistresses? So many mainland problems, handled here,