“You want me to rule.”
“No.” Both Emilia and Mathilde shake their heads. “We want you to lead. We want you to fight. And then we want you to be a part of Fennbirn’s future.”
Fennbirn’s future without the triplet queens. It is hard to imagine, even though Jules bears no love for Katharine or the poisoners. “Katharine has been crowned,” she whispers. “The island won’t go against that, no matter how unpopular she is.”
“Let us prove you wrong,” says Mathilde. “Let us show you. Come with us to the villages and towns. Speak to the people.”
Jules shakes her head.
“Or consider this,” Emilia says casually. “With Katharine gone and the poisoners out of power, you will no longer be a fugitive. You and your cat could go back to Wolf Spring.”
Jules looks at her as hope leaps into her chest. “Back to Wolf Spring?” She could go home. Home to Grandma Cait and Ellis. To Luke and even Madrigal. And Aunt Caragh . . . with the poisoners who banished her deposed, Aunt Caragh would go free as well.
“Even if I could go back, I would still be shunned for the curse,” she whispers, but the temptation in her voice is plain.
“Not by your family. You might catch a stone or two to the side of the head, but you would not be carted off in chains. And eventually, they would come around. They would see that you are still you, and there is no curse at all.”
The corner of Jules’s mouth curls upward. The thought of going home again is a sweet dream indeed.
“They’ll never follow me. No one will ever really fight beside someone with a legion curse.”
Emilia makes a fist and shakes it, as though the crown is as good as won. “You let us take care of that.”
In the rear of the Bronze Whistle, the door that leads to the alleyway opens and closes. The trio falls quiet listening to the footsteps, waiting to see whether they will turn up toward the manor house and leave them in peace. But as the footfalls enter the final corridor, they hear the kitchen boy exclaim, “Mistress Beaulin! We weren’t expecting you!”
“Mistress Beaulin,” Mathilde whispers. “Margaret Beaulin? From the Black Council?”
Emilia glances at Jules, then jerks her head hard toward the bar. Mathilde grabs Jules and drags her quickly behind it, crouched low and out of sight. She presses her finger to her lips as the footsteps pause in the doorway.
Margaret Beaulin. What could she be doing there, Jules wonders. What could she want?
Despite Mathilde’s firm grip on her arm, Jules leans out to the edge of the bar and peers around.
Margaret stands in the doorway in black and silver like the queensguard, her clothes still dusty from the road. A tall woman, she occupies nearly the whole frame. Emilia has remained seated, even kicked her chair back to rest her leg against the table. But her fingers brush the long knives she always keeps strapped to her sides.
“Margaret. It didn’t take long for you to find me.”
“It was easy enough to guess where you would be.” Margaret steps farther in, eyes darting fondly around the Bronze Whistle. “They say you’ve made it your own.”
“Who says?” Emilia asks. “So I will know whose tongue I must fork.”
“It looks the same as when your mother and I used to come here. When we used to bring you.”
“What are you doing here? Why are you not in the capital, licking an Arron boot?”
“Have you not heard?” Margaret asks, her mouth twisting bitterly. “The new queen has replaced me on the Black Council.” She walks to Emilia’s table. “Replaced me with a war-gifted priestess, of all things.”
Emilia draws one of her blades. “If you dare to sit, I will run this through your throat.”
Jules tenses, ready to help, though she knows not how. Emilia’s composure is cracking; the tip of her knife shakes and her voice is strained.
“Did you think it would be so easy? Did you think I would help you lick your wounds now that they have finally turned on you?”
“Emilia,” Margaret says softly. “I came to see you first. Before anyone, because I—”
“Because you knew if I had been the one to find you, you would not have survived the exchange!” She kicks away from the table and stands, her knife still aimed at Margaret’s chest. “You are not welcome here. And you will not speak to me. You left us for them. Now live with that.”
She walks quickly past Margaret and leaves. Jules twitches to follow. Except that Margaret is still standing in the middle of the room.
She stays there for a few long moments. Then she turns and walks quietly out. Mathilde waits until her footsteps have faded completely before emerging from behind the bar, cautious as a rabbit from a hole.
“Put this on,” Mathilde says, and drapes Jules in a red-hooded cloak. “Keep your head down and return to the Vatros house. I will follow Beaulin and see where she lands. And then I will go find Emilia.”
“You don’t think Emilia went home?”
Mathilde shakes her head. “When Emilia is troubled, she seeks out the quiet. There are not many places she would go; don’t worry. I will find her.”
“Why did Margaret Beaulin come here? How does she know Emilia?”
“Before she was a part of the Black Council, Margaret was Emilia’s mother’s blade-woman. Her war wife. Her lover,” Mathilde explains when Jules’s expression stays blank. “There was a time when they were family.”
Before Jules can ask more, Mathilde strides out on fast, long legs, leaving Jules in the empty tavern. She knows she should do as Mathilde says. But when she passes the kitchen boy, she cannot help asking,
“Which way did Emilia go?”
“That way,” he says, and points. “Toward the temple.”
“The temple?”
The boy nods knowingly, and Jules pulls her hood down low. She nods her thanks and presses a coin into his hand.
It does not take long for Jules to reach the temple. Even with her head down and keeping to the alleys, she cannot lose it: its impressive height and black-and-white marbled stone is impossible to miss. Emilia took her there once before, not long after she first arrived in the city, yet when she steps inside, it still makes her lips part in wonder.
The temple of Bastian City is so unlike the temple of Wolf Spring that Jules almost cannot reconcile the two as of the same purpose. Wolf Spring Temple is a small one-story circle of white stone, the interior little more than pews and an altar. Beauty is found in its simplicity and in the sprawling, wild gardens that climb across its gates and walls. By contrast, Bastian City Temple is a great hall, with ceilings too high for frescoes. The altar is set back deep as in a cave and twisted through with gold, so that when the sacred candles are lit, the entire altar appears to burn. Embers and rage, waiting to ignite.
Jules finds Emilia before all of that, in the massive chamber that precedes the main room of worship, staring up at the statue of Queen Emmeline. Queen Emmeline, the great war queen, who stands with marble arms raised, her armor depicted atop the flowing folds of her gown. Over her head, marble spears and arrows hang suspended, ready to pierce the hearts of anyone who would enter the temple to do harm.
“That was fast,” Emilia says. “I thought Margaret would keep you pinned inside the Bronze Whistle for a little longer. Where is Mathilde?”
Jules walks slowly to stand beside Emilia beneath the statue. “She followed her.”
“Ah, Mathilde.” Emilia smiles ruefully. “Always so thorough.”
“You never told me you were acquainted with a member of the Black Council.”
“And? There are many people you know whom you have never mentioned.” She sighs, and gestures to Queen Emmeline. “Isn’t she a marvel? A guardian. A sacker of cities. It’s strange, is it not, how good the Undead Queen is with her blades? If I did not know any better, I would say she had the war gift as well.”
“If she did, would you let her keep her crown?”
Emilia considers a moment. “No.”