Pietyr smiles. “I will see what I can do.”
“And what can I do for you? You can’t be here on account of my pretty face, dragged here like I was with a sack over my head.” She touches the ends of her hair hanging limply down her arms in strings.
Pietyr steps as close to the bars as he dares. He listens for any passing guards and hears none.
“I came to ask you about low magic.”
Madrigal rolls her eyes.
“I told you, there’s no way to kill me without unbinding the legion curse.”
“I think you are lying. I do not think you are the kind of person who would weave the kind of spell where the only way out is through your death.”
“I didn’t say it was the only way,” she says, and laughs. A pretty sound in the dark space. “I could work my own unbinding whenever I like. Perhaps I will when you let me out of here, just so your Katharine can really see what she’s up against!”
Pietyr crosses his arms. Something about Madrigal Milone is immediately unlikable. Perhaps it is the recklessness in her lovely eyes. Or perhaps it is the fear in them. He wants to turn around and leave her to rot, and he would, if he had any other choice.
“I need something from you, Madrigal Milone. And if you are wise enough to give it to me, I will give you something in return.”
“What could you possibly have that I would want?”
“How about a fighting chance? Katharine intends to march you out before your daughter’s rebel army. She intends to trade you for her. And I can tell by the look in your eyes that you know it is a trade your daughter will accept.
“If you can tell me what I need to know, I will give you a chance to avoid the trade. To flee.”
“How?”
“I will be the one to deliver you. I can cut your bindings when Juillenne is close enough to see. And you can run.”
“That’s not much of a chance.”
“It is the best I can give.”
Madrigal gets up and walks to him. She wraps her hands around the bars and considers, staring at her feet. Her crow flies onto her shoulder and starts to peck and worry at her hair, but she does not move. So strange, the naturalists are, to have a bird beak clicking and twisting like that and not even seem to notice.
“If Jules does trade for me, what will Katharine do with her?”
“She will be merciful. She will spend the rest of her days down here. And if she outlives the reign, perhaps one day she will be released.”
“Do you believe that?” Madrigal asks. “Do you trust her?”
“What matters is that you trust me. Tell me what you know about spiritual possession.”
“Spiritual possession?”
“Yes,” Pietyr snaps. “How would you use low magic to separate a dead spirit from a living body?”
Her eyes flash, piqued by sudden curiosity. “You’ll have to tell me exactly what’s happened. Or I’ll be of no help.”
Pietyr grinds his teeth. Hinting at Katharine’s secret to another member of the Black Council is one thing. But to confide in a naturalist traitor?
“Never,” he mutters, and walks away. Madrigal follows him along the bars.
“It’s the queen, isn’t it? That’s why she’s so strong. Why her gift seems so varied. She’s borrowing it from the dead.”
He stops and turns. He knows the look in his eyes must tell her she is right. But instead of laughing or shouting it to the rooftop, Madrigal’s mouth drops open in awe.
“Whose idea was that? Natalia Arron’s? That woman was clever indeed—”
“It was no one’s idea. It was an accident!” His hands shoot through the bars to hold her fast. “The night of the Quickening Ceremony, Katharine fell down into the Breccia Domain. We all thought her dead. But she came back. Only she did not come back alone.”
Madrigal’s eyes cloud a moment. Then she gasps.
“The Breccia! You mean—”
“That is precisely what I mean.”
“How many?”
Pietyr hangs his head, remembering Katharine falling. Remembering pushing her.
“As many as could get their dead hooks in, I suppose.”
“Two legion queens,” Madrigal says thoughtfully. “Maybe the oracle was wrong. Maybe my Jules is not the island’s ruin after all.”
Pietyr glares at her. “Tell me: can they be gotten out?”
“I’m not sure.” Madrigal turns around to pace slowly. “This is queensblood we are talking about. Queens and queensblood. Does she know you’re planning this?”
“Yes. She knows. She wants them out, too.”
“Hmph,” she snorts, unconvinced even though he looked her straight in the eye. “If you say so.”
She walks to the wall and crouches, pressing her hands against the cold, damp stone of the floor. “The queens were down there, trapped, all this time.” She chuckles. “No wonder they put forth such a charge to get her on the throne.”
“Do you know how to do it or not?”
Madrigal swivels to face him. “You’ll have to put them back where you found them.”
“Back into the Breccia Domain?”
“Yes.”
“And how am I supposed to do that? Katharine will never go back there.”
“I thought you said she wanted this?”
“She does,” he says. “But she does not always know it.”
Madrigal crosses her arms. She mutters something about sacred spaces, a bent tree, how her spellcraft would be more focused were she not beneath the accursed Volroy.
“You’ll have to make a Breccia Domain, then. A circle of stones from there should work. Put the dead ones back into the stones and then dump the stones back into the crevasse. The stones must touch, from end to end. And do not leave that circle until you are sure they have all been gotten out.”
“Is that it? Is that all?”
“No.” Madrigal smiles. “But I will tell you the rest when we are set to make the trade and you have cut me free.”
The poisoner in him would like to get it out of her now, lash her to a rack, and administer scorpion venom until she could barely speak for all her screaming. But that would eventually attract attention.
“You know there is a chance that Katharine will not survive this.”
“What?”
Madrigal raises her eyebrows. “Surely you must’ve considered that she may not be alive at all, except for them. She may truly be undead, and the moment she is emptied of the last of the queens, her body will break and shrivel up. Just like it would had they not intervened in the first place.”
Pietyr freezes. For a moment, the Volroy cells are gone, and they are deep down in the heart of the island. There is no light. Only the smell of cold rot. And the feel of bony fingers wrapped around his ankle.
“You poor thing,” Madrigal says. “You truly love her. Hasn’t anyone ever told you?”
“Yes, yes,” he says as he stalks away. “Only a fool would love a queen.”
Once upstairs, he intends to saddle a horse for Greavesdrake, to go there for a night and think. Instead, he wanders into the throne room, where he hears Katharine along with Bree Westwood and the one-handed priestess.
“Pietyr,” says Katharine when she sees him enter, “you are just in time. Our good Elizabeth has consented to send her familiar, Pepper, to the naturalist rebel with a message. I was just considering calling Rho to determine the best place for the prisoner exchange.”
“Why can you not summon the rebel here?” he asks, still dazed from his conversation below.
“I do not think she would come. Or if she did, she may bring her entire upstart army, and I would spare the capital that. Besides, I want to march with some of my new soldiers.” She has the parchment out and has written a few lines. There is room for only a few more. It is a small roll, cut for the leg of a small bird.
Pietyr looks at the woodpecker clinging docilely to the priestess’s shoulder. Can he really be so fast? Can such a tiny thing truly make it into the north country in winter to find a rebel camp?