Bree rolls her eyes.
“Now you sound like Luca. This is a good thing, do you not see? You will kill Katharine and Arsinoe both, and then we will have nothing but feasting and suitors until your crowning at Beltane.”
Everyone in Rolanth seems to agree, indoctrinated by Luca all these years to believe Mirabella’s legend.
“It will be hard to protect you in Wolf Spring,” Elizabeth says. “The people are wild. And with the temple obligated to be neutral, Rho will not be able to help.”
“Her gift will keep her safe,” Bree says confidently. “And so will we. That is what foster guardians are for.”
She pats Mirabella’s hand, but in truth they have always relied on the priestesses for their security. The Westwoods have had nearly no practice guarding her at all.
“Are you frightened, Mira?” Elizabeth asks.
“My senses are uneasy,” she replies. “I do not like leaving Rolanth. And that it was not our idea.” And she cannot stop thinking of what Billy told her. That Arsinoe had not sent the bear. And she did not fight back in the Ashburn Woods or use the bear then to harm her . . .
She looks into Elizabeth’s wide, dark eyes.
“I am only afraid of what I must do.”
Elizabeth slips her arm around the queen. “It will be all right,” she says, and Pepper the woodpecker flits from his hiding place in her hood to nibble on Mirabella’s earlobe.
“Pepper ought to be in a tree,” Bree whispers. “It is risky having him with you in the temple, close to so many watchful eyes.”
“I know.” Elizabeth rolls her shoulder and Pepper disappears back into her robes. “But it’s hard to get him to leave me when he knows I’m nervous or upset.”
“So do not be nervous or upset! Mira will not fail us.”
As they pass by an open storeroom door, they see Billy bent over in a barrel. Harriet the chicken sees them and clucks. Billy straightens and knocks dust and straw out of his hair.
“Oho! You’ve caught me.”
“What are you doing?” Mirabella asks.
“I’m setting aside things to bring with us to Wolf Spring. I heard there were jarred tomatoes and blackberries. For your favorite of my dishes: warmed jarred tomatoes on toast.”
“I thought you would be better at cooking by now,” Bree scolds. “Mira has grown so thin, half of her dresses had to be sent to the tailor!”
“Why don’t you teach me, then, Bree?” he asks. “If you are any better at it, I’ll eat my hat.”
Elizabeth giggles.
“Bree can barely slice bread for a sandwich.”
“Oh, who needs to slice bread, anyway?” Bree steps into the storage room to help Billy search the crates.
“What happened to buying from town?” she asks, her voice strained as they lift a crate lid. “My mother gave you money, and the priestesses would inspect whatever you bought.”
“Yes, well, that money may have found its way into a very fine restaurant on Dale Street. And into a few of the pubs off the marketplace.”
“Billy Chatworth,” Mirabella exclaims. “You have been feasting, and I have been eating jarred tomatoes on toast.”
Billy grins.
“I tried going into the market. But I didn’t care for the merchants there. They spat at Harriet like she was a familiar.”
Mirabella’s smile fades. The resentment between the people will lessen in time. Luca says the island will be united under her once the crown is settled.
“Perhaps I ought to go along—” Bree starts, and then Elizabeth screams.
She shakes her head and covers her mouth with her hand. Pepper flies from her hood and flaps in noisy circles around the storeroom, his little body striking the walls in panic.
Elizabeth points with the stump of her wrist.
The priestess dead behind the stack of barrels has not been dead long. Her cheeks are still pink, and gold curls fall softly across her forehead. From her neck up, she could be sleeping. But below it is a horror of swollen blood vessels so enflamed that they stand out on her chest like cracks in a vase. The bodice of the poisoned dress is tight and touches so much of her skin. Blue fabric streaked now with blood and the girl’s fingernails full of her own flesh, from trying to claw her way out of it.
“There now, there now,” Billy says, gathering Elizabeth close and trying to quiet her. “Mirabella, stay back.”
Footsteps echo down the corridor: priestesses coming to investigate the screams.
“Get Pepper back into your robes!” Bree hisses.
But the poor bird is panicked. Thinking fast, Mirabella stumbles into the doorway to divert attention so Elizabeth can calm down and collect him.
“What is it?” the first of the priestesses demands. She looks Mirabella over head to toe, and the others push into the storeroom. When they see the fallen girl, a few of them moan miserably. The girl was one of them. One of theirs.
Luca pauses briefly in her pacing to touch Mirabella’s hair. Mirabella is on the sofa in Luca’s rooms, wedged snugly between Bree and Elizabeth and an embroidered pillow.
The door opens, but it is only an initiate carrying a tray of tea and cookies, which Billy dutifully tastes even though it will all go untouched.
“I do not want you to do that anymore,” Mirabella says.
“It’s what I’m here for,” he says gently. “I knew the risks. As did my father when he sent me.”
“You were here to make a point,” Luca corrects him. “And so your father could garner favor with us. Personally, I think he is mad to put you in this poisoner’s path, even with my priestesses tasting before you.”
“No one else must do this,” Mirabella says. “No tasters. No more.” The dead girl’s face floats in her mind, warring with another image locked inside her: little Katharine, sweet and smiling.
The door opens again. This time it is Rho. She has taken down her hood, and red hair blazes past her shoulders.
“Who was it?” Luca asks.
“The novice, Rebecca.”
Luca presses her hands to her face. Mirabella did not know her, except for seeing her pass by in the temple.
“She was . . . ambitious,” Luca explains, sitting down finally, in one of her overstuffed chairs. “She must have been testing the dress.”
“Alone?” Rho asks. “And by putting it on?”
“She was a good priestess. Devoted. From a farm in Waring. I will write to her family and send blessing. We will place the ashes in an urn after she is burned, in case her mother wishes her remains be returned.”
Mirabella winces. It is all so fast. So businesslike.
“Did she suffer?” Mirabella asks. “I do not care if you think it a weak question, Rho. I want you to answer.”
Rho’s jaw unclenches. “I suppose I do not know, my queen. From the skin raked under her fingernails, I would say yes. But the poisoning was fast. No one heard her cry out, and she did not have time to leave the storeroom for help.”
“Do we know what it was?” asks Luca.
“Something absorbed through contact with the skin. The wounds are localized near the bodice, where the dress fit the tightest. We will examine it before it is destroyed, to look for hidden pins or razors.”