“It is not much longer until we reach Rolanth,” Mirabella says, lifting her voice.
“I know. You’re all cheaters, you elementals. Calling the winds and pushing the waves. This barely qualifies as sailing.” He smiles, but it looks wrong without touching his eyes.
“At least you saw her again,” Mirabella says gently. “At least you had time with her. I hope that your last moments were good ones.”
“I should have told her. I never told her.”
“I am sure that she knew.”
“How could she? All I did was tell her that she was unfit. Unsuitable. Infuriating, with none of the makings a man looks for in a wife.” He laughs hollowly. “And that was true. But I would have overlooked all that.”
Mirabella exhales. She meant to chuckle.
Billy reaches onto the side table and picks up a couple bits of jewelry that Bree left lying there. “This is such a strange stateroom. Things left out. Nothing nailed down.”
“No need for that on an elemental ship.”
He curls the black-and-silver bracelet in his fingers and drops his hand into his lap.
“What will you do now?” he asks. “Will you forget her too?”
Mirabella turns to her wall as though she can see through it to the tossing ocean outside. As she always does, she feels the elements all around her. The lightning she could crackle through the clear sky. The wind that would scream for her. The soft hum of the flame atop her candle. She could reach out with her gift and use the sea like her fist. Topple the ship and press it with waves until it cracked. All the elementals on board could not stop her.
But Billy is there, whom Arsinoe loved. And somewhere is Jules, who is still being hunted. And Kat. She must not forget about Kat.
Still so much work to be done.
“I will not forget her if you stay and help me to remember,” Mirabella says. “If you stay and help me to avenge her.”
“Stay,” he says.
“Yes. And rule with me, for her.”
They regard each other in the quiet, dim light. He seems as surprised to hear it as she is surprised to ask. Since she was a child, Luca tried to convince her that she was an important queen. It was a lesson she neither believed nor wanted. But she believes it now.
“You would choose me as your king,” he says.
“King-consort,” she corrects him. “But yes.”
“Is that what she would want?”
“I do not know. But we must marry someone. And the ones we would have . . . we cannot have.”
Billy stares at her hard.
“So we are a good match.” Then he shakes his head. “I can’t do this. So soon after. It feels wrong.”
“You want to avenge her, do you not? Or would you give up now and go back to the mainland? Will you go and pay court to Katharine, her murderer?”
“No,” Billy barks, and his expression turns dark. “Never.”
“Then stay and be a part of it.” Mirabella holds out her hand. She needs him to say yes. She suddenly cannot bear the thought of him leaving. He—the only suitor who loved her sister—he must be king.
“I wanted her to have everything,” he says, staring at her hand. “I wanted to have everything with her.” Mirabella waits. She lets him wipe his eyes and take his deep breaths. Billy Chatworth has a good heart. He is smart, and strong, and loyal.
“Will we seal this bargain with a handshake, then?” he asks.
“Is that how it is done on the mainland?”
“Only between men of honor,” he says, and slides his hand into hers.
It is not the first time they have touched. But this touch is charged with the knowledge that one day they will exchange much more than a handshake. Billy’s fingers slip out of hers, and he looks away, guilty. But Arsinoe and Joseph are not there to judge.
“So what now?” he asks.
“Now we take the fight to Katharine.”
The ship reaches port in Rolanth not long after, and Bree and Elizabeth come to take Mirabella above. They are surprised to find Billy already there, fastening her light summer cape about her shoulders.
“You’re wearing all black,” Elizabeth says to him.
“Black is the color of mourning where I come from.”
“Well, here it is the color of queens,” Bree says. She unties the gauzy crimson scarf at her throat and reties it onto his. “There. For your Arsinoe.”
He touches it and looks at Mirabella.
“Or should I be in all black? For you?” he asks, but she shakes her head.
“No,” Mirabella says. “That is fitting.”
Bree and Elizabeth exchange a glance. Not even they know about the betrothal agreement. Word would spread too fast, and Mirabella did not want Luca’s questions, or Sara’s worries.
Mirabella and Billy step up onto the deck together to face the massive crowd gathered at the Rolanth docks. All around the port, candles burn in the proud, white buildings, and the people are dressed in black and crimson to mourn a queen. Their eyes are somber and chins high. The only sound is the cawing of seabirds fighting over fish scraps.
Sara and Luca stand on the deck already, but Mirabella walks quickly past them, tugging Billy behind her before either has a chance to speak. This is her crowd. Her moment. She opens her mouth with every eye upon her.
“No doubt you have heard what happened in Wolf Spring,” she says, loudly. “The death of my sister, the naturalist Queen Arsinoe, at the hands of the poisoner Queen Katharine.” She pauses to let the grumbling build, the disdainful whispers about the poisoners. “Now she thinks to come to Rolanth for the festival of the Reaping Moon. To have her triumph before all of you.”
The people start to shout, and she lets them, talking louder over the tops of their furrowed brows and shaking fists.
“She thinks to parade into our city—my city—and kill me as if it is sport. But she will not!”
Mirabella feels the whisper of robes at her shoulder, and Luca’s calm voice cuts through the noise.
“Mira,” she says. “What are you up to?”
Mirabella reaches back and takes Billy by the hand.
“Today I choose my king-consort! And he chooses me, uniting Wolf Spring and Rolanth under one crown!
“And today I challenge Queen Katharine to a duel!” she shouts. “A duel in Indrid Down! I would have you join me there, and we will put an end to this poisoner at last!”
Her people cheer. She raises Billy’s hand in hers, and the people cheer louder. This is what they have wanted. To see their chosen queen rise up and seize her throne.
“Mirabella,” Luca says. “This is not wise.”
“Perhaps not, but it is done,” says Mirabella. “Katharine thinks she will celebrate the Reaping Moon here. But by the time the Reaping Moon comes, she will already be dead.”
WOLF SPRING
Joseph wrings his rag out in his soap bucket and wrinkles his nose. Someone has thrown eggs against the windows of Gillespie’s Bookshop. A whole clutch of them it seems. And in the midday heat, the sticky, running yolks have already started to smell.
Joseph starts at the top and wipes down, the cloth and water not doing much but smearing the whole mess together. He should have brought a brush. And more buckets.