“Such a waste of good eggs.”
Joseph looks up and sees Madge, hawker of the best fried clams in the market, reflected in the window, a basket covered in blue cloth hooked over her arm. He nods to her, and her wizened eyes squint in disgust.
“If they had any brains in their head,” she says, “they’d have used rotten eggs. Then the smell’d be bad enough to have you throwing up on your own shoes.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“Could have been anybody.”
Joseph dunks his rag again and goes back to cleaning. It could have been anybody. Barely a week has passed since Jules disappeared with Arsinoe’s body. Since the town learned about her legion curse. But how quickly they have turned on her. Her and everyone who loves her.
“He might not have even heard the eggs,” Madge says, her eyes on the black cloth Luke hung up inside to cover the windows. Black and crimson, for his queen. “It’s not like he’s peeked out here or left that house since it happened. He hasn’t even left his bed except to piss.”
“How would you know?” Joseph asks, and Madge flips back the cloth over her basket to reveal fried oysters and fresh baked bread. A little bottle of ale.
“Not up except to piss, I said, so who do you think’s been feeding him?”
Joseph smiles at the basket. Good old Madge.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” he says. “They’ll see. My family’s had boats pulled out of slips at night, people too cowardly to revoke business face-to-face. They might stop coming to your stand.”
“Let them. Who needs them.” She pauses and sneers over her shoulder at anyone who might be watching. “The cursed deserve compassion. Understanding. Not to be pecked to death like a chicken with a dark spot.” She points a finger at the smearing of eggs. “And not the sentence the Council’s going to give her when she returns.”
Joseph scrapes eggshell from the window and says nothing. After a moment, Madge squeezes his shoulder and steps past him into the shop, quieting the cheerful brass bell with one hand.
It takes him nearly two hours to scrub the mess from the windows. When he is finished, his rag is ruined, mostly slime, and the water in his bucket is foul-smelling sludge. No matter how many times he rinses it, Gillespie’s will still smell slightly on very hot days. But it is better.
Joseph is stretching the knots out of his back and shoulders when a pretty black crow lands beside his bucket and peers inside.
“Aria,” he says, and she caws.
He looks around for Madrigal and finds her walking calmly toward him from the square. Her white shirtsleeves are rolled against the heat, and her black skirt is tied with a crimson sash.
“Still no word from Jules?” he asks, even though he knows the answer.
“Nothing.”
“I thought she would be back by now.”
Madrigal shrugs.
“Digging a grave or building a pyre takes time,” she says. “Our Jules is all right. She’ll come back when it’s done.”
“And what if it isn’t done? What if Arsinoe is alive?”
“The Arrons took Braddock. Arsinoe never would have let them if she were alive. And they found her blood. Right where Queen Katharine said they would.”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t shot,” Joseph says, trying to explain without having to tell Madrigal the truth about Arsinoe’s poisoner gift. “I just don’t know where Jules would go. If she needed someplace safe.”
“There’s nowhere Jules feels safe,” says Madrigal. “Not since the Ascension started. Or maybe ever. She’s always been watchful. Ready. That was the war gift, even then.” Madrigal takes a breath, and her face falls. “Only someones have ever made Jules feel safe. You used to, Joseph. And my sister, Caragh.”
“Caragh,” Joseph whispers, and Madrigal’s eyes brighten as she realizes what he means.
“The Black Cottage. But that’s so far.”
“You know our Jules. She would have tried.”
Flustered, Joseph picks up his bucket and sloshes filth across his shoes. He feels like a fool for not thinking of the cottage before. He wants to run for it immediately, so sure that he will find her there.
“We have to be careful,” Madrigal says. “The Council has spies here now. They will be watching. We have to wait for cover of dark.”
GREAVESDRAKE MANOR
The Arrons hold a grand party at Greavesdrake Manor in honor of Katharine’s victory. Small celebrations along the road from Wolf Spring were not enough. Nor was the parade back into the capital, with Katharine riding point before the revived and roaring bear.
“The beast was such a spectacle,” Renata Hargrove comments to several gathered guests. “Thrashing against the ropes and swinging its head back and forth. Even though it had just been poisoned and badly bled!”
“Where is it now?”
“Caged in the courtyard of the Volroy. I can barely look at it without shivering.”
“Wait until I parade it into Rolanth for the Reaping Moon,” Katharine says. She reaches for a flute of champagne and does not bother to sniff for toxin before draining nearly half. “Poor Mirabella will probably faint.”
Nicolas slips his hand around Katharine’s waist and pulls her onto the dance floor. He holds her very close and whispers things that make her heart pound. And Pietyr watches from their table, clenching his jaw so hard his face looks like it is about to shatter.
“Why do you look at him?” Nicolas asks.
“At who?”
“At Pietyr Renard. There has been something between the two of you. I can see it in the way he watches us.”
“If there was before, it is over now.” But even as she says so, Katharine’s eyes flicker toward Pietyr. Nicolas is handsome. He is bold, and he wants her. But he has not replaced Pietyr, and she fears bitterly that he never will.
“Send him away,” Nicolas whispers.
“No.”
“Send him away,” he says again. “Soon I will be in your bed, and I don’t want to look over my shoulder and find him standing there.”
Katharine pulls back. She gazes at him coolly. It was a request. But it sounded like an order.
“Pietyr will stay as long as he likes,” she says. “He is an Arron. He is family.”
Nicolas shrugs, and his voice returns to its normal softness.
“As you wish. But will he take part in the Hunt of the Stags?”
“He may.”
“And will he try to poison me there? Cut me with a poisoned blade?”
“Will you try to put your knife in his back?” Katharine counters, but Nicolas only laughs.
“Of course not, my sweet,” he says. “When I kill a man, I look into his eyes.”
Katharine forces a smile. Of course he is joking. He must be. No one must ever be allowed to harm Pietyr. No one but her.
Something across the room catches Nicolas’s attention, and he steps away.
“One moment, Queen Katharine. I have a gift for you, and it has just arrived.” He excuses himself and cuts through the guests toward the main doors, where Natalia’s butler, Edmund, is waiting.
Pietyr approaches her from behind.
“He leaves you in the middle of a song?”