“He says he has a gift for me.”
He turns her into his arms, and they begin to dance. It is easier and more natural feeling than with Nicolas. She and Pietyr are matched. When she looks into his eyes, she sees herself. Her better self reflected back at her.
“Whatever gift it is, it will not be worthy of you. He does not know how to treat a poisoner queen.”
Nicolas returns, with Edmund following and carrying a silver tray. A vase at its center holds a small bundle of greens capped with tiny white blossoms, and along the outside edge several cups stand filled with a white liquid.
Nicolas leads them off the dance floor to Natalia’s table, where Natalia sits talking with Genevieve, their brother Antonin, Cousin Lucian, and other members of the Black Council.
“If you will permit me,” he says, and they look up. “I have brought a gift, in honor of Queen Katharine’s victory.” He sets a glass before every poisoner at the table, even shoving a cup into Pietyr’s hand, before serving Natalia and Katharine last. “I hope you don’t mind my use of your staff, but . . . I wanted it to be a surprise.”
Natalia looks at the plants in the vase.
“White snakeroot,” she says.
“I don’t believe you have it here,” says Nicolas.
“We do not.” She adjusts her heavy black mamba as its drugged head slides down her arm. “But I know it well. Grazing on as little as a small bundle can toxify an entire mother cow, rendering the meat, and the milk, completely poisonous.”
“Serving a poison known to cause milk-sickness in a glass of milk,” Pietyr says, and sniffs his glass. “You are quite a student, Nicolas. Soon you will be an expert in it.”
“Renard,” Nicolas replies, “what talent you have for making a compliment sound like a threat.”
Katharine glances between them, and Natalia lifts her milk, knowing as usual when to diffuse a situation.
“A truly exotic poison,” she says. “A fine gift. We will savor it, slowly.” Her eyes find Katharine’s. Slowly and in a minute amount. Katharine has been exposed to white snakeroot only two or three times.
Katharine raises her glass and drains it. She wipes her lips with the back of her hand and listens to the gasps.
Natalia’s eyes tremble above the rim of her cup, but she sips.
“You will be drunk on that, Queen Katharine,” she says. “It is too potent. You should retire now to your rooms.”
But Katharine is not brought to her rooms. She is brought into Natalia’s study. By the time she reaches it, the poison is already breaking into her body. She barely has time to remove Sweetheart from her wrist and hand her off to Pietyr before she falls to the rug.
The convulsions are violent. Painful. Her teeth clench, and she bites her tongue. The blood tastes of the poisoned milk.
She listens to the fear in Natalia’s and Pietyr’s voices as they scurry to invoke the other side of their gift, the healer’s side, combing their memories over old lessons. Remedies. Antidotes. Bottles rattle on Natalia’s shelves as she fingers through them. Drawers squeak open and slam shut.
“Put your hand down her throat,” Natalia orders. “Make her void her stomach.”
Pietyr kneels at her head. He tries.
“I cannot get past her teeth!”
“Katharine!” Natalia looms over her. Her only mother, and her face is full of fear. “Kat, throw it up now!”
The convulsions ease, and she relaxes, though the pain remains. It feels as though someone has reached through her ribs to squeeze her heart.
Pietyr gathers her into his lap. He kisses her forehead and pushes damp black hair from her cheeks.
“Katharine, please,” he whispers. “You will kill yourself if you keep on this way.”
Katharine’s head swivels loosely on her neck. When she speaks, her voice is rasping and strange, hardly her own.
“Do not be ridiculous, boy. You cannot kill what is already dead.”
THE BLACK COTTAGE
When Arsinoe wakes, her first sight is Jules and Camden sharing a chair. She smiles weakly and blinks against the brightness, every muscle in her body groaning and stiff. But she is warm, and alive, and the bed she is in would be comfortable were it not for the throbbing sewn-up hole in her back. She has no idea where they are, but there is something very familiar about this room.
“Jules?”
“Arsinoe!” Jules and Camden jump up from the chair. Camden leaps onto her feet, purring, her tail winging back and forth.
“Water,” Arsinoe croaks, and swallows for what feels like forever after Jules pours her a cup. Her mouth tastes terrible. Like old blood.
“Aunt Caragh!” Jules shouts. “Willa! She’s awake!”
“Willa?” Arsinoe rubs her eyes. She knows where they are now. The Black Cottage, where she was born.
Caragh walks into the room with Juniper, her dark brown hound, and immediately comes to kiss Arsinoe on the cheek. Arsinoe can only stare. Then old Willa pushes Caragh out of the way to press the back of her hand against Arsinoe’s forehead.
“No fever,” Willa says. “Your luck is holding.”
“She has more luck than anyone I’ve ever heard of,” Jules says. “How many times have you almost died? Three? Four?”
“Try ten or eleven.” Arsinoe pushes up off her pillow. Caragh and Jules inhale, but Willa quickly stuffs another behind her back.
“Let her sit up,” she says gruffly. “It is good for her lungs. And her poisoner gift will let her heal faster than you would.”
“Poisoner gift,” Arsinoe says. “My secret’s less of a secret.”
“She already knew,” says Jules.
Arsinoe reaches out and strokes Juniper’s brown head. Looking into the dog’s sweet, dark eyes, she almost wants to cry. She has missed them so much.
“You must be surprised to be here,” says Caragh.
“I’m surprised to be anywhere.” She pauses as she remembers the Queens’ Hunt. The vicious look on Katharine’s face. “Braddock?”
Jules shakes her head.
“I don’t know, Arsinoe. We had to run so fast. . . .” She says no more, but Arsinoe knows that the poisoners would not have left the bear alive. They could not have, as angry as he was. Poor Braddock. She had been a fool to think she could protect him.
“Billy,” she says suddenly. “He must think I’m dead. Everyone must.”
“Everyone does,” says Jules. “Or at least no one has come looking.”
“I am going out for more yarrow.” Willa trudges around the bed and heads for the door. “And now that she is awake, there are vegetables that need picking. I have not forgotten what it took to feed her when she was a child. I can only imagine what she will eat now. Come, Caragh.”
Caragh nods. But before she goes, she touches Arsinoe’s scarred cheek.
“I’m sorry you took an arrow to the back,” she says. “But I’m still glad to see you.”
She smiles, closed lipped and almost grim as she rolls up her sleeves. Nothing about Caragh is free and easy like her sister, Madrigal. But there is more in a single gesture than a dozen of Madrigal’s embraces.