“Don’t you touch her!” Joseph and Arsinoe bark together.
“This is over!” Arsinoe shouts up to the gallery. “She can’t kill me, no matter what she thinks. And I refuse to kill anyone.”
“Nor will I,” adds Mirabella, and the High Priestess, on her feet beside Natalia Arron, closes her eyes. Luca inclines her head as Natalia murmurs to her and nods. Then Natalia whispers to the Council. At once, guards and priestesses run into the arena, separating Arsinoe and Mirabella from Katharine. Jules punches the first in the eye and knocks back another three.
“Don’t fight,” Arsinoe says. “It’s over, Jules. But I will find a way to get you out of this.”
“What about you?” Jules asks as the guards place nervous hands on her. She glares at them and jerks back and forth, not hard enough to free herself but hard enough that they know she could. “Arsinoe, what about you?”
Arsinoe stares after her as Jules is taken away with Joseph and Camden. But she has no answer.
THE VOLROY
The guards take them to the Volroy, as Arsinoe expected. But instead of hauling them into the Council chamber to be thrown at the feet of Natalia Arron and High Priestess Luca, they are brought quickly and quietly underground and put into the cells deep beneath the castle.
“You can’t leave us here,” Arsinoe argues as the door closes. “We would speak to the Council! Mirabella, call for priestesses!” She turns, but Mirabella lowers herself quietly onto one of the wooden benches. They have locked them up together at least, and in one of the nicer cells, with four walls and a door with a barred window, and plenty of straw on the floor.
Shouts and scuffling ring out in the corridor, and Arsinoe looks and sees Jules and Joseph being dragged past. Jules slams her escort hard against the stones when Camden yowls. They have the poor cougar choked between two long poles, attached to ropes around her neck.
“Let the cat go,” Arsinoe says, “and you’ll have an easier time of it.”
They frown but release their poles. Arsinoe’s throat burns with anger watching poor Camden scramble fearfully behind Jules’s legs.
“It’ll be all right, Jules,” she calls. “Joseph, take care! We won’t be down here long!” There is no reply. Just the sound of their scraping shoes growing fainter and fainter.
“We are a curse on the ones we love,” Mirabella says.
“Yes. But what were we supposed to do? Die like we were told?” Arsinoe turns away from the door and sits down on the bench beside her sister. “How do you feel?”
“Poisoned. But I suppose you know what that is like.”
“Actually . . . ,” Arsinoe starts, but stops when she hears Billy’s voice.
“Let me pass,” he barks. “She’s my betrothed. I will see her!”
“Is he talking about you?” asks Arsinoe.
Mirabella chuckles. “No, you fool. Of course not.”
Arsinoe rushes to the cell door and slaps her palms against the wood, her face to the bars.
“Stand aside,” she orders the guards, and is surprised when they do. It seems that in the Volroy queens are queens, even fugitive ones.
“Arsinoe!”
Billy runs to her. His fingers twist around the bars, and he shakes the door. He kicks at it.
“Damn these bars!”
“Never mind them.” Arsinoe puts her hands over his, and he stares at them like he cannot believe the touch is real.
“You’re alive,” he whispers, his smile a flash in the shadowy hall. “I should wring your neck.”
“Good luck reaching far enough in here to do it,” she says, and he laughs. “I’m sorry. I wanted to find a way to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He slides his hand through to touch her face.
“I think I’ve gotten us into a mess.”
“As usual. But we’ll get out of it. Everything will be all right. Now that you’re alive.”
“I’m still sorry that you thought I wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry I agreed to marry your sister,” he says, and nods to Mirabella over Arsinoe’s shoulder. “How are you, Mira? Holding steady?”
“Just fine,” Mirabella says, and Arsinoe blushes. All her words to Billy have been overheard. But what does it matter? She cannot hold back, and Mirabella is apparently thrilled, leaning toward them with her knees tucked up like a child hearing a bedtime story.
“Billy,” Arsinoe whispers, her voice so low that even he can hardly hear, “Jules’s aunt Caragh and Madrigal are in the city. Look for them at the stables across from the Highbern or in the southern forest by the riverbank. They’ll be waiting for us, with Braddock. Get word to Cait and Ellis. They have to come to help Jules and Joseph, if nothing else.”
“I will,” he promises. He hurries away, and Arsinoe wants to scream. She grabs the bars, teeth clenched so she cannot beg him to stay. But Billy stops and comes back.
“I love you,” he says suddenly. “I should have told you. Maybe I never knew. But I do. And you love me, too. Say it.”
For a moment, Arsinoe just blinks. Then she laughs.
“Mainlander. You can’t make me say it.”
“Then say it when I get you out of here. Promise.”
“I promise.” Her eyes flicker toward the ceiling. “What’s happening up there, in the Council chamber?”
Billy’s eyes flicker toward the ceiling as well.
“No news yet. Maybe that’s a good thing.” He lingers. “I don’t want to leave you here. Neither of you.”
“I know. But you have to, for now. Find out what you can about Jules and Joseph,” Arsinoe says. “Don’t leave them without help.”
“I won’t.” He slips his fingers through the bars to touch her cheek again. “You will be out before the end of the day.”
Natalia stands carefully still in the Council chamber, waiting for the High Priestess to arrive. Carefully still so as not to resemble a confused and stupid bird, like Sara Westwood.
“Queen Mirabella should be placed in a secured room in the East Tower,” Sara says. Her voice is shrill, and it is not the first time she has suggested the move. “She does not belong in the cells!”
“The queens are safe and well-guarded,” Lucian Marlowe replies. “The sooner we sit down calmly, the sooner a resolution may be made.” He looks to Natalia for help, and she stares him down. What a fool to try to reason with a Westwood. He ought to grab Sara and shove her through the door.
And where is Luca? High Priestess Luca, who takes forever to get anywhere and uses her old legs as an excuse. But everyone knows she is fast and smooth as a snake when she wishes to be.
It seems another age passes before they hear the swishing of Luca’s robes, and she arrives flanked by the red-headed giantess.
“Finally,” Genevieve whispers as she ushers the priestesses into the chamber. “All are here, and the queens in their cells.” She somehow manages to sound as if they have gotten their way. As if any of this has gone their way.