“The Goddess feels different.”
“How do you know what the Goddess feels?” Madrigal snaps, but Jules shushes her. Emilia’s father stands as straight as Cait, his hair dark brown and face lightly lined. And if Madrigal engages him in debate, they will stand in the shadows bickering until the sun comes up and their entire party is discovered.
“Let’s get moving, then,” Arsinoe says. Two warriors come to take Joseph from Jules’s shoulders. Jules looks to Arsinoe, and she nods. They will accept help now, and ask questions later.
Quickly and quietly, they slip through the main level of the Volroy, running and ducking through the castle keep and the inner cloister until they reach the arched, exterior gateway and hunch in the shadows.
Jules swallows nervously. Emilia has dragged her to the fore, and she cannot help but feel as though her war gift is being tested.
“There they are,” Emilia whispers, and Jules pushes away from the stone wall of the arch to see what she sees: four fast flashes in the dark, from their compatriots scouting ahead.
“Four flashes,” Jules says. “Four guards between us and the edge of the courtyard.”
“Yes. Do you see them?”
Jules creeps forward and looks up to the battlements. She sees two. “Where?”
“The other two are along the hedge. Too close together to take separately. Whichever died last would shout, raise an alarm.”
Emilia unslings her bow.
“Can’t we wait until they leave?” Jules asks. “And then slip out toward the forest?” Once they are in the nighttime streets, it will be easy. Jules still remembers the map of Indrid Down. It is not more than a twenty-minute run before they find the meadow and then the trees for good cover.
“We have waited too long as it is. It is a wonder someone has not awoken the entire guard already.” Emilia nocks an arrow and whistles. Across the corridor, another warrior does the same. Both take aim at the guards, chatting near the hedge.
“Guide my arrow,” Emilia whispers.
“What? I can’t!”
Emilia grins. “Yes you can,” she says. “But it’s all right. I can make the shot without you.”
Another whistle and the arrows fly. Both guards fall with nary a sound.
“Hey,” Jules growls, and grabs Emilia’s arm. “Don’t do that. We have queens here. Don’t waste time by messing about with me!”
Emilia cocks her head. Then her eyes dart to the battlements when another warrior whistles.
“The battlements! They’ve seen us!”
Jules looks up just as one of the guards fires a crossbow. She flinches and pushes her mind hard, and the bolt bounces off the stones to Emilia’s right.
“Go, now!” Jules waves for Arsinoe to come. They dash through the courtyard. Guards at the battlements have alerted others, and arrows strike the ground, too close for Jules’s liking. She turns back and pushes out, out, sending as many as she can off course. Even with the blood pounding in her ears, the effort is exhausting.
A warrior fires an arrow beside her, and she watches a guard tumble down the wall.
“Jules!” Arsinoe calls. “Come on!”
Jules and Emilia turn to run, helped by the cover of the other warriors. As they pass the guards fallen by the hedge, an arm shoots out and grasps Jules’s ankle. She flies face first onto the path and rolls to kick, but Emilia leaps over the top of him. She takes his head in the crook of her arm and twists.
“Dead now,” she says. “Let’s go!”
The fleeing queens and their rescue party dissolve into the streets, some going one way, some another. The layout of the city memorized, they meet in alleys to cross paths, running breathless and silent until they break into the meadow in twos and threes to dissipate like drops of ink into water.
“You were good back there.” Emilia grins. “I do not like to think of how many poisoned arrows your executioner would have needed to pierce your gift.”
“How can you say that to her and smile?” Arsinoe asks.
“How can you talk at all?” Billy asks, panting. He has taken over helping Joseph and struggles beneath the extra weight.
Jules reaches out, but Joseph waves his hand.
“I’m fine, Jules, I’m fine.” She steps close and kisses his face. It is cool to the touch and drenched in sweat.
“We have to get him to a healer.”
“We came on a barge,” says Emilia’s father. “It will carry you wherever you wish to go.”
GREAVESDRAKE MANOR
Katharine’s door opens, but the person who bursts in is not who they expect. It is not Natalia. It is Genevieve.
“Forgive me, Queen Katharine. I do not wish to interrupt but I felt you should know—”
Genevieve stops when she sees Pietyr with Katharine in his arms. Then her mouth drops open at the sight of Nicolas lying dead in the bed.
“What . . . ?”
Genevieve rushes past Katharine and Pietyr and stares down at the body. She does not ask whether someone else could have poisoned him. She is enough of a poisoner herself to see what has happened.
“Katharine, what have you done?”
“I did not mean it!” Katharine cries.
“It will be all right,” Pietyr whispers into her hair.
“How will it be all right?” Genevieve asks, her lilac eyes wild. “We have made her into poison!”
“We have made her a Queen Crowned,” says Pietyr.
“No,” Katharine says. “How can I be, Pietyr, if I can take no king-consort? If I cannot bear the triplets?”
“The poison may fade in time,” says Pietyr, but his voice is doubtful.
Genevieve slumps against the bed. Her hand slides in a puddle of cooling blood, and she shakes it off, splattering the sheets. As she leans toward the lamp for something to wipe herself clean with, the light shows her face, swollen from crying.
“Genevieve,” Katharine says. “What is wrong?”
Genevieve’s arms fall to her lap. She seems to shrink right in front of them.
“Natalia is dead. Murdered.”
Katharine freezes. That cannot be right. Natalia, murdered? No one would dare. No one could.
“There must be some mistake,” says Pietyr. “Who? Who did it?”
“It does not matter who. We are over. Finished.” Genevieve’s fingers wrap around the corner of the bedsheets, shaking. “Look at this dead king! The temple will not have this . . . nor the Council. . . .” She looks around desperately as if she will find Natalia there somewhere, hiding. “What are we to do? We will have to stop Mirabella’s execution! Give her the crown instead! How those Westwoods are going to laugh—”
“Stop it!” Pietyr storms across the room. He grabs Genevieve by the arm and drags her to her feet. “Tell us what happened to Natalia. Tell us now.”
“William Chatworth strangled her,” Genevieve says. “The war priestess found him and put her knife into his chest. But by then, it was too late.”