“If you say so.”
Mirabella watches her go. Jules has her arms wrapped around Joseph and gripping tight to ropes, soaked and miserable-looking already. Arsinoe joins Billy at the helm, and they cling to the wheel as the ship rises and falls.
Mirabella turns back to the storm. The electricity in the air hums in her elemental veins. The dawn is gone. All is dark. The waves raise them up only to send them crashing back down, and the first of the lightning crackles across the sky.
The net of mist swallows the boat to curl around the port side in thick, white fingers. Mirabella sends them surging ahead; she uses the wind to push the mist away. She calls more rain, more lightning to dance with the storm of the island.
If the Goddess truly wanted to keep her, then she should not have chosen a storm as the means to try.
Beneath the warring storms, it is dark as midnight. Only lightning illuminates their way, and it is terrifying: near constant. Arsinoe has never seen lightning strike lightning before, and after this is over, she has no care to again.
Together, she and Billy fight to keep the wheel steady, half steering and half holding on to keep from being washed overboard. Joseph and Jules huddle together near the railing, arms wrapped around ropes. Mirabella stands alone on the foredeck, using one storm to fight the other.
“I don’t know how much longer we can do this,” Billy shouts between the thunder. “I don’t know how much longer she can!”
Arsinoe’s teeth chatter in the wet and the wind, her jaw clacking too hard to reply.
They crest a wave and slam down. She bites her lip and tastes warm salt, but cannot tell whether it is blood or the sea. A wave tilts the deck hard to starboard, and for one frozen moment, it seems they will not come back upright. But they do. She barely has time to sigh with relief before another wave hits, with so much force it feels like being slammed into a wall.
“Are you all right?” Billy shouts, and she nods, coughing. There is so much water and cold. She wipes salt from her eyes. Mirabella is still upright amid everything, and Arsinoe smiles. She does not know how anyone ever expected that she or Katharine could stand against that.
Jules grabs Joseph by the arm and hauls him to her chest as the waves batter them against the railing. “Joseph, hold on to me! Hold on to me, and don’t let go!”
“I will never,” he says, his voice soft and clear so close to her neck. His breathing is shallow, and he no longer shivers. She draws back to look into his eyes. There is too much seawater for tears.
“What will we do,” she asks gently, “when we reach the mainland?”
“Anything we want.” His eyes drift shut. “There is a great school there, and bells that ring like music. . . . We can learn anything we like.”
“Anything,” she says. “And everything. And we will be together.”
“We will be. Just like I planned.” He smiles that Joseph smile, and Jules kisses him and kisses him, even after she no longer feels him kissing back.
The storm pitches them back and forth in the mist, but Mirabella clings to the rail like a barnacle, even though she is panting, and the strength is leaving her legs.
The mist still holds them like a net.
“I’ve got you, Sister,” Arsinoe says. “I’ll help you.”
Mirabella blinks. Somehow Arsinoe fought her way across the deck. Somehow she is standing and pulling Mirabella back onto her feet. She slips her fingers into Mirabella’s hand and squeezes.
“I’m no elemental,” Arsinoe says. “But I am still a queen.”
Mirabella laughs. She screams. And they face down the storm one more time as wind pushes the sails taut and the waves strike hard enough to tear at their clothes.
Perhaps if Katharine were there and they were three together it would have all gone easier. But as it is, they are only two, and the Goddess takes that much more convincing.
When the storm dies, it dies so quickly that Mirabella’s storm continues to rage for long moments before she realizes. She trembles, and Arsinoe catches her when she seems about to fall.
Around them, the white mist swirls and parts, revealing sunlight on the water, and in the distance, the dark shape of land.
“That’s it!” Billy shouts. “That’s home. I’d know it anywhere!”
Home. His home. Arsinoe throws her arms around Mirabella, and they huddle on the foredeck, so tired that their laughter sounds nearly like tears.
“I was afraid it was the island,” Arsinoe says. “Like it was on Beltane. But we made it! Jules! Jules, look!”
Jules is seated beside the rail with Joseph pulled across her lap. He is not moving.
Billy leaps down from the helm and rushes below to let Camden up; they can hear the poor cat butting against the door. In moments, she leaps onto the deck, lashing her tail angrily, and bounds to Jules. But when she sniffs at Joseph, she lets out a long, low moan.
“No.” Arsinoe runs to them. “No!”
She kneels and touches his cold face.
Billy turns away and curses. He grips the rail and shouts at no one.
“But we’re here,” Arsinoe says. “We made it!”
Jules grasps her, and they hold each other tight.
Mirabella approaches quietly, her ragged, torn skirt rustling and soaked with salt water.
“Oh, Joseph,” she whispers, and begins to weep.
“I’m sorry,” Arsinoe says as Jules struggles up from underneath them. Joseph’s face is peaceful. But he cannot really be gone. Not their Joseph.
Jules wanders across the deck. “Will you have a funeral for him?” she asks. “Billy, will you?”
“Of . . . of course we will,” he says.
“Jules?” Arsinoe asks. “What are you doing?”
Jules is faced back toward the mist that shrouds the ghost of the island.
“All that sailing,” she whispers. “Yet it’s still not far. I won’t even need to row long to reach a port.”
“Jules!” Arsinoe scrambles up. She goes to her and takes her by the arm. “What are you talking about? You are not going back.”
Jules shakes her off, and Arsinoe’s mouth drops open.
“I can’t go,” Jules says. “You know I can’t. I belong in one place, and that’s there.” She nods to the island. But she cannot really want to return. She must just be afraid. And sad. But they are all sad.
Jules reaches out and looses one of the small whaling boats from the starboard side.
“No.” Arsinoe slaps her hands. “I’m sorry about Joseph. I know you loved him. I loved him, too! But you can’t go!”
“You don’t need me anymore,” Jules says, and actually smiles. “You’ve fought, and you’ve won.”
“We have won. Don’t you see?” Arsinoe turns around and points to the mainland.
“There’s everything, right there! There’s freedom, and choices, and a life spent together! No one to tell us we weren’t meant to be. No crown. No Council. No killing. We get to decide who we are now, outside of all that.”
The boat rocks gently, and the mainland shines green under summer sun. There is no mist. No one waiting to kill her or tell her to kill.