“A tailor friend traveling from Rolanth. He saw them readying two caravans. One is a decoy. To drive toward Indrid Down and ensure that Katharine stays put.”
“How would he know that?” Jules objects. “The decoy could be for us.”
“He saw scouts on the road and followed them as they curved around the capital toward Highgate. He lost them then, but it isn’t far from there to disperse into the wood. Our wood.”
Luke continues to serve, sliding biscuits onto each of their plates.
“I’ll be relieved to have one done, to be honest,” he says. “I wouldn’t have thought her brave enough to come here after the way she ran from the bear onstage.”
Joseph lowers his head.
“What luck to have the drop on her,” Luke goes on, and smiles. “The Goddess is with you, like I’ve always said.”
“Yes. It’s grand to have the upper hand,” Arsinoe says quietly. Luke does not know that the bear was a ruse. That she would have to walk into the fight alone. He will be so disappointed in her when she and Jules run away, to hide until Katharine is dead.
“We don’t have long,” Luke says. “If we are right, she could be in our forests in a day or two, just behind the scouts.”
The room falls silent. Hank pecks at the biscuit in Arsinoe’s limp fingers.
“We . . . ,” Jules says hesitantly. “We should go. Prepare.”
“Of course,” Luke says as they stand. “Take some biscuits with you. And some fish. I . . . I’m just so glad that I could give you this news. I almost wish I could go with you and fight.”
He hugs her, so unafraid. Confident that she will win, and Arsinoe hugs him back tightly.
“We’ll have to go,” Jules whispers as they go down the stairs. “If Mirabella is coming, we have no choice but to run.”
“I can bring the horses around after dusk,” Joseph says.
“No, I ought to bring the horses. My gift will keep them calm.”
Arsinoe walks through the shop on wooden legs as they assure her it will not be for long. That Mirabella will turn straight around when she finds Wolf Spring empty and go for Katharine. They might be able to come back within a week.
“I didn’t think she would attack,” Arsinoe says, dazed.
“I told you,” Jules growls, her eyes narrowed. “I told you that she would.”
They step out of the shop, ready to separate and race off to gather supplies, but instead run face-first into a gathered crowd. The shock is such that Camden hisses and paws the air at them.
“What . . . uh . . . what are you doing here?” Arsinoe asks. But she knows. They have come to see her off. Luke was never very good at keeping a secret.
“Will you bring the bear into the square before you go?” someone shouts.
“Go?” says Jules.
“Well, you can’t stay! You can’t let the elemental come to Wolf Spring! She’s a nightmare.”
“They’ve had lightning strikes as far west as Kenora,” someone else calls out. “Cows burned up in their pastures.”
“She’ll burn our boats into the harbor, looking for you!”
Joseph shakes his head. He should have stayed still. Too many still hate him for saving Mirabella at Beltane. Some hate him just because he has lived too long on the mainland.
“Burned-up cows in Kenora,” he mutters, looking past Jules right at Arsinoe. “As if she can command storms across the island while she sits at home in Rolanth.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Jules asks sharply. “If she’s coming here? They are right to be afraid.”
“They are,” says Arsinoe. “If she really means to kill me, I can’t let her do it here.”
“Right. So we run.”
“No. I can’t let her burn down houses looking for me. I have to find her first.”
“Arsinoe, what are you saying?” Jules asks, but Arsinoe can barely hear her over the growing noise of the crowd. Finally, Jules shouts at the people, loud enough that Arsinoe swears the planks beneath their feet quiver at the sound.
“You’re not ready,” Jules says, and Joseph slides his hand onto her shoulder. “Your bear . . . isn’t ready!”
“He seemed ready enough at Beltane!” someone shouts, and the crowd cheers.
Jules grasps Arsinoe by the arm.
“Let me slow her down. Let me be your decoy.”
“No, Jules. You know you can’t interfere.” She turns to Joseph. “Where is Billy? He should have been here. He should know.”
“His father sent a boat and he sailed for home. He said he wouldn’t be gone more than a couple of days. I . . .” He pauses helplessly. “If you go before he comes back, he’ll never forgive himself.”
“He’ll be fine,” Arsinoe says. “You’ll tell him I asked about him?”
Joseph nods.
“I’m going to go out and meet her,” Arsinoe says loudly. “I’m going to keep her out of our city so she can’t do any harm.”
The people smile and cheer. They clap their hands. Someone demands that she bring Mirabella’s body back strapped to the bear for them all to see. Something flies through the air and she catches it: a bag packed with supplies.
“A change of shirt and some food,” Madge says, and winks. “Bandages, though you won’t likely need them.”
Arsinoe swallows, and steps down into the square.
Jules tries to pull her back, and Camden cuts in front of her to curl around her legs.
“You can’t. You’re not ready.”
“It doesn’t matter, Jules. I don’t have any other choice.”
Beneath the bent-over tree, Arsinoe sits on a small log, edging her knife with poisonous nightshade. But though the poison on the blade practically sings through her blood, she does not want to use it. She does not want to hurt Mirabella.
But nor does she want to die.
“It won’t come to that,” she says to herself. “She’ll see me, and I’ll see her, and we’ll figure this out. It’ll be just like before.” She looks around beneath the tree, searching for agreement from the Goddess. For some sign.
The ancient, sunken stones are covered over with moss, and the tree has sprouted long, strange leaves, but that is only a disguise. Here in the sacred space, where the Goddess’s eye is always open, the tree does not care for summer, or winter, or time at all. Arsinoe listens to the utter silence, and wonders how much of her will be trapped here forever after she has sunk all that blood into the soil.
She gets back to work, rubbing and squeezing the nightshade along the blade. The scars of her face begin to itch, and she nudges the mask onto her crown. A twig snaps behind her and she tugs the mask quickly back down again.
“You don’t have to wear that thing on my account,” Madrigal says, dipping prettily below the bent branches in a bright green dress. “It can’t be that comfortable in the heat.”
“It’s fine,” Arsinoe says.
“You like the way that people look at you in it, you mean,” Madrigal says, and Arsinoe purses her lips. “I heard about Mirabella’s attack. I thought I might catch up with you here. I hoped that I would.”
“Why?”
“Because it would mean you are doing something more than walking out to face your death. Jules is going out of her mind. Not even Joseph can calm her.”
Arsinoe looks down. She hates to think of Jules that way. Panicked. Afraid.