Two Years Later
Arsinoe and Jules walk through the meadow beside Dogwood Pond. There is no one watching them. They have no escort. They have not even told anyone where they are going or when they will be home. Arsinoe thought that after what happened, after Jules and Joseph stole that boat and tried to flee the island with her, they would be guarded night and day. Instead, it is the opposite, as if they are barely seen.
Since Caragh departed for the Black Cottage, and Joseph sailed away to his banishment, so much sadness emanates through the Milone house, and all of Wolf Spring, that it is like the peoples’ hearts have slowed their beating.
“What do you want to do?” Arsinoe asks. “Go fishing? Swimming? The water’s still warm enough. Look for berries left in Pace’s ditch?”
“Sure,” Jules says. But she does not say which. And there is no fire in her voice, though she does turn to Arsinoe and smile. Good Jules. She has done everything she can to let Arsinoe know that she does not blame her. But Jules’s blame does not matter. Arsinoe knows that what happened to Caragh and Joseph was her fault. They were punished because they tried to save her.
Late at night, when she lies in her bed in the room she shares with Jules, Arsinoe still thinks about that day in the capital. That look on Natalia Arron’s face when she banished Joseph and Caragh. How Arsinoe hates the Arrons, every one of them, with their cold, blond coloring and imperious eyes. She would like to ruin everything for them, like they have ruined everything for Jules and the Milones. She does not know how she will do it yet, but she has time. The queens’ Ascension does not begin for another three years.
“I’m tired of the same old paths,” Jules says suddenly, and stops short. “Let’s go into the woods. Northeast, into the woods.”
“All right.”
Arsinoe does not like the northeastern woods. They are dark and too heavily shaded. Large creatures dwell there, safe from the noises and people in town, and whenever they go there, they hear many, lumbering or crashing through the brush, just out of sight. Of course she does not say so to Jules. They would be the most unnaturalist words ever uttered by a naturalist.
Jules leads her deeper and deeper into the forest, walking so fast that she may have forgotten that Arsinoe is with her at all. In the thick trees, Arsinoe loses track of the sun in the sky, and all the light seems slanting. Now and then, Jules stops to sniff the air and listen, but all Arsinoe hears are the whisper of leaves and the low, irritating buzz of insects. Where are the birds? Why is Madrigal’s familiar, Aria, not flapping somewhere overhead, cawing in the branches?
“Look.” Jules points.
Without Arsinoe noticing, they have come upon a clearing. The sun beams down upon an oblong stretch of green grass and moss, and shrub bushes with shiny, waxen leaves. In the center of it is a large, flat stone, just tall enough to climb on.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Arsinoe remarks.
Jules does not reply. Her face is set in concentration, her blue and green eyes intent on the stone. She wipes a bit of sweat from her upper lip. Bits of her wavy brown hair have come loose from her braid, and she looks as wild as anything in the woods.
Jules walks toward the stone. Arsinoe follows and watches as she scrambles up it to stand. Jules looks around, but it does not really make her that much taller, and certainly not tall enough to see over the trees.
“This is a strange rock.” Arsinoe lays her hands on it, flat and sun-warm. “So squared off and flat. Do you think it used to be something? Part of something old?”
Jules looks down at the stone.
“I think . . . if after today, we were to come looking, we would never find it again.”
Arsinoe swallows as a chill passes from her scalp to her tailbone. To hide it, she climbs up onto the rock beside Jules.
“Let’s just . . . stay here awhile,” Jules says, and sits. “I don’t feel like going home.”
With the heat of the stone against their backs, and the soft sunlight on their faces, it does not take long for Jules and Arsinoe to fall asleep. When Jules wakes, it is from a good dream that she cannot quite remember, but there was laughter in it, and warmth. She thinks that Joseph and Caragh might have been there.
In the brush to her left, back in the shady cover of the trees, something rustles, and Jules sits up. She holds an arm out over the queen, ready to protect her or tell her to run. Jules is not much to look at, with her short legs and funny eyes, but she is brave. She will not hesitate to fight for Arsinoe. She is not afraid to be hurt.
But after a moment, her apprehension fades. It changes to a sensation of deep calm. Peace. The brush and ferns rustle again, and Jules waits, holding her breath.
The fuzzy mountain cat cub creeps cautiously into the light. It blinks its eyes, so young that they are still a little blue, and stands on big, fluffy paws. Its coat is the spotted coat of a baby.
Anyone but Jules would still be afraid, for where a mountain cat cub goes, a mountain cat mother is not far behind. But as Jules and the cub stare at each other, something clicks into place.
“Camden,” Jules says, and the little cub bounds joyfully across the meadow and leaps into her arms.