Come in, Farrow. And Hecate,” Galatea beckoned. “We have much to discuss.”
She opened the door to her room with a wave of her wand and took a seat in a big, tufted armchair, inviting me to sit opposite her.
The room was pretty and rustic like the others in the mansion. Everything was covered in different floral patterns. The bedspread was a deep, calming blue with rosebushes. There were tiny poppies on the light-blue chairs and forget-me-nots on the walls.
Her eyes fell on the pouch around my neck.
“May I?” she asked, gesturing to it.
“Of course,” I said, loosening the strings. In all the excitement, I had forgotten what this meant for her and Hecate.
Hecate’s ashes re-formed in front of her sister. Galatea’s calm expression melted away and her bottom lip quivered.
“Hecate . . .”
Hecate’s hands met Galatea’s again.
“I still can’t reconcile that you’re really here,” Galatea said, her voice filled with wonder.
Hecate leaned in and touched my cheek. It felt like a shock. Even after years of being around humans who were constantly touching one another, it was odd to see and feel the Entente expressing physical affection.
Galatea never took her eyes off Hecate.
“I am glad, sister. I thought I had lost you, but bless Fate, there is more for us after all . . . Then I guess you knew that.”
The ashes suddenly funneled together and whooshed away from Galatea toward the ceiling and then out the window.
Galatea’s face fell.
“She does that. Hecate hasn’t been around anyone but me in so long,” I said as an excuse when Galatea tried to mask her disappointment with a smile. “Sometimes I get mad at her too,” I added.
“I’ve been mad at her for all these years,” Galatea admitted.
Then Galatea did something quite unexpected. She burst into tears.
“Galatea?”
But when she looked up, she was smiling at me.
“I don’t understand. Are you happy or are you sad?” I asked.
“Both. I never thought that I would get to have a squabble with my sister again.”
I reached over and squeezed her hand.
I tried to remember Galatea as she was before the day of the Burning. When we were small, it always felt like she was judging everyone. She knew every secret of your Past. Just like Iolanta knew every lie. And unlike the Future or the Present—there was no way to change the Past.
The result had always been that Galatea was completely and totally disappointed in humans. But when she disappeared into the facade of Madame Gray years ago, maybe she emerged as something less Entente. Something more human, capable of showing emotion and getting rid of years of secrets.
“We are always together, sisters. Even if we are far apart,” Galatea whispered.
Through my fog of memory, I recalled that Hecate had said those words on the day of the Burning when Galatea and Iolanta had tried to stop us from visiting the Queen. It was clear from Galatea’s face that she remembered it as if it were yesterday.
“I know every word she ever said to me. I remember all Iolanta said too.”
“That must have been a comfort,” I offered.
“And a curse,” she said. “I relived every word, knowing I would never hear from them again, searching for some meaning, some clue as to what Hecate had given us of the Future, some clue of whether or not Iolanta was still out there somewhere . . . And you and South. But I could not find anything in any Past that could help me or restore us, and I could not put the memories behind me either. They are still here. As vivid and real as you standing before me.”
“I’m sorry, Galatea.”
My eyes stung with emotion and, as I looked away from Galatea, I noticed the walls weren’t covered in flowered wallpaper. Upon closer inspection, there were tiny flowers growing out of the walls. I looked around the room and saw live flowers on every surface. Even the chair I was sitting on. The patterns were intricate and deliberate.
“These flowers. Are they Selina’s handiwork?” I asked, referring to my sister who had a penchant for growing things.
Galatea nodded as she recomposed herself.
“It had to take so much control to make that design. And it’s very pretty,” I said.
But I knew it was more than that. It was my sister Selina’s attempt to give Galatea some peace. To keep her from the Past. Hecate had her brushes from the dead, which helped keep her from the Future. Iolanta had her bones, which she believed drew her to the Past. And Galatea had flowers and seeds—the closest thing to a Future that any Entente could come up with.
“Do they help?” I asked.
“Sometimes it helps that someone wants to help,” she said bravely, but I wondered if it was enough.
“I don’t think Hecate was capable of telling me where you were or that Iolanta was alive. I think mainly she shelters me,” I offered, wanting to give Galatea some peace, even though I knew from my own experience how slippery and elusive it was. Peace had been a stranger to us since the day of the Burning and perhaps it would remain that way even when our mission was complete. Still, standing beside her, I longed for her to be a friend.
“I can see that now. I don’t blame Hecate. How could I? I blame the humans. I blame our ancestors for making so many concessions that it was our code for her not to share a Future this important with all of us. I only pieced this together after the Burning. In that second she died, I saw all this.”
Galatea was different. I just hadn’t realized how much. When I was young, Galatea had carried around the sadness and horrors of all the Pasts that she experienced. Now, it seemed like the weight of the Pasts was eclipsed by her anger, which burned as sharp and bright as my own. If the sadness was still there it was buried.
Then she put her wand to my temple. I closed my eyes and gasped as an image of Galatea, Iolanta, and Hecate filled my field of vision. It was a Past.
“Why are you showing me this, Galatea?” I said, opening my eyes and raising my hand to remove the wand.
“Because I wish she had shown me,” she said softly.
I released her wand, and when my eyes were shut I could see them. It hurt to see Hecate in the flesh, but it filled me with joy in the same instant.
They were all so young. Probably my age. I gasped again when I saw Hecate laugh and smile, the others joining in. I had never seen any of them so carefree. They were standing on the path to the palace. As they got closer, I could see it in the distance. It looked as it used to before Magrit covered it in Black Glass.
“Time to be serious. We have a Queendom to save,” Hecate, ever the leader, whispered to her sisters. “Iolanta, you have to get rid of that before we get to the palace.”
Iolanta, looking happier than I ever saw her in life, save when she looked at South, suddenly frowned and clutched her pocket. She produced a skull.
“It helps,” she said with a pout.
“It won’t help for the Queens to see us carting around body parts,” Galatea added, siding with Hecate.
Iolanta sighed, conceding her point. She closed her eyes and disappeared.
Hecate and Galatea shared a look filled with concern.
Galatea spoke first: “She’s getting worse.”
Hecate, ever the optimist, said, “She’s stronger than she knows.”
Iolanta reappeared a second later, her hands empty. “Let’s go,” she said with a nervous smile.
“Dare I ask where you put it?” Hecate said, raising her eyebrows.
Iolanta smiled a rueful smile and Galatea and Iolanta returned it.
The Fates put their wands to their faces and within seconds had new ones. Iolanta and Galatea both picked the faces of pretty, young women. Galatea had made herself taller and darker. Iolanta made herself shorter and stouter and gave herself a face that reminded me of the local blacksmith. Hecate chose the face of an old lady.
I almost laughed as Galatea admonished her. Even when she was young, Hecate still preferred old faces.
“Can you once pick someone born this century?” Galatea asked.
“The humans respect this face,” Hecate said, slightly on the defensive.
Galatea tapped her wand again and the vision flashed to the throne room, where a young Queen Meena was meeting with the young Queen of Malle, the Second Queendom. I recognized her from the Couterie history books.
There was a large audience. The two Queens sat at opposite ends of a long table.
Hecate, with her new face, sat in the center of the table. Iolanta stood next to Queen Meena, and Galatea stood next to Queen Raina.
I recognized all the markers of the Entente. Each whispered something in the ear of her Queen.
Hecate was apparently posing as Regent, and the others as respective Right Hands.
“What say you to the treaty?” Hecate asked.
“We agree to the terms,” they said in unison.
The Queens signed with flourishes. Their courts cheered.
A young Princess Magrit slipped into the room with her younger sister in tow. They curtsied to their mother, who looked up.
Hecate suddenly brought her hands to her head. Iolanta opened her mouth to say something, but then wobbled on her feet. Her eyes closed and she fell backward, landing on the marble floor with a dull thud. She had fainted.
Galatea rushed to Iolanta’s side while Hecate steadied herself.
“It must be all the excitement,” Galatea lied.
“But it wasn’t,” Galatea said beside me. “We set the scene. We armed the Queens with every bit of knowledge to make the best deal with each other. We brokered peace—we stopped a war. We had won the day. But we had lost our Future. And only Hecate knew.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, dread rising in me.
Galatea tapped the wand again, and I saw Hecate alone with Queen Meena.
“What is it? What did you see? I saw you bristle when my daughters entered.”
“You cannot let Magrit have the crown. Not ever.”
“Why not?”
She put her wand to Meena’s temple. A single tear rolled down the Queen’s cheek as Hecate showed her her daughter’s fate.
Galatea tapped her wand against my temple again. The next image was years later; both the Queen and Princess Magrit were much older.
Outside the window, Prince Mather was playing with his only friends, the guards. It was before I’d met him the first time. Before he’d lost his beloved grandmother. Before he’d been left all alone with Magrit.
“I had hoped your Future would change. We waited and watched. But it has not. You have not. I know this is hard . . . but it’s for the best.”
“You think the Entente know me better than you do? You know my heart, Mother.”
“A mother knows her daughter’s heart better than anyone, and that is precisely why I am saying this, as much as it hurts my own.”
“Mother, no . . . This is the Entente talking. They tricked you . . .”
“I’m sorry, my dear. My decision is final. I will take care of you and Mather, but you will never take the throne.”
I saw a flash of Magrit’s signature anger in her eyes. I waited for the explosion, but Magrit stayed calm, which surprised me.
She got to her feet.
“We will make the transition as seamless as possible. Your sister will take the crown. For the Queendom. Please don’t leave angry. I can see you’re upset.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Mother.”
Then Magrit crossed over to the tea set, piping hot on the bureau.
“Good, we’ll talk this out. I am going to take care of you and Mather, I promise.”
“I know you will. But first let’s have some tea. Everything’s better after a good cup of tea.”
Before the pour, Magrit opened a secret compartment in her ring. She tipped some blue liquid into the steaming cup.
I recognized the color from the day of the Challenge. The antidote was the same blue. Was the poison that color too? It had to be.
My stomach turned.
I knew about her penchant for poison. I’d seen it up close in my Challenge with Lavendra. But to poison her own mother?
“What happened to her sister? She’s not in exile, is she?”
I had had to memorize the prince’s family tree when I was Couterie, but I had never paid much mind to Magrit’s sister. No one had seen her in years.
“After they buried their mother, Magrit encouraged her to take a trip to reassure peace with the other Queendoms . . .”
She tapped my temple again with her wand. I saw a tearful goodbye between Magrit and her sister as she boarded a ship in the harbor.
Magrit waved as the boat pulled away. Then she whispered to one of the guards, “Sink it.”
Then she smiled and waved a second time.
I gasped again. In the middle of digesting this horror, I thought of the prince. I wondered if she would hurt him one day too.
Galatea removed her wand. “She is more dangerous than we ever imagined. She is human. That is their way. And she is the worst of them. But we are not without fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“I see it now—all these histories—all these compromises we made for peace with the humans. We sacrificed our power for their comfort. We agreed to serve them because they were afraid. It was our first folly.”
I corrected my earlier assessment in my mind. Maybe Galatea wasn’t less Entente. Maybe she was more so.
“We need to get you to bed. I’m just glad to see you and Hecate again, in whatever form she’s in,” Galatea said, busying herself, covering her momentary hurt.
She led me to a guest room down the hall from her, Bari’s, and Amantha’s rooms. This was not as opulent as the palace or the Couterie or even the Entente. But it felt much more like a home. Instead of the silks and brocades that I had grown up with, there were quilts of cotton woven together in intricate patterns. My room had rustic charm, with whitewashed furniture and a pretty, quilted bedspread that looked handmade, though it was missing live flowers like Galatea’s.
Galatea opened the closet, which was filled with dresses that I knew would be magicked to fit me perfectly. Galatea touched the sleeve of a nightdress and in a blink I was wearing it. She waved her wand over it and the waist cinched in tighter and the collar adjusted itself.
“Tomorrow night we will start to ready our attack. Tonight you should rest from your journey. I’ll tend to South,” Galatea vowed.
I hesitated, wanting to watch South myself.
“I should stay with him,” I said.
“You’ll need your strength for tomorrow. And even with the sleeping spell I cast, the fewer Presents around him . . .”
She was telling me to stay away from South. Something sank in me. We had only been reunited a couple of days ago. But the thought of being separated now made me uneasy.
“Galatea, you’ve done so much for me and South, but can I ask for one other thing . . . ?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“Can I have my nose back? The one the doctor gave me. I know it sounds strange, but hearing your story made me think of mine. What the doctor did to my face is part of me now. I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.”
“You don’t want to pretend it isn’t part of you. I understand. Say no more.”
She tapped my face ever so gently with her wand, and I could feel my nose go back to its Couterie form.
“Thank you, Galatea.”
As she closed the door and put out the lights with a wave of her wand, Galatea whispered, “You will see that a lot of the old rules have fallen away. We thought we were protecting you all from favoritism. We thought we were making you equals. But depriving one another of connection just made us that much more vulnerable. We are so much stronger now.”
I ran my hand over the quilt and finally crawled under the covers. It had been a very long day. I felt spent. I had received an unexpected gift, the return of my sisters and South. But it had come with a new crushing loss. Iolanta was gone again. This time for good.
Hecate flowed in through the window and curled up next to me on the bed.
“Hecate, you saw all this. You must have. Why didn’t you tell me to look for them? Is this what life is now? Is this what it’s always been?”
Was there no good without all this pain? Was there no gain without some new loss?
I reached for my anger again and quickly found it. It fit better than my sorrow for Iolanta and for South, which felt like an anvil sitting on my chest, and, left unchecked, would make me want to stay in this bed forever. So I laid my pain and South’s and my sisters’ where it belonged. At the feet of the Queen.
As I drifted off to sleep, Galatea’s words stayed with me. All the rules were gone now . . .