There’s something admirable in her laying it out so simply, a mere fact.

Artemisia glances at me, and I could swear that her eyes see all of my secrets. “Remember when I told you we weren’t the kind of friends who gossip and talk about kisses and whatnot?” she asks, and my heart just about stutters out of my chest.

“Yes,” I say carefully. “You said you weren’t Cress—the Kaiserin. And you’re not. We don’t have to be that kind of friends.”

The fluidity of Art’s movements doesn’t show the slightest hiccup, even when she lets out a heavy, dramatic sigh.

“You have one minute,” she tells me. “One minute of that sort of talk. Take your mind off what’s coming tomorrow—just for a minute.”

I look at her, surprised. “Are you serious?” I ask.

She frowns. “You’re wasting your minute.”

I shake my head, then force myself to say the words before I can stop myself. “S?ren and I slept together.”

Artemisia snorts. “I know that. You weren’t subtle about it—you weren’t in the cabin this morning, and he was never as subtle about sneaking into your bed as he seemed to think he was—” She breaks off, turning to look at me fully, her arms going still in the air. “Oh,” she says, her voice dropping. “You mean…”

Suddenly I can’t look at her. Instead I look at the sea ahead, the low waves beating against the hull of the ship.

“Have…Have you ever…?” I ask, unable to even form the question.

“No,” Artemisia admits, before pausing. “Well, what happened with the guard. In the camp.” She’s struggling for words, too, and I force myself to look at her.

“That doesn’t count,” I tell her, my voice firm.

For an instant, I think she might protest, but she only nods. “It doesn’t count,” she repeats.

She considers this for a second, looking back out at the sea and continuing her ministrations.

“I kissed Maile,” she tells me after a moment, her voice neutral and offhanded.

“You what?” I yelp, loud enough to draw the attention of the others on the back of the boat, still drinking coffee and eating breakfast, who stare at us in alarm. I give them a weak wave to assure them that we’re all right, before turning back to Artemisia. “When? How? Why?”

Art only shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says, but even she sounds a bit annoyed with herself. “It was when we were riding to meet my mother. We had to stop to change the bandages on my legs, and she said something obnoxious, and then we started fighting, and then…we were kissing.”

“Did you…want to?” I ask her uncertainly.

That question only seems to confuse her more, but she finally nods. “I don’t know. I told you before that I didn’t feel that way about anyone. I’m still not sure I do. I’m not sure if it’s just not men or if it’s just her. I’m not sure if it was a fluke. I’m not sure of anything, really.”

“Huh,” I say. It’s the only thing I can say. At first glance, it makes no sense at all—I don’t think I’ve heard them say a word to one another that wasn’t barbed. But at the same time, it makes perfect sense. “Well, if we live through tomorrow, you’ll have plenty of time to figure it out, I suppose.”

Artemisia snorts, shaking her head. “Minute’s up. Are you still scared about tomorrow?”

I frown, looking out at the horizon where the east coast of Astrea is just visible in the morning light.

“No,” I say. “I’m not scared at all, actually. I know I should be. I know what’s at stake, and every time I close my eyes, I see Laius, I see Cress using the velastra on him. I see her using it on you, on the others, on me—taking away our wills until we’re nothing but her puppets. That terrifies me more than I can say, more than death itself, and I won’t pretend it doesn’t. I know all of the things that could go wrong, I know it’s all very scary. But no, I’m not afraid of what tomorrow will bring. Not even a little bit. I’m just ready. I just want to go home.”

Artemisia’s mouth pulls into a thin smile, her eyes focused on the horizon as well. She nods once.

“Well then,” she says, her arm movements becoming faster, hands slicing through the air with a frantic energy. “Let’s get you home.”

I smile before a thought occurs to me. “And where is your home, Art?” I ask. I don’t think she’s ever referred to Astrea, or even the ship she grew up on, as home.

She frowns. “Our minute of talking about our feelings is over,” she points out.

“I’m asking anyway,” I tell her.

“As my Queen?” Her voice is mocking, but that’s how I know I’ve hit at a chink in her armor.

“As your friend,” I say. “And your cousin. And you know, in some cultures, the children of twins are considered siblings—”

“I am my own home,” she says—mostly, I think, so that I’ll stop talking.

“That sounds lonely,” I tell her.

She shrugs. “You might find it lonely,” she says. “But how can I be lonely when I enjoy my own company as much as I do?”

“Be that as it may,” I say, “you’ll always have a room at the palace, when you want it.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “I could use a place to rest, perhaps,” she says. “On occasion.”

We both fall into silence, our gazes focused on the expanse of ocean ahead, the pure blue waves cresting in an unmeasurable rhythm.

“Let’s go home, Your Majesty,” Art amends, her voice only mildly mocking this time. “Let’s break those chains and get you on that throne and bring ruin to every Kalovaxian who ever crossed any of us.”

I nod, my gaze still focused on the horizon. “Yes,” I say. “Let’s.”

THE DAY TRUDGES BY LIKE sand trickling through a clogged-up hourglass. The boat seems to grow smaller with each moment, constricting around us so that there is no sanctuary, no peace from the others. As much as I care for them, there is nothing I wouldn’t give for a moment alone. Though I know that each mile we travel brings us closer to war and inevitable carnage, I begin to yearn for it, for anything to get off this godsforsaken boat.

The others seem to feel the same way. Where everyone was abuzz with conversation when we first came on board, now it’s mostly only silence, heavy and ominous. S?ren and I don’t even talk that night when we lie together on the deck. Instead we just hold one another until we drift off to sleep.

* * *

—

I should not dream of Cress, but I do, even with Heron’s potion.

She sits in the shadowy embrace of the throne, tendrils of black winding their way over her limbs, stark against her bone-white skin—the monster I imagined as a child, holding her there in its grasp. The swath of charred skin at her throat is displayed proudly over the neckline of her silver gown, like a battle scar. My mother’s black-gold crown circles her head, resting just above her brow.

I should not see her—I know I should not see her—but I do, and it takes me a second to realize why, to notice more than Cress, more than the throne holding her tightly. The throne is not in the throne room, not in the palace. It is in the mine. I am back in the mine.

It is not a dream, though. The realization settles over me—it is a memory, like my mother in the garden or the dead clawing at me until I set them free from my guilt. This has already happened, has already been resolved. I’ve already passed this test. But the way Cress looks at me is like she sees me through time and space, and it doesn’t feel like a memory at all. It feels like I never actually left the mine, like I’ve been here all this time, lost in its depths and wandering in and out of consciousness.

Only now I’m not alone.

For an eternity of a moment, Cress and I only stare at one another. Silence stretches out between us, an un-crossable chasm.

“Was it worth it?” The words don’t feel like mine. I don’t mean to say them, don’t choose to say them. I simply do. Like they are lines in a play that I know by heart. “You have your throne, your crown. Was marrying him worth it?”

Her hands tighten their grip on the throne’s arms. “I have everything and you have nothing—you are nothing. What does it matter how I won? I did.”

“You won,” I echo. “Is that what this was?”

“It’s war,” she says, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “You struck first; I struck best. Do you want an apology?”

If she offered one, I wouldn’t accept it anyway.

“I want that throne,” I tell her instead.

“No one gives you anything,” Cress sneers. “You take it. My father taught me that, and he taught you as well.”

I see the Theyn before me, cutting my mother’s throat, taking her from me, and I swallow back bitter words.

Cress tries to lift her arms, but the tendrils of smoke anchor her to the throne, binding her there. Her black lips purse.

“We were friends once, weren’t we?” she asks.

“Heart’s sisters,” I say. The words threaten to choke me.