“Why? Has your guilt troubled you all these years?” Mabh replies, her face distorting for a moment.

“What guilt is that?” The Robber Queen’s expression doesn’t change.

“Are you truly asking because you don’t know?” Mabh takes a step forward, but a horned kin pulls her back, reminding her of reason.

The Robber Queen remains standing beside the door.

Not as impervious to danger as she would have us think.

Croi doesn’t reply to her other self. She is waiting to see what Mabh wants from her.

“If you’re talking about the massacre of your family, I will remind you that your father killed my family first. Do you remember those twin maids, my nieces, you used to call Apple and Orange? Their bodies were in three pieces once your father’s soldiers were done with them. My husband sacrificed his life to save my son and me. Were it not for him, we, too, would have been victims of your father’s tyranny. What am I guilty of, Mabh? Surviving?”

“The throne doesn’t belong to you,” Mabh says, as if the Robber Queen hasn’t spoken.

“Neither does it belong to you—or have you somehow forgotten your older sister, the true heir to the Talamh crown?”

“Why bring her up? She’s dead. Your father killed her too,” Mabh screams, her calm facade breaking.

“My father’s sins are many, Mabh, but that one doesn’t belong to him. Have you never wondered why my father went against yours?” Contrary to Mabh’s hysteria, the Robber Queen seems calmer with each passing moment.

“It is not my place to question my liege, Saraid,” Mabh replies, suddenly regaining her composure and becoming all the more dangerous for it. “If you want to sow discord, it is far too late.”

The Robber Queen lifts an elegant shoulder. “Your father is dead, so yes, it is far too late to sow discord. You’ve waited a long while for your revenge. What do you intend to do? Kill my family? I don’t have any. Kill me? You can’t. At least not until I’m done repaying the sins of my father. If you do manage to find a way to kill me, I will thank you for it. What else? Take the crown of Talamh? By all means, take it. I have never possessed it in the first place.”

“How could you be the Talamh monarch without the HeartStone?” Mabh scoffs. “You searched for it hard enough. Turned Talamh upside down looking for it. I heard you even invited trackers from Tine.”

“Do you think I looked for the HeartStone because I wanted the Talamh crown?”

“Why else would you be so desperate for it?” Mabh spits out.

The Robber Queen laughs. The sound is weary. “You are exactly like your father. Have you seen what is happening to Talamh without the HeartStone? Have you seen how many kin have died from the breaking of the magick cycle? You don’t care, do you? You are just like your father. All that mattered to him was power, and all that matters to you is revenge.” She bows her head and heaves a sigh. “So take it. Take your revenge. Take the crown.”