Page 78 of Malice

“I’m sorry about your gold,” she says at last. And I think she means it. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think Rose took it.”

“Why not? Doesn’t she hate me enough?”

“She’s too self-absorbed,” Laurel reasons simply. I can’t help but laugh. “The only gold she’s concerned about is her own. If she wanted to steal yours, she’d have done it ages ago.”

I agree with her, though I won’t say who my true suspect is. “Maybe.”

“It is interesting, though. Do you think your missing earnings have anything to do with the absence of the princess?”

She might as well have punched me. I jerk forward and my foot smashes into the window casing. Laurel just looks at me as if she’d asked what the weather might be tomorrow.

“You do realize I’m gifted in wisdom,” she says. “And I saw her here myself.”

The night she came asking after the books. “I—” I splutter, unable to latch on to a coherent excuse. “I thought…”

“You thought she’d properly disguised herself?” Laurel crosses one leg over the other, thoroughly amused. “Perhaps for someone less observant. But not when I saw the stamp on these books. And she took no trouble concealing her voice. I heard her before I entered your chamber.”

I duck my head into my arms, muttering curses.

“No one else knows, if that’s any comfort.”

It is, a little. “Why haven’t you told?”

“I already explained.” Laurel adjusts her blanket. “You’re entitled to your secrets. And the crown princess can do as she likes. Not everyone would feel that way, though.” There’s a warning in her tone.

“I’m aware.” The cold leaking through the window has bitten through my clothes. I move to the chair across from Laurel, wincing as I imagine what Rose would do with such delicious knowledge.

“Is that why she stopped coming?”

I pick at the fringe on a throw pillow. “I have no idea,” I lie, stubbornly refusing to admit my own naïve stupidity. “I thought…things were different between us.”

“She’s a royal.”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t trust her?”

Firelight catches the bits of sea-green in the wisps of hair that escape her braid. “I’m saying she’s as caged as we are. In a different way.”

“You feel caged?”

“Don’t you?” She tilts her head. “The Graces are commodities, the same as you. We both attended the trial.”

Narcisse’s frenzied pleas resonate in the whine of the wind outside. I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “Aurora wants to change that. Abolish the Grace Laws and establish an entirely new system.”

“Aurora?”Laurel smiles and a blush climbs up my neck. “She might. If she lives. And I hope she does. But there’s a difference between being a princess, given free rein to traipse about the Grace District at night, and a queen.”

Kal’s words from a different mouth. I hadn’t wanted to believe them then, but now—

“Don’t mistake me,” Laurel continues, tracing her fingertips over an illustration in the book. A Briar Queen, it looks like. I can make out the thorned bramble crown from here. “I expect great things from the princess. We need more rulers like the early queens. Leythana’s daughter systemized the Etherium mining. Her great-great-granddaughter established the trade routes we still use today.” She doesn’t try to mask the disdain in her next words. “Of course, much was lost once the queens started doling out their responsibilities as wedding gifts.”

“Aurora swears she wouldn’t.” But a bitter taste forms in my mouth. Can I believe anything the princess said?

“It would mean a new age.” Laurel studies the fire. “The Lord Ambassador is also eager to see what would happen with the next queen.”

Endlewild.

I swear I can hear his snide Fae laughter in the crackle of the fire. “I don’t give a dragon’s asshole what he thinks.”

Laurel’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “You’re not fond of the Fae lord.”