Page 80 of Malice

The very morning after our talk, I’d sent the dragon brooches back to the palace with a curse. But instead of death, the curse I set was for sleep. A sleep that mirrors death. A strange thrill ran through me when I watched the gems drink up the drops of my blood, imagining Tarkin’s beet-red cheeks and twitchy mustache when he figures it out. But what can he do? Admit his plan to murder members of his own court?

A commotion stirs the Grace District when the Ryna prince sails into Briar. Everyone waving their caps and cheering as they follow the procession from the harbor to the palace. I watch the parade from my window, as sullen as Callow when I’m late to feed her. Not long after, a royal invitation is delivered to the Graces. There’s to be a party during which Aurora’s curse is sure to be broken. The entire Grace District erupts into raucous celebration, but I can hardly drag myself out of bed when the day arrives. Even the black wax seal on my schedule infuriates me. I snap it in half, wishing it was the face of the Ryna prince.

I shouldn’t care about the party. Aurora befriended me only so she could spy for her father. Drew me in and let me believe there could be someone who accepted me. Wanted me. And then she stole my gold and cast me off.

And yet her absence in my life leaves a depthless hole, sucking everything else inside it like a whirlpool in the sea.

It’s a dazed, unmoored feeling I can’t shake as I slog through my heavy load of patrons, who are all in a frenzy over the coming festivities. I craft a dozen elixirs for various pseudo-illnesses and mottled complexions and bald heads and muted voices. The self-satisfied nobles scurry off with their prizes like the rats they are.

But as the evening quiets, the Graces long departed, my heart whispers fickle, traitorous wishes. To go to the party and see Aurora kiss her prince. To seeherone last time before her curse is broken by someone else and I lose her forever. All of Briar will lose her, though the gluttonous vipers don’t even understand what the realm could have been if only—

No.

Aurora played me for a fool. Toyed with me as if I were no better than Calliope begging for scraps of her attention. Abandoned me after she swore to be my friend. To make me a royal advisor. My blood heats, thudding against my temples as I remember every hollow promise. Every second I believed was real. But they were all calculated. Like Endlewild giving me that book on Vila and Shifters, sowing the seeds of my self-hatred.

That settles it. I will go to the palace. The crown princess of Briar deserves to see that I know what she is—no better than a common thief. A liar and a fraud. And if the truth helps her to see the poison coating her own actions—if it steers her at all to be the queen she vowed she wanted to be, all the better for Briar. I won’t be around to witness her reign.

—

This celebration is not a masque, but I have other ways of obscuring my identity now. I concentrate on small Shifts, ones that won’t require much effort to keep in place. I keep my skin pale, but conceal the blemishes and green webs of veins. My hair remains dark, but cascades in thick, lustrous waves down my back. I sneak into Rose’s room and dab her golden, shimmery Grace powder onto my collarbone and neck and cheeks. I don’t even bother Shifting a decent dress. Instead, I pilfer one of Laurel’s, a gown colored like the depths of the Carthegean Sea with gold filigree racing along the hem and sleeves. I take one of her fur-lined cloaks as well before I leave, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and smirking.

No one will be able to pull a mask from my face this time.

—

If it’s possible, the palace is even more riotous than on the princess’s birthday six months ago. The ballroom teems with the press of bodies, the clink of crystal, the pop of corks. Servants barely have room to slip through the crowd, carting trays of goblets and delicacies and shallow dishes of Etherium. I spot a bulging pastry that appears dipped in real gold. A woman with a miniature ship nestled into her mountain of ringlets—arranged to resemble a storm-tossed sea—swipes it up and stuffs it into her mouth, squealing with delight as lemony cream bursts from the center and onto her chin. Fountains that must have been crafted by innovation Graces gush waterfalls of frothy peach liquid from spouts shaped like roaring dragons. Fizzy wine, I realize, when a man ducks his head below a jeweled snout and swallows down sloppy gulps, his group of friends laughing as it splashes over his doublet and onto his shoes.

Grace-grown Briar roses in honor of the occasion are wound around railings and climb up trellises and are suspended from the high ceiling in tight clusters. So many that the ballroom is redolent with their heavy scent. Live hummingbirds flit among the pearl and lavender petals like tiny gems flashing. Musicians keep up an endless barrage of waltzes and minuets, the dancers never tiring as they bend and twirl and swoop. Among them, I see Lord Arnley, his handsome face tipped back as he laughs and slings his arm around another man’s waist. Part of me wants to ask him to dance again. To make him want me and then cast him off. To jeer when he feels exactly as I did that night—disgusting and worthless. My cord of magic hums and I tear my gaze away. This is not the night for that.

Just as the last time I visited the palace in disguise, hardly anyone pays me a passing glance. I’ve Shifted enough times now to be used to the feeling of anonymity, but it tastes no less sweet. I weave through the tipsy guests, drowning in the tide of perfumes and spilled wine. Searching for the shine of Aurora’s dawn-colored curls, ears tuned for her laugh. She isn’t here, though. She must still be in her rooms, or in one of the antechambers, waiting to be announced.

I pause at a column, studying the doors the royal family emerged from during the last event. Relieved that Endlewild doesn’t seem to be in attendance. Snippets of conversation drift past me.

“Is Lord Selligan not with us tonight?” A male voice, sonorous and suggestive.

“No.” A lilting, wine-tinged giggle. “I’m afraid my dear husband has caught the sleeping sickness everyone is talking about.”

A stone lands in my stomach. Sleeping sickness. I edge closer, hiding myself in the gauzy swaths of purple and cream fabric wound around the column.

“What a pity.” He doesn’t sound upset in the least. “What does that make—five now?”

“Something like that,” the woman drawls, bored. “At first I was alarmed. I returned from tea with the Countess LeSalle and thought the earl was dead! His lips were blue.”

“My poor dear.” The sound of a hand being kissed. “What an ordeal for you.”

A sniffle. “It was horrid. And then, once the physicians arrived and determined that he wasnotdead, I was distraught over the thought it might be contagious. I’ve hardly been able to sleep for worry I’ll not wake.”

I roll my eyes at the lady’s histrionics, quite certain there are a number of other reasons she’s not sleeping while her husband is suffering under my curse.

“Lady Selligan, but your health is so dear to us. You must take care.”

She blows loudly into what must be her companion’s offered handkerchief. “I know, I know. And the doctor assured me all is well. The earl will wake in time, they promise. Not even the king appears concerned—even though Lord Selligan is a member of his council and a personal friend. His Majesty sent a gift just the day before. A lovely brooch. Quite expensive. I haven’t had the heart to take it off of him.”

I bite down on my tongue to keep silent.

“I’m sure the Briar King is beside himself, to lose such a prized courtier. One would like to know the cause,” the man continues, thoughtful now. “If only to avoid such a fate.”

The lady sighs. “Who knows, these days? Perhaps overindulgence is the culprit.”