Malice

from the way she worries with the edge of her sleeve that this is the first time she’s spoken her dreams aloud to anyone.
“You want to break the curse,” I repeat slowly. “Without your true love?”
“Yes.” Those violet eyes shine. “I want to earn my crown myself. Not hand it over to the first man who kisses me correctly.” But then her shoulders hunch. “You must think me a fool.”
“Not at all. I admire you. You’re nothing like…” I grapple for the right words, but they swish through my mind, slippery as eels. “What I thought.”
Her smile rivals the starlight. “I take that as an extreme compliment.”
“It is.” An inexplicable shyness nips at me and I fumble for a distraction. “Have you made any progress?”
“Not much,” she admits. “I’ve been poking around in volumes about the War of the Fae. Especially those about Vila. If any creature knew how to break the curse, it was them.”
A chill rumbles through me. My ancestors. Aurora doesn’t notice my sudden interest in a cracked magnifying glass I find on a side table. She glides away into the shadows. The light from the candle bobs and I can hear her mumbling to herself as she hunts.
“What are you doing?”
Instead of answering me, she reemerges with a huge black book tucked under one arm. Streaks of dust and dirt darken the hem of her nightdress and there’s a smudge of something gray on her face. An insane part of me wants to wipe it away. “This one’s in passable condition.”
She nudges it into my arms and I smear away the caked dust on the cover with my cloak. Vila in the War of the Fae, it reads. A barbed lump forms in my throat.
“Are you sure you should be reading this?” I doubt the royal couple would be pleased to find their daughter dabbling in this corner of the realm’s history.
Aurora ignores the question. She tracks one hesitant fingertip down a line of green on the back of my hand. “Are you the last one, do you think?”
My skin ignites beneath her touch. I step away from it, unsure how to answer. It was a Vila who cursed the royal family. Robbed her of her sisters. I grip the book so hard it might cave into itself. “I have no idea.”
She looks at me for a long moment. “I don’t care that you’re Vila.”
I half expect the floor to open up and swallow me whole. And I half wish that it would.
“You don’t mean that.”
No one could mean that. Not in Briar.
“You didn’t cast the curse,” she reasons.
“But it could have been—” Not my mother. Not even her mother. But somewhere down the line, I could be related to the Vila who did. The princess doesn’t let me finish.
“It happened so long ago, Alyce. All we can do is live with the consequences. I’m much more interested in breaking the curse than seeking vengeance.”
There’s no bitterness there. No vehemence. It puts the realm to shame, myself included.
“Besides,” she continues lightly, “you’re far too interesting to hate. Your power is fascinating. What you did with the fountain was incredible. What else can you do?”
Do I tell her? I know better than to tell Mistress Lavender or even Laurel about Kal. But what about Aurora? She trusted me with her secret. The words are on the tip of my tongue.
“Can you turn my guards into toads?” The question throws me off balance. “That would be very helpful.”
I consider this, wondering if I can use my magic to alter a human’s shape. I am part Shifter after all. Then again, things had gone so horribly wrong with the duke. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I can give them warts.”
“Perfect.” She beams. “Do so—they’ll be horrified, the vain creatures. And keep the book. See if you can spot something I missed. I’d love a second opinion, especially from someone with Vila heritage.”
“I can’t.” I thrust it back at her. A book like this, stolen from the royal library and detailing how my ancestors nearly defeated the Etherians in the War of the Fae, could not be discovered in my rooms. I don’t have the protection of a crown. “And you know more about my heritage than I do.”
“I insist.” She crosses her arms, stubbornly refusing to accept it. “If I know more about the Vila than you do, it sounds like you have some reading to do. And I insist that you return the book as well. It gives us an excuse to meet again.”
I should leave the book, no matter what she says. It’s too dangerous to keep. But fool that I am, I hug it to my chest, thinking only of the fact that she wants me to read it. That she cares about what I think.
And that she wants to see me again.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I don’t leave Aurora until the silver moonlight blushes to the pale peach of dawn. The sleeplessness of these past nights is beginning to wear on my bones, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. We talked for hours. Aurora told me about her days in the palace, the suitors and the parties and how badly she wishes her life could mean more than flaunting new gowns, favoring the right courtiers, or obsessing over the best Grace elixirs. She wants Briar to be as it was during the reigns of the early queens—no districts dividing the poor and the wealthy. Women serving on the small council and in other key government positions. Like Laurel, she believes the Graces are little better than servants, wasting their gifts for Briar’s greed. She vows the Grace Laws and even the Grace Council will drastically change when it’s her turn to rule.
I didn’t divulge much about my own life, wanting to leave it behind me for a few precious hours. Instead, I entertained Aurora with little demonstrations of my magic. Now that I understand better how my power