Malice

don’t take her bait. I duck under her outstretched arms and bolt across the room.
“I won’t let you kill yourself.” I’m panting now, the bowl wedged between my stomach and the back of a winged armchair.
“I’d rather be dead than lose my gift.” She lunges around the side of the chair. “Do you know what happens to a Faded Grace?”
“There’s nothing wrong with—”
“Nothing!” The word rises into a screech. “No one gives a dragon’s tooth about a Faded Grace. No patrons, no invitations. Faded might as well mean dead.”
“The Crown is obligated to care for you. What about having your own house like Mistress Lavender? Or all the Graces who’ve married and—”
Rose laughs, a brittle sound that makes the hair on my arms rise. “Oh, yes. That’s what I want. To be tethered to a spouse who only wants me for what I used to be. Or put in charge of a bunch of Grace brats when I won’t even be able to—” The rest of the sentence crumbles. Rose wheels around before her tears start to fall, but I can see her shoulders shake.
My mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out. This is a foreign place. Me, in the position to comfort my greatest tormentor. Guilt gnaws at my conscience. It’s been more than a month since I interfered with one of Rose’s elixirs, and I thought she’d let the incidents go once her patrons returned. I had no idea she was resorting to such desperate measures. How long has she been dosing herself?
I edge out from behind the chair. “Rose, I—”
“What in Briar is going on?” Mistress Lavender barrels into Rose’s parlor, bright silver splotches on her white cheeks. “Delphine could hear your shouting from the front of the house.”
Rose wipes at her face. In half a heartbeat, her breathing has calmed and her expression is neutral, making my head spin with how quickly she can throw on the mask of nonchalance. “Nothing. I was just showing Alyce a new enhancement.”
Mistress Lavender’s lips pucker, gaze flicking between us, scenting the lie. Rose gestures for me to return her bowl, daring me to tell Mistress Lavender what she was doing. But I won’t. It’s her secret. I have enough of my own. And so I pass the bowl back. She’s careful to keep the contents out of view.
“Well,” Mistress Lavender says after a few charged seconds, her battle stance relaxing. “It’s nice to see you two working together for a change.” She pats at her tight chignon and tugs down her bodice. “But do be quieter about it in future.”
“Of course,” I mumble.
“And, Alyce, dear. There’s a patron waiting for you downstairs.”
—
Walk-ins are the worst sort of patron. Usually, they arrive in the heat of an argument. The elixirs they request are particularly vicious, skirting the line of what’s permitted within the Grace Laws. I grit my teeth as I trudge out to my Lair.
The patron huddles near the hearth. A woman, I think. Her shape is hidden beneath the folds of a garnet cloak. Callow ruffles her wings at the sound of my footsteps, and the patron turns and lowers her hood.
I trip over my own feet. “Your Highness!”
“Do you keep all your patrons waiting this long?”
“How did you—why did you—” Clumsily, I slam the door shut behind me and draw the bar, certain Mistress Lavender or someone else is about to find me here with the crown princess of Briar and how much trouble that will bring.
But why would they? No one ever ventures into my Lair. Especially not when I have a patron. Anonymity is the largest chunk of my fee. The rush of adrenaline ebbs.
“I could think of no other way.” Aurora—Aurora, I have to repeat it in my mind—ambles the perimeter of the dank chamber, picking up odd-shaped vials of deep plum valerian syrup and jars of pickled nettles. She peers at me through a bright vermilion liquid, her eyes ten times the size they should be. “You ignored my notes.”
Callow paces back and forth on her stand. I go to her, fishing a scrap of meat out of a bucket and watching her gobble it down. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” The question stings. Aurora folds her arms across her middle. She’s hurt, I realize. She thinks I didn’t want to see her.
“Yes.” I focus on the brittle-edged silk of Callow’s feathers beneath my fingertips. “I wanted to come, but—” The rest floats away. I don’t want to lie to her, but I also don’t want to implicate the queen. “I wasn’t sure another meeting was what you wanted.”
“Why would I have sent the notes if it wasn’t?”
“Because you’re a princess. And I’m…” I start fidgeting with various instruments strewn over my worktable, rearranging them in no particular order. “Me.”
A hint of appleblossom and gardenia tickles my nose. Clean, heady scents that don’t belong here. The princess plants herself across from me.
“I enjoy spending time with you. I don’t know why you find that so difficult to believe.”
Because no one else has ever wanted to. Except Kal. I drag my gaze to Aurora’s, finding the bared soul of someone who has never had to question her place in the world. A long-frozen chamber in my heart begins to thaw.
But then the queen’s threats float back to me, laced with the crackle of the fire.
“Even if I wanted to”—I return my attention to the worktable—“I can’t.”
“Why not? I have plenty of coin to pay you.”
The hot wax of my insides solidifies in an instant. I almost forgot—she had to pay Delphine in order to be admitted. And part of that payment will trickle down to me. Pearl’s comment from dinner strikes home, that the princess is only fascinated with me because I am grotesque. “Because I’m a pet you can toy with and then throw away when you’re bored?”
I storm to the hearth and snatch up the poker, taking out my anger on the half-crumbled logs. The fire coughs and spits black soot. The