Malice

gaze.
“Has my Alyce found a special someone?”
“Absolutely not.” I busy myself with stuffing the jars into my sack, fire bursting from the tips of my toes and lifting the roots of my hair. “Don’t be daft. It isn’t allowed.”
“Daft am I?” Hilde’s voice curves. My pulse rockets up my throat. The last thing I need is a rumor like that to get started. Rose would give me no peace. “I must be mistaken,” she says at last, sly as a cat. “You don’t have to share your secrets with old Hilde.”
She stops me from shoving the last jar into my sack with one tawny, scarred hand over mine. “But you do know, Alyce.” Her tone is soft. Almost motherly. “If there is someone, I hope they deserve you.”
From anyone else, I would expect that comment to be cruel. That the apothecary means she hopes the object of my affection is as wicked and hated as I am. But there’s an openness in Hilde’s features. The pressure on my hand is reassuring. Safe.
“Don’t let them make you into their monster. Not the Graces. Not anyone.”
“There’s no one.” The lie is salty.
“Very well.” Hilde sighs, pulling on her familiar mask of indifference. She reexamines the list. The corners of her mouth turn down. “Deathknot? Why do you want a thing like that?”
I rearrange the jars in the sack. “Do you really want to know?”
She watches me for a moment. “It’s not your usual sort of thing. Deathknot gets people into trouble, to my knowledge.”
“Trouble doesn’t sound like the Dark Grace’s area of expertise?”
The moment hums between us. Hilde rubs her thumb along the edge of the list. And I’m worried she might refuse me. But then she turns on her heel and stalks back into her stores. Muffled grunts and curses fill the room, and she re-emerges with a fat glass container in both hands. The lid is covered with dust. Inside is the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen. Like a black root of some huge, deadly plant. Knotted, as the name suggests, and riddled with green, furry scabs. Tiny white hairy things poke through the leathery skin and writhe in the fluid.
Glass scrapes against the worn wood of the counter as the apothecary slides the deathknot over to me. But she doesn’t let go immediately.
“Remember what I said, Alyce. About monsters.” The words are low, spoken in a tone that wakes something deep in my core. “Take care you don’t become what they think you are.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
My deadline for the king’s commission looms like a storm, and I still have no idea how to manage it. I’ve thought of coating the chalice in an elixir—like how the innovation Graces use their elixirs to create enchanted fabrics and ornaments and flowers. But even if it worked, the effects of such an elixir would eventually wear off.
Kal would know what to do.
Unfortunately, my patron schedule prevents me from visiting him during the day. And I expect Aurora to return to my Lair immediately. But apparently not even she is capable of absconding from the palace every night. When there’s no Mistress Nightingale booked on my schedule late the next evening, I whisper a hope that she doesn’t call on me unexpectedly, finish with my last patron, and sneak away.
“What troubles you?” Kal asks as soon as I arrive.
The sea is as agitated as I am. It churns and then launches itself into the cliff face, spraying up the outer tower walls and through the gaping hole in its side.
“I don’t know how to curse a chalice—or anything for that matter,” I say after I’ve finished telling Kal about the king’s commission. I sit on a stairstep and Callow flaps unsteadily from my shoulder. “The only thing I can think to use is an elixir, but—”
“Elixirs?” Shadows curl around Kal’s ankles. “You have known for some time that you do not need those to command your power. The Vila who cursed the royal line certainly did not simply wrap up a vial of ‘curse water’ and bid the princess to drink it.”
I bristle, even though I know he’s teasing. “How else am I supposed to get my power to manipulate a human’s without my being near them?”
“Your magic hinges on intent—that’s the only thing that matters. Your elixirs worked because you wanted them to work. Because your blood carried your command. It is not the most direct way to use your power, but it can be very effective—as with the curse on the royal line.”
Icy flecks of spray land on my cheeks and I swipe at them. “You’re saying that if I can’t reach a heart of magic, all I have to do is smear my blood on something and it’s cursed?”
“Your blood holds your intent, Alyce. It lends a spark of your power to whatever you curse.” He laughs at the scowl on my face. “Is that so difficult to believe? When you have spent over half a decade crafting—what are they called? Ugliness elixirs?”
The tower groans against the sea wind.
“Those wore off,” I argue. “The king wants something far more powerful.”
“And why do you think your power weakened so quickly when you were serving your patrons?” He sneers at the very idea of the nobles.
I begin to pace. Callow complains when I tread too close and interrupt her feasting among the grainy mortar. She snatches an insect out of the air and crunches it in half. “Because I wasn’t using it properly?”
“Maybe.” The buttons on Kal’s doublet shine in the night. “It could not have been because you desired your elixirs to weaken?”
The next wave roars. “Because I…”
Dragon’s teeth. My elixirs worked because I commanded my power to behave like the Graces’. And the effects of the Graces’ elixirs Fade. I never intended to permanently harm anyone. My power understood that.
“Yes, Alyce.” Kal grins. “The stronger the intent, the stronger the curse.”
A shudder runs through me. The Vila who cursed Aurora’s line must have been