Malice

to a squeak. I clear my throat.
“Your book dealer, obviously.” She points at the table, where a stack of the princess’s latest haul is haphazardly arranged. “Is one of those for me?”
The books. Relief washes over me in a giddy wave, spilling out in a nervous screech of a laugh that makes Callow bridle and snap her beak. “Y-Yes. I almost forgot.”
I grapple for the first book I see, History of Briar. There couldn’t possibly be anything incriminating in it. Or anything Laurel doesn’t already know, for that matter. She accepts it with a slight frown, dusting off the cover with the sleeve of her jade dressing gown and clicking her tongue at the state of the pages.
“Are you also the curator?” She throws the question at Aurora, who shakes her head emphatically. “Well, whoever is charged with the care of these volumes should be ashamed. These books are in disgraceful condition.”
The princess nods. And the three of us just look at one another. I’m sure Laurel can hear the battering of my heart. Feel the ache of my breath trapped in my lungs. But she only utters a hasty good night and glides out, her eyes never leaving her new prize.
The moment the door closes behind her, Aurora and I collapse into each other, sides aching with a mixture of laughter and tears.
—
It’s late when I’m finally alone, and I want nothing more than to drag myself upstairs for a few hours of much needed sleep. But every inch of me is on fire, kindled by the memory of my almost-kiss with Aurora. If it was an almost-kiss. She mentioned nothing about it before she left. I was imagining things, I tell myself. I leaned into her. She would have shoved me away, disgusted that I’d even thought she could want me.
But when our faces were inches apart, she hadn’t seemed disgusted. I can still see myself reflected in the lavender pools of her gaze. Smell the hints of lilac and appleblossom clinging to her skin.
Dragon take me.
Since I have no hope of sleep, I turn my attention to the commission the king wants, questioning for the thousandth time my decision to work for him. I want nothing to do with Tarkin if he’s plotting against Aurora. But I have no doubt he will seek his revenge if I refuse. Whether I stay in Briar or escape beyond the sea, I’d rather like to keep my head.
I’m just finishing, packing the bracelet back into its box and writing a note for delivery, when, for the second time tonight, my door opens unexpectedly.
“Come back later,” I say automatically. It’s near dawn, I think. The servants must be rising for their morning chores.
“I do not require an invitation.”
That voice stops me cold. Thick and resonant, with an accent that reminds me of the wind in the trees and rushing water.
“Lord Endlewild.”
Callow shrieks from her perch, flapping her wings.
The Fae lord steps out of the gloom, hearth light striking against the laurel-leaf sigil pinned to his doublet. Illuminating the winter white and icy blue streaks in his neatly tied queue, the colors changed since I last saw him. His birchwood staff taps against the stones of the floor. “Will you not invite me to sit, half-breed? Offer refreshment?”
Half-breed. The insult sears the same as it did every time he uttered it during my treatments. But I force myself to breathe through the phantom pains, resisting the urge to clutch at my scar. Remind myself that he is not holding me down or cutting me open. Even so, Endlewild hasn’t been to see me in years, and never in the dead of night. Terror claws its way up from my toes and thuds between my ribs.
Callow feeds off my energy, pacing back and forth on her perch. More tiger than bird.
“Your bird dislikes me.” Endlewild studies her like he’s deciding whether to roast her for dinner.
I angle myself to block the kestrel from his view. “She distrusts strangers.”
The tips of his dagger teeth gleam. “But we are not strangers, you and I. Will you not welcome me into your…” His nose wrinkles. “Abode?”
Rage smolders in my guts. I want to take that false Fae politeness and strangle him with it. But I know better than to refuse him. I motion toward the worktable. He deigns to sit, running one of his unsettling, sticklike fingers over the surface of the wood and flicking the grime away. Then he slides an expectant look at the leftover bread and cheese.
Hands shaking, I toss what’s left of Aurora’s wine goblet into the fire and pour him another, then shove the entire platter of food toward him.
“My thanks.” He inspects a square of cheese and the lines bracketing his lips, like the grooves in a tree trunk, deepen. “You do not eat well here.”
“Apologies.” I don’t even try to keep the sarcasm from my tone.
“It is no matter.” He starts in on the bread, picking out bits of seed and letting them fall. “I have come regarding some recent incidents I find alarming.”
It takes every thread of my self-control not to react. “Incidents?”
“Do not waste my time with lies.” The orb on his staff flares, tingeing the glass amber. My skin prickles, knowing that the orb can also burn crimson. That it can leave smoking, blackened marks on my skin. “Duke Weltross’s death was most suspicious.”
“He was sick.”
“Yes. And others have fallen ill in the palace of late. One of the king’s ministers suddenly went blind. Another could hardly recall his own name. The healing Graces could do nothing to aid them.” Wood creaks as he crosses one leg over the other and I catch the faint scent of his power—dewy grass and sticky-sweet nectar. “It reeks of Vila magic.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He blinks slowly, like a reptile. “Did you know, that when you were first discovered and brought to the Grace Council, I advised the Briar King to kill you?”
I curse myself for