Malice

things. So that I would watch as my homeland disintegrated, powerless to stop it.”
I close my eyes against the pain his words bring. Malterre was my homeland, too, even though I never set foot on the soil. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to know that everyone you loved had died. That you had to live forever with their ghosts. I reach for Kal, but he avoids me, going to stand at the gap in the wall and look out at the sea.
“The war was a long time ago,” he continues. “And I understand that things have changed. That they could change even more in the coming years.” He gives me a meaningful look, as if he knows the crown princess is hidden in my words. Heat clambers up my neck and bursts across my cheeks. “But, no, Alyce. This land holds too many ill memories. And I could never ally with a realm that utterly destroyed my own.”
Shame sinks its talons deep. He’ll never be able to separate Aurora from the humans who poisoned Malterre. And how could I ask that of him? After everything he’s seen? Perhaps I should feel the same. I still don’t know who killed my mother. Endlewild will execute me as soon as he has the chance. With Briar as Etheria’s ally, could anything really change?
“I cannot tell you what to do or how to feel.” Kal takes my face in his hands, and ice crackles along my jawline at his touch. I taste the sharp bite of frost. “But sometimes, Alyce, you must choose a side.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Y-your Grace?”
I slam the Nightseeker book closed with a yelp. I’d been poring over another ritual Aurora wants to try and hadn’t even heard the door open. One of the housemaids hovers at the entrance, her hand still braced on the door handle, as if she’s debating whether she ought to turn and bolt. I’ve half a mind to give her a reason to do it.
“Your Grace?” the trembling thing repeats.
Dragon’s teeth, I hate it when the servants address me that way. They always make it sound like they’re spitting out something sour. Or begging me not to kill them.
“Well, what is it?” I give her my best glower.
“Mistress Lavender says you’re to come at once.”
I glance at the clock on the mantel. I’m expecting a patron before long. She wouldn’t dare take me away from the business of earning coin for the house. Not when the mid-year Grace standings have our rank dipping below the middle—lower than it’s been in years, apparently.
“What for?”
But the maid doesn’t need to answer. A muffled ringing chips its way through the stone walls of my Lair. High and grating, one toll clanging after the other in a discordant loop.
The alarm bells. They’re used only when there’s a sudden squall or storm.
Or an attack.
I’m on my feet and pushing past the terrified girl in an instant. The house is in chaos, servants tripping over one another as they try to keep up with Mistress Lavender’s frenzied demands. Rose and Marigold are huddled together whispering, their mink-lined Grace cloaks already fastened and hoods drawn. Another maid shoves my own black cloak into my hands before flitting to her next task.
“Alyce, there you are.” Mistress Lavender is breathless. A fine sheen of sweat glistens on her neck like quicksilver. “There’s no time to waste. Come now, the carriage is waiting. The sooner we leave, the better.”
“But where are we going?”
Sunlight streams through the main parlor windows—no sign of a storm. And I can detect no sounds of battle or invasion, not that I would recognize them.
“It’s a Grace.” Laurel is beside me, her voice low. “She’s on trial.”
My stomach sinks, more for Laurel’s sake than for mine.
“Another?” Grace trials are rare. The last incident was a year ago, in which a Grace was convicted of supplying vials of her blood to a smuggler to be sold in other realms. I’d heard about it through the other Graces. She’d been sentenced to spend the remainder of her gift in one of the stricter houses, all her profits ceded to the Crown. Though to Rose, the true punishment was the fact that the Grace was banned from parties and royal events.
But there hadn’t been any alarm bells announcing her trial. And we certainly weren’t summoned to watch.
Laurel nods, and I can see the same thoughts etched onto the sharp lines creasing her forehead. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
—
We’re forced to abandon the carriage. The streets are too crowded for it to be of any use. Marigold is quite put out. But even her rambling complaints are drowned in the swell of rumor and gossip that eddies like a reeking tide pool around us.
I hear that this Grace accepted bribes. That she took a lover and provided him with elixirs for free. That she drugged the other Graces of her house and bled them in their sleep to steal their gifts.
With each snippet of speculation, Laurel’s jaw clamps tighter. And though I have no love for the Graces, I can’t help but feel sorry for her. What if it was a Vila on trial? My own mother, for the emerald in her blood? Kal?
It takes nearly an hour to pass through the palace gates and into the throne room. The entire Grace District must be here, nobles and Graces pressed against one another like pickled fish in a jar. For once, no one seems to notice me. Not even the guards, who can barely keep to their posts for all the jostling of the citizens passing through.
The Graces are steered into the first-floor viewing area, the rest of the court looking down from the mezzanine. Mistress Lavender prods us forward until we’re as close as possible to the low gilded railing separating the rest of the room from the royal dais and thrones. If Endlewild is here, I don’t see him. King Tarkin and