Malice, Heather Walter [hardest books to read txt] 📗

Malice is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 by Heather Walter

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Del Rey and the Circle colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Walter, Heather, author.

Title: Malice / Heather Walter.

Description: First edition. | New York : Del Rey, 2021.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020015907 (print) | LCCN 2020015908 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984818652 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593357255 (international edition) | ISBN 9781984818669 (ebook)

Classification: LCC PS3623.A44683 M35 2021 (print) | LCC PS3623.A44683 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2020015907

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2020015908

Ebook ISBN 9781984818669

randomhousebooks.com

Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno, adapted for ebook

Cover design: Ella Laytham

Cover illustration: Aykut Aydogdu

ep_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Part I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Part II

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-two

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Briar King,

You mortals may think yourselves above such counsel, but I must urge you once again to end the Vila. There was a war fought over the extermination of these beasts, though your memory is too fickle to recall it. And to welcome another—even a half-breed—into your realm will surely bring ruin. If you insist on so reckless a path as to let the creature live, know this: You were warned.

—Missive from Endlewild, Lord Ambassador of the Fae Courts, to Tarkin, Briar King. Age of the Rose, 976

CHAPTER ONE

Age of the Rose, 996

The golden bell above my doorframe bobs twice.

I roll my shoulders against the needling ache that settles at the base of my neck whenever that damn thing sounds. After nearly a decade of hearing it, I’ve come to despise the bell’s shrill, tinny clang almost as much as the message it carries: A patron is coming. When it was first installed, my bell gleamed like those the Graces use in their parlors. But now, seeing as the servants conveniently forget to polish it, a mottled green tarnish clings to the thing like a scaly skin. Fitting, I think, that I should have the ugliest bell in Lavender House when I am by far the ugliest creature living inside it.

Alyce. My own name on my patron schedule glares up at me when I glance at the next appointment. Beneath it: The Dark Grace.

Grace, indeed. If I were truly a Grace, I’d be receiving my patrons in a sunny parlor with silk-upholstered chairs and trays of spongy, cream-frosted tea cakes. Instead, I’m banished to a converted storage annex attached to Lavender House’s kitchen. It’s yet another reason Cook hates me. The space was once a larder and now Cook complains every chance she gets that there isn’t enough storage space in the cellar. I catch her grumbling curses at me when she thinks I’m out of earshot, as if this insufferable chamber is some kind of prize. There are no windows. A dank chill seeps through the rotting mortar, even in the summer heat. And the wretched hearth—hastily added once I opened my practice—clogs more often than not, filling my Lair with a perpetual smoky scent and smearing soot on every surface.

It’s more a dragon’s lair out of a story than a parlor in a Grace house. Rose dubbed it such soon after she arrived: the Lair, where the Dark Grace dwells. I hate the place so much that I didn’t even fight her.

Callow ruffles as the bell jangles a second time, as annoyed as I am at the intrusion. I offer my kestrel a few meat trimmings snuck from beneath Cook’s nose.

“What do you think this one wants?” Callow shakes out her white-speckled wings in a decidedly irritated fashion and nudges my hand with her head. And I suppose there’s no point putting it off any longer. “Enter!”

The chamber door squeals and I can tell immediately from the footsteps that it isn’t one of my regulars. They’re anxious. Hesitant. A startle away from turning and bolting.

I wish they would turn and bolt.

Whispering apologies to Callow, I fix her hood over her head. She’s easier to handle this way, especially around strangers. I’d found the kestrel as a chick some years ago, half-dead and starving on the sea cliffs outside Briar’s main gates. Though I’m no healing Grace, I was able to nurse her back to health with what tinctures I could concoct. She’s never taken to anyone else. Not that I blame her. Mistress Lavender said it would have been kinder to kill the bird, and one of the servants mistook her for a rat and nearly bludgeoned her to death. The maid was lucky I didn’t return the favor.

The nervous patron hovers in my doorway, hood close around her face despite the oppressive, salt-soaked heat of late summer. The firelight flits over her features, sharpening her cheekbones. Hollowing her eye sockets. Definitely not a regular. She looks like she thinks I’m going to roast her over a spit. As if my pathetic hearth is large enough to manage that. Would that it could.

“Your Grace.” The edges of her brocade cloak tremble as she scrapes a curtsy.

“What brings you here?” I stroke Callow’s snowy breast with one finger, affecting the cool, detached manner people expect from the Dark Grace. I don’t ask her name. Within these walls, she doesn’t have one. Patrons do not come to my Lair seeking beauty or charm or wit as they would in a Grace’s parlor. They come for revenge. For cruelty. Services provided at a steep price, and that price includes anonymity.

“I…I have a…cat.”