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

hazards a step forward, clenching the neck of her dressing gown. “Is she—”

“No.” The light from Endlewild’s staff gilds the chamber. He runs a spindly fingered hand through his snow-white hair. “But soon. And we will need all our magic to save her.”

Laurel looks to me then, eyebrows shooting up. This wasn’t the plan. Understanding puckers her lips. She thinks it was my fault. That I cursed Aurora by mistake. Lost control of my power. I slide my gaze away, guilt heavy on my shoulders. It’s close enough to the truth.

“Marigold.” Mistress Lavender flies into action. “Go to Willow House and fetch her healing Graces. Rose, gather the kits. And, Laurel”—she ushers the wisdom Grace through—“I expect His Grace will need your gift most of all.”

Endlewild begins speaking to Laurel in low tones, explaining the situation as he knows it. Laurel nods along, blanching. Calculating her own part in the mess, I expect.

“Keep the half-breed close,” the Etherian commands over his shoulder.

Mistress Lavender sucks her teeth. Her Faded Grace eyes are flinty, a muscle in her jaw ticking. The last thing she wants is the Dark Grace to be found in Lavender House. Not with the princess practically dead on her parlor couch. But she keeps her objections to herself.

“Go to the cellar and wait,” she instructs me, straightening the tie at her waist.

“I will not.” I cannot. Not after what’s happened. Not when this might be the last time I see Aurora—ever. Craning my neck, I can just glimpse the heel of her slipper peeking from behind Endlewild. A slice of her too-pale skin.

“Alyce.” Mistress Lavender grips my elbow. “You will not speak to me that way. Not after this. Not after everything else you’ve brought down upon my head. I tried to do my best with you. I really did. And it was such a burden. No other housemistress would take it on. But I thought—what a poor, luckless thing. I would help her. And this is how you’ve repaid me?”

Heat tingles along my scalp. “I’m aware of how inconvenient my life has been for you.” I am reckless. But I can’t stop. “And I’m sorry you found me to be so much trouble, regardless of the amount of coin I brought you over the years. What was it you said, that Lavender House rose three ranks once I started working here? And I imagine that housing the dreaded Dark Grace came with its own healthy stipend.”

Mistress Lavender takes a step back, as if my words physically struck her. My pulse thrums beneath my jaw, spurred by my smoldering rage. Her magic would be so weak, a normal human’s now that she’s Faded. I could—

“Get downstairs,” she grinds out. “If you do not, I will call the guard myself.”

Do it a thought that I somehow recognize as Mortania’s urges. Her magic hums against mine like a plucked string, begging to leave my body and be the end of Mistress Lavender. It would be so easy to release it. And then the housemistress could never order me about again. Never look at me like I’m something she found on the bottom of her shoe.

But then Laurel straightens from where she has been examining Aurora. She holds my gaze and gives the barest shake of her head, golden eyes softer now. Pleading. This is not the way. If I ever want to see Aurora again, if she survives this, it will do me no good to have committed such a crime.

And so I push my breaths in and out, ragged and shallow. Close my eyes against the burning wrath simmering in my blood. Take one last glance at Aurora, and then turn my steps to the back door, through the kitchen, and down the stairs.

—

The cellar seems an appropriate prison for the Dark Grace.

I’m half tempted to try to sneak out to my Lair. See what can be salvaged. But I have no desire to know how the guards treated it. Callow’s perch hacked to bits. Her feathers—or perhaps even her body—littered among the broken glass and ripped pages. Pain balloons in my chest and sinks to my toes. I did not imagine it would hurt so much—how quickly I could be destroyed. An unsightly mark immediately papered over and forgotten.

Without a hearth, the cellar is frigid. My breath clouds in front of my face as I stalk between bags of flour and crates of wine and cheese, arms tight around my body. Even down here, I can hear the storm bellow. As if the wind itself wants to punch through the stone.

I go to the top of the stairs and press my ear to the door, trying to catch snippets of what’s going on with Aurora, but it is useless. I can only seethe and wait and hope that she is getting better. That she hasn’t died by my hand.

Hours pass. I think. With no way to tell the time, I’m going mad. At one point, I might hear movement from the kitchen, the staff waking and starting the day. But I can’t be sure.

At long last, the doorknob whines as it turns and light floods down the cellar stairs. Mistress Lavender descends, looking ten years older than she did when I arrived with Endlewild. Her eyes are leaden and bruised in the flame of her lamp. She still hasn’t changed from her dressing gown. I bolt up from the crate I’d been huddled against.

“Is she dead?”

Mistress Lavender releases a long breath. “She survived.”

A giddy relief washes over me. Tears sting in my eyes. “I must go to her.”

“You absolutely will n—”

I’m flying up the stairs before she can stop me. Mistress Lavender claws at my skirts, trying to pull me back, but I yank myself free, not caring if she winds up flat on her back. I must see Aurora. Smell the appleblossom in her hair and kiss the curve of her neck and tell her how wrong I was and how sorry I am. The words