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

in my chest. So she came to marvel at the half-Vila Dark Grace. Like I’m one of the creatures in the royal menagerie. “We can’t all be Grace-gifted.”

She doesn’t miss the vinegar in my tone. “Oh, no. I mean that as a compliment. The Graces are so vain.”

Another surprise. “You really think so?”

She tosses her hair over one shoulder and bats her long eyelashes, an exact copy of one of Rose’s gestures. “You can hardly expect otherwise, I suppose. The Fae magic goes right to their heads. The Royal Graces are the worst. They seem to think that because they live here, they can cluck over me and pour their newest elixirs down my throat. The witty ones are fun sometimes. And wisdoms aren’t so bad, when they’re not trying to prove you wrong. But the rest are absolutely tiresome.”

I let my shoulders drop, drinking up her words like honey. I’ve never met anyone besides Hilde who dislikes the Graces.

“And the sycophants who dote on them are worse,” she goes on, striding around the fountain and examining it like it’s a piece of art. “Don’t feel too bad about losing Arnley’s interest. You would have lost him anyway, even if you weren’t the Dark Grace. Once he’d gotten your mask off, if you catch my meaning.”

I do, and it makes the ridges of my ears burn. Graces are forbidden from romantic or intimate relationships until after they’ve Faded, but the way Rose was hanging on Arnley. The jealous twinge in her jaw when he danced with me. Had she—I’d rather not know.

“I wasn’t interested in him.”

“Good.” She wends her way back to me. Moonlight slides over the bits of red in her hair, turning them a burnished copper. Her gown shimmers over every inch of her body, as if she wears the sea itself. “My parents threw him at my head years ago. I was relieved when he wasn’t the one. The royal children would have had dozens of half-siblings.”

I nearly choke. The Grace from earlier was right. The princess is nothing if not brazen. I find myself thawing toward her.

“How often do they—” I fumble a bit, wondering if it’s a delicate subject. “Throw someone at your head?”

She laughs, a musical sound that illicits an answering call from a nearby nightingale. “Since I was barely more than a child. A few a year then, as I was the youngest. But now it’s nearly one a day.”

“Once a day? You have to—to kiss total strangers?”

“More than that after tonight.” She shrugs. Fiddles with the chain on her collarbone. “Now that this is the last year. And my sisters…”

She trails away and sympathy bats at my heart. Aurora was as young as I was when the first princess died—only a child. Even so, she likely witnessed her elder sisters welcome and kiss every suitor. How many, I wonder? She probably knows. Probably counted and hoped and held her breath in anticipation. And it all meant nothing in the end.

“I’m sorry.” It doesn’t feel like enough.

“Everyone is.” A firefly rides the next current of breeze. The light from the spark of its body snags on the jewel at her throat. Glides over the exposed skin of her shoulder, so different from mine. Pure and unbroken and lovely. “I wish I could be like you.”

“What?” I suck in air too fast and cough. That’s something I never thought I’d hear coming out of anyone’s mouth, much less a royal’s.

“I do.” There’s not a trace of doubt or mockery. “Destroy things and…” She drops her voice, studying the fountain. “People, even. Let out what simmers inside me. But I can’t. I’m too well trained. Ever grateful and graceful and—” She glances my way and a blush paints her cheeks. “Forgive me. I’m rambling.”

“No.” I dare a step closer. “I know exactly what you mean. I wanted to bring the ballroom crashing down after Rose— Well, you saw what she did. So many times I want to…” I look down, worried I’ve said too much already.

A gentle touch lands on my arm. Heat shoots through the silk of my glove. “We’re not so different, are we?”

I meet the princess’s gaze, a lump in my throat. “No. I suppose we’re not.”

“A princess and a Dark Grace. Quite the pair.” She scoops up a glob of mud with a fingertip and inspects it. “You’ve ruined my favorite fountain, you know. Those are sculptures of me.” She gestures to a marble maiden. Sludge oozes down its waist and drips from the crook of its elbow.

Damn everything. “Are they really? It’s your favorite?”

“No.” She laughs again, flicking the mud away. “But it is now. It’s absolutely my favorite thing in this entire palace.”

—

Princess Aurora herself helps me to steal away into a carriage without having to walk back through the viper’s pit of a ballroom. I’m home well before the others, drifting in on the cloud of joy Aurora cultivated in the gardens. I never thought I’d meet anyone who understood even a sliver of what it means to be me. Especially not a princess.

But the sight of myself in the mirror, the reflection in the servants’ eyes as I return, sends me crashing back to reality. I barricade myself in my room, peeling off the dress, the gloves, the one remaining shoe. Part of me feels guilty for spoiling the surprise Laurel clearly worked hard to achieve. But it isn’t me who should apologize. It’s Rose.

Rose who deals out my humiliations as easily as hands of playing cards. Rose who takes great pains to ensure I feel every bit of the hatred the realm harbors for me. And as I burrow into the safety of my coverlet, I begin to devise how, exactly, I will return the favor.

CHAPTER TEN

The rest of the household returns well after midnight. I hear their carriage clatter up the drive. The orders shouted to servants and the trudge of dance-weary footsteps. No one comes to check