Malice (Malice Duology #1)(23)

She steps back as a mud bubble erupts and splatters my gown. “That fountain has seen better days, though.”

I cringe at the dark brown liquid frothing at the base. “I’m sorry,” I begin quickly. “I didn’t mean—”

“I actually like it better this way.” She taps a fingertip to her chin. “Yes. It’s much more entertaining than anything the innovation Graces could have crafted.”

An awful sound between a laugh and a choke bursts from my mouth. I clamp my hands over my lips to smother it. Aurora pretends not to notice.

“Is that all you can do? Muck up fountains and horrify courtiers? It doesn’t seem like the sort of power that nearly vanquished the light Fae.” She watches me closely for a few beats. And then, softer, “I’m sorry they were so rude to you.”

She sounds sincere. I’ve never heard an apology uttered for anyone’s treatment of me, not one that wasn’t wrenched from Rose’s lips at Mistress Lavender’s insistence. I’m not sure what to make of it.

“I’m ashamed of them,” the princess says. “Would you like them banished? It’s the least I can do. The insult was given at my party, after all.”

    It takes me a moment to realize she’s teasing me. Another of those clumsy, mortifying laughs punches through my lungs.

She grins. “Very well. Once I’m queen, it’s done.”

Quiet settles between us. I pick at the ruined parts of my dress. It feels far too tight now under her scrutiny, the seams like bars of a cage.

“I’ve heard stories about you,” she says finally. “You’re not as green as people claim.” She leans in. “A little pale, perhaps. Not a typical Grace, certainly.”

I stiffen as the familiar feeling of being found wanting expands 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.”