Malice (Malice Duology #1)(63)
As if reading the assessment in my gaze, she narrows hers. “Malyce smells no different than usual.” And then she melts away.
“Alyce, what in Briar!” Mistress Lavender pushes through the vacancy Rose left. “I’ve had servants scrubbing your parlor all morning, but still we cannot rid ourselves of this blight.”
I stand up again, trying to keep my guilt from showing. I’d put everything away. Positioned things so that it looks like my stores are full. Though I’ll probably have to use my own coin to replace most of what’s lost.
“I— I was experimenting with a new elixir.” I keep my tone even. “One of the enhancements reacted badly.” That part isn’t even a lie.
“I should think so.” Mistress Lavender waves her own sachet beneath her nose, eliciting a smirk from Marigold. “Needless to say, you won’t have any patrons today. We’ll keep some cleansing herbs burning in your hearth. Delphine will reschedule everyone for tomorrow. And I’m sorry to do it, but if any of them cancel, the coin for their appointment will come out of your earnings. I’ll not have the house suffer for your foolishness.”
Marigold looks like she might burst into flame with glee.
“I understand.” I incline my head even as the punishment stings. Given that my patrons will traipse all the way to Lavender House to learn that I’m unavailable, it’s highly likely they’ll decide the errand isn’t worth repeating. But I remind myself that I could be facing far worse than lost coin.
Mistress Lavender mutters a few more things to herself, then steers Marigold away, ranting off a list of tasks that need to be done.
“You do reek.” Laurel glides out of her parlor and I jump. How long had she been listening?
“I think we’ve covered that.” I roll my eyes and start back up the stairs.
“Not of whatever nonsense you just lied about.”
My heart kicks. “What are you talking about? I used—”
Laurel waves away my words. “Keep your secrets. You have little else of your own.”
Her answer surprises me, as did the dress and the mask she left for me what seems a lifetime ago. But I still do not trust her fully. She is a Grace.
“You smell of old books. You have for a while now.”
I almost laugh. Leave it to Laurel to detect such a scent.
“I think they’re wrong about your gift,” I say, raising my sleeve to my nose and breathing deep. All I smell is charred deathknot. “You have the nose of a bloodhound.”
She tilts her head at me. “What have you been reading? And where did you get it?”
“I thought I was allowed to have my own secrets.”
“Perhaps.” Her yew-stained fingertips beat out an impatient rhythm against the lacquered wood balustrade. “Could you bring me some?”
“Books?”
“Yes. I get so little opportunity to explore older texts. If you don’t want to say where you got them, bring me a few.”
I turn her request over in my mind. So simple, and yet it sends alarm bells clanging through my brain. It makes sense that a Grace gifted in wisdom would want rare books. Laurel’s parlor walls are lined with shelves, stuffed to bursting with texts she’s devoured. But I can’t give her the Nightseeker volumes. Or any about Vila. And to refuse would only whet her appetite further. Lure her to snoop in my Lair. I try to read the look in her golden eyes. Laurel is different from the others. Maybe not my friend. But not my enemy, either.
“Very well,” I say at last. I’ll have Aurora bring a few harmless volumes. “Give me time. But I will.”
* * *
—
The lingering stench of the deathknot does not recede enough for me to receive patrons the next day. A headache masses like a storm inside my skull as I think of the tripled appointments I’ll have to squeeze in to make up the time when the chamber is finally clear. And of the coin I’ll lose. But I’m grateful for another day to rest.
Callow perched on my shoulder, I spend the early hours of the morning gathering any enhancements I can find outside Briar’s main gates to replace common ingredients that were lost in the wake of the summoning ritual. A cheaper solution than going to Hilde’s. And then I go to the tower and visit Kal.
After turning a few pebbles into winged stone birds and coaxing them to fly around the tower, we focus on my Shifting.
It’s getting easier, but my abilities are budding at best. Kal was right, my early Shifts happened out of need and desperation, and so they came and went without my even noticing. I missed the telltale tingle of bone drifting and muscle reshaping. But I suppose I should have realized. When I was a child, and I would squeeze myself into the impossibly small corners of the cellar in order to hide from the ministrations of the healing Graces. When, stomach growling after they’d forgotten about me, I could sneak unseen into the kitchen and make off with an entire pie, I always thought I was simply being ignored.
Actual Shifts are much more difficult to maintain. The command must be given and upheld, and my grip is weak and my control unpredictable. I can employ a new face for a half an hour perhaps, before my hold on the magic tires and the illusion slips. Now that I know what to look for, I can always sense it. Cheekbones itching under my skin as they settle back into place. Scalp burning as my hair flattens and brittles.