Malice (Malice Duology #1)(80)

“Wake up,” I say, thrusting a bottle of potent beetle dung under her nose. She curses, slapping my hand away and groaning.

“You’ll thank me when you don’t die.”

Rose looks from me to her hand, face shading impossibly whiter under her thick layer of powder. “All that blood,” she whimpers. “Just gone.”

“Don’t think about that,” I say, digging out a handful of balmwood moss and pressing it hard into the cut. But I know she won’t be able to think about anything else. The rug in the parlor was soaked. And who knows how much she lost before I found her. It could be years of her power drained away. Rose has been among the highest-ranking beauty Graces since she Bloomed. She had every chance of beating Pearl for the role of Royal Grace. But not after tonight. “What are you even doing here? You should be at the competition.”

    “I left.”

“Because you won so handily?” I can’t seem to resist the urge to bait her. “Why aren’t you at the reception?”

Rose curses again as I pack down a fresh layer of moss. It seems to be working. The blood is slowing.

“If you must know, I didn’t make it past the first round.” Her whole body stiffens under my hands, the hollows of her collarbone deepening. “I couldn’t even turn Lady Elipsa’s hair a decent shade of ruby. And the other Graces…”

The walls of the Lair creak against the blizzard.

“It’s because you’ve weakened yourself,” I tell her, almost gently. The blood has finally clotted. I remove the moss and make to rinse the wound with a mix of mint water and chamomile leaves. “By taking those thinners and running yourself ragged.”

“I stopped taking them,” she snaps, trying to wrench her hand away.

“Be still or you’ll open the wound!”

She relaxes, but glares. “I stopped. I knew my power needed to be at its most potent.”

“It doesn’t work that way.” The water in my bowl is yellowing with her blood. “You can’t just stop taking something like bloodrot without consequence. You’d been dosing yourself too long. You needed to taper off.”

    A jewel in one of her Briar rose earrings glimmers. “No one told me that.”

“I’m sure they didn’t.” I dab at the slash on her skin. “Let me guess, you kept adding more blood to the elixir at the contest, hoping to make it stronger. And then—”

“It wouldn’t stop,” she confirms, trying and failing to keep a tremor out of her voice. “It just kept coming. I barely made it out of the hall without anyone noticing.”

A strange sort of sympathy takes shape inside of me. But it is pointy-edged and uncomfortable. “Lucky for you, they probably all thought you were sullen and pouting.”

She kicks me, but doesn’t argue.

“How did you get home?”

“A carriage. Not one from the palace. I walked part of the way. I couldn’t let anyone know.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t die in the storm. Bleed out on the street.”

“I understand, Malyce.” Her usual venom returns. “I don’t need a lecture from someone with green blood.”

Much as I try to deflect it, the jab lands on a sore spot. But I hold my tongue. For a while, there is only tense silence. The fire pops and spits, doing little to combat the cold. The wind howls outside, moans down the chimney and into the room.

“Are you almost done?” Rose rubs her uninjured hand over her other arm, trying to warm herself. “I need to clean up the parlor before the servants find it.”

“Why do you hate me?”

The question takes us both by surprise. She blinks a few times. But she doesn’t deny it. “You have no idea what it’s like to be a Grace.”

    I nearly drop the bottle of rosewood ointment. “That’s why you hate me? Because I’m not you?”

Rose flushes, the first color I’ve seen on her face since I picked her up off the floor. “I might have bled out five years of my gift on my own parlor rug. Five years, maybe more, when I could have beaten Pearl tonight. Will your gift ever Fade?”

The truth needles between my shoulder blades. “I don’t know. Probably.”

But I am Vila and Shifter, and will wield magic until my dying breath. Which, because I do share the blood of my ancestors, is a very long time from now.

“It won’t,” Rose snarls, as if reading my thoughts. And for a moment I’m sure she knows about me. But it’s suspicion, not conviction, that paces behind her gaze. “Vilas don’t Fade, even if you are only a half-breed. You will always be strong and powerful, even if everything you do is ugly.”

“You—” The wheels of my mind click and spin. “You’re jealous of me?”

Rose’s color deepens. “Of course not.”

But she is. I can see it in the shape of her shoulders, bowed and defensive. In the way she is suddenly fascinated with the books on my shelves. Rose, who has tormented me all of my life, always rubbing my nose in her precious golden blood, is jealous. A feeling I do not recognize simmers behind my sternum.

“I always wanted to be one of you,” I say softly, unsure why I’m offering her this bit of myself. Her attention lashes back to me, sharp as a whip. “To craft beauty and charm and to make people love me instead of—” I bite the inside of my cheek. “We’re not as different as you think. I’m a prisoner, too.”