Malice (Malice Duology #1)(82)

Sighing, I sweep the gold back into the pouch and go to add it to the rest. But when I unlock my safe, I freeze. The space inside, which houses all my years of earnings—the profit from every drop I spilled in service to a patron—is empty.

A small black box leers at me instead, a matching envelope resting on top.

Cold flashes across every nerve.

I lift the lid. It’s satin-lined, the color like slick mortal blood. Nestled within the folds are a half-dozen brooches. Thin gold whorls and twists into the shape of a dragon, scales set with a myriad of opals and sapphires that flash in the hearth light.

I tear open the envelope:


The wearer dies an untraceable death.



A mad rushing—like a storm over the sea—roars in my ears. I cannot breathe. Cannot think. I’m back in the throne room after Narcisse’s trial, Tarkin smiling at me in that calculating way that stripped me bare.

    He knew.

He found out that I was trying to leave Briar and he took my gold so that I couldn’t book passage on a ship. The message is so clear he might as well be screaming it from the palace. My throat clogs, an iron weight clamping around my neck and tightening with each breath. Tarkin’s collared beast. That’s what I am.

But how did he know? I’ve combed through the possibilities often enough, trying to figure out how his servants found a way into my Lair when they left his commissions. They also knew where I kept my safe. Discovered my plan to escape. But I’ve noticed no one lurking. No repeat patrons or new servants.

Unless.

The cord of my magic undulates.

It was someone inside Lavender House.



* * *



—

The kitchen staff scatters in my wake. Even surly Cook veers out of my way without bluster. A flighty maid drops an egg with a strangled cry and I don’t even bother to dodge the splattered yolk. The other Graces are in the main parlor. I can hear their easy conversation. The high pitch of Mistress Lavender’s vapid laughter. I plow through the glass-paned doors.

“Which one of you was it?” Rage crackles in the pounding of my pulse at my wrists. At the underside of my jaw. In my chest. It is everything I can do to keep my power contained.

The chatter dies, four pairs of eyes pivoting to my entrance. Mistress Lavender pales to a watery gray, her teacup frozen in mid-sip. I see myself in the silver of her gaze. Wild-eyed and hair flying. Teeth bared. A monster.

    Laurel sets down her biscuit.

“What’s happened?” she asks, unnervingly calm as her gift of wisdom guides her.

My magic is ready to explode. Ready to unleash my worst on these women who have caged me in this house my entire life and have now ruined my only means of escape.

“Someone has been spying on me. They’ve taken my earnings.” I launch the words like daggers, watching carefully to see who bleeds. “Everything is gone.”

Mistress Lavender lowers her cup, the soft clink of china like a thunderclap in the charged silence. “Are you certain?”

“Yes, I’m certain. It was all there a few days ago, more than twenty thousand gold, and now it isn’t.”

“Perhaps you miscounted.” Rose remains stoic, unruffled. My first and only suspect.

She’s jealous of my power, which will always be stronger than hers. It’s not hard to guess that she’d be prowling about the house, watching me and reporting back to the king. And she’d been in my Lair the night of her accident. Had she seen where I kept my gold? But how? The questions trip over one another until I can’t tell one from the next.

“Or she spent it.” Marigold nibbles a scone. “Honestly, between you and Laurel, you spend your coin on the strangest things. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if you lost track.” She titters, but no one joins her.

“Twenty thousand is quite the sum.” Mistress Lavender’s brows draw together, and I can almost see the numbers running through her mind. “We are, of course, happy to search the house. The servants’ quarters. And why don’t you let me count what you have and compare it to our ledger? Just to make sure you’re not mistaken. That’s such a large amount, Alyce.”

    “Did you not hear me? I have nothing. All of it is—” My mistake registers like a shot firing. The twenty thousand included the king’s payments. If she tallies up my earnings for the past years, even if I never spent a copper, she’ll know I claimed more than I’m supposed to have. Panic douses my wrath. I’m such a fool.

“What a good idea. It should be easy to prove it that way. Unless you did spend it.” Rose adjusts her necklace—a string of rare pink pearls only found on the shores of Cardon. “Or unless you’re taking on unreported patrons.”

Even Marigold gasps at the implication. Under the Grace Laws, patrons and earnings must be reported. In theory, this is to ensure that the Graces receive their rightful coin and to prevent anyone from abusing the system, as when Graces were bought by the nobles. But really it’s to make sure that the Crown always gets its share of Grace profits.

Worry purses Mistress Lavender’s coral-painted lips together. “Alyce knows such a practice is illegal.”

So that’s what Rose thinks I’m doing. Taking extra patrons to earn more money because my gift doesn’t Fade. And so she betrayed me to Tarkin to punish me.