Misrule, page 15
Water sloshes. “That depends on what it is. You know I swore to Nimara.”
“Yes.” And I think she might put a hand on his arm. My blood boils. “I’m sorry she forced you to do that.”
“She didn’t,” he says.
“Well, you couldn’t have felt like you had much of a choice.”
My jaw aches from clenching my teeth.
“What did you have in mind?”
“It will take a bit of maneuvering, but I think we can manage it. And it would mean so much to me…”
I try to sharpen my hearing to pick up what she says next, but the Imps begin a boisterous song about severed heads. Movement flits between the slats of wood—Aurora and Derek leaving with another mount. The Imps stream out in a noisy cluster behind them, smothering all chance of overhearing any more of their conversation.
What is she planning? Rose’s reports have been filled with Aurora’s day-to-day activities, along with searing little jabs about how she cries out at night, or how sad it is that she’s homesick in her own home. But nothing that sounds even close to a secret plan. Has the Grace found a loophole in the necklace’s limitations?
All I can think about is Regan’s story about Pansy. Aurora could have come to me with whatever she needed. But she went to Derek instead. Plotting behind my back. I feel like an idiot.
After I’m sure they’ve gone, I emerge from Chaos’s pen. And then I spend a solid half hour shoveling manure over the stable floor and caking it over every clean surface. I upend buckets of Imp-conjured oats. Pour water over fresh hay. Dismantle bridles and tie ropes into impossible knots. The Fae steeds are furious, especially Chaos. But I ignore him.
Regan was right. Sometimes people aren’t who we believed them to be.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I go to my rooms to change my dress, and then make my way in search of Rose—who obviously needs to be reminded of her duties. The restrictions of the necklace’s curse may need to be tightened as well. But I’m not halfway to Aurora’s suite when I round a corner and nearly smack into another body.
“Forgive me—” But the rest dies when I find that the body belongs to Neve.
She’s Shifted to resemble some kind of sea nymph, with coral-textured limbs and eyes a striking shade of blue. Shell combs hold up her green locks, and she straightens her gown where I’ve rumpled it, the silky material flowing as if waves were stitched together.
“The fault is mine,” she replies in that oil-slick voice of hers. “My mind was otherwise occupied. I fear you’ve caught me wandering the palace in search of new rooms, as it appears that mine were gifted to a recently woken princess.”
Embarrassment burns the ridges of my ears. I may have accidentally forgotten to alert Neve to the change in her apartments, and to assign her new ones.
“The matter was decided quickly,” I say. “As you’re so frequently absent, we determined your rooms would be best to house the princess.”
“We?”
“The council.” Though I was the one to suggest it.
“The same council that was unaware of the princess’s existence in the first place?”
There’s challenge in her cerulean eyes, and I do not like it. Nor do I like her habit of speaking only in cryptic riddles or needling questions. I’ve apologized enough for keeping Aurora hidden, and I certainly don’t owe Neve anything.
“If you’re at court,” I say, “then I assume you have information. What is it?”
I half-expect her to refuse to tell me out of sheer spite. But Neve adjusts one of the shell combs in her hair. “I received word from my spies across the sea, those in the mortal realms.”
“About the boy?”
“About the Fae. They’ve taken residence in several courts.”
“Fae?” I step closer. Curiosity overrides my thinning patience. “How long have they been there?”
“That is yet to be determined. Years, possibly, especially if they were in disguise or caused the humans to forget them when they departed.”
Dragon’s teeth. “But the Fae despise the mortals.”
“True. But they clearly want something.”
“And I trust you’ll tell us what that something is as soon as you know?”
“Of course.”
From anyone else, that would be all the assurance I needed. But this is Neve. I may have promised Torin that I would try harder with the Shifter leader, but her condescension does not make that an easy, or even appealing, prospect. Maybe her rooms should be somewhere where I can keep a better eye on her. Mortania’s dark laughter wends through my mind.
“See that you do,” I say, pushing past her.
“Nimara,” she calls at my back. I halt. “My Starlings send their condolences on the loss of our kin. They regret their inability to attend the ceremony.”
An unwelcome guilt twists around my bones. I clench my fists against it. The shadows of the hall seem to reach for me, raising gooseflesh on my body. When I look back at Neve, she’s smiling, the tips of her pointed teeth gleaming in the torchlight, like rows of waiting knives.
* * *
—
The door to Aurora’s suite is unlocked, and I let myself in. As Rose’s reports claimed, she’s obviously made herself more at home. The sheets are off the furniture, and there are books scattered about. One is still open next to a plate of half-eaten pastries. I pick it up. The War of the Fae, the title reads. It appears Aurora had been exploring a passage on Oryn’s inner court, or what was known of it at the time of this writing. The volume is among those brought from Malterre, and there’s an abundance of salty commentary on the Etherians.
“Am I beautiful now?” A shrill voice carries through the stillness.
My brow rumples and I set the book down, drawn to a door half hidden by a tapestry on the other side of the room. It leads to the maid’s chamber. Rose’s room.
I angle close to the sliver of pallid afternoon light spilling out through the crack. An Imp struts about in a gown far too large for her, the skirt hiked up in one hand. In the other, she carries a mirror. Her lips—usually thin and black, like that of the rest of her kin—are voluptuous, and a rich burgundy color. She twirls, puckers her mouth, and kisses her reflection.
There are two other Imps present, perched on the narrow bed among fluffy petticoats and fringed pillows. The bedframe squeaks as they bounce up and down on the mattress, their faces smeared with various shades of powder and rouge. Aurora’s Imps are outside with her, so why are they here?
“I’m next,” one crows, rubbing his small hands together. “I want hair like yours. But blue. No, green. No, yellow, like the princess’s.”
“Her hair is gold, you nitwit. And it’s my turn.” The other socks her companion in the stomach with a pillow. A feather escapes through a ripped seam and drifts to the floor. “I want eyes like the princess’s. That lovely, beauteous lavender.”
“Be patient,” Rose scolds. I can’t see her, but I hear metal clink against glass. “You know, there is another Grace in the Garden who could sweeten your laugh. You could sound as if a chorus of bells lived in your lungs.”
“Bells?” The Imp sticks out her tongue in disgust. “Ravens would be better. Vultures, maybe.”
Is Rose making elixirs…for the Imps?
I push into the room. “What are you doing?”
The Imps’ grins vanish. Wispy-haired heads duck into petticoats, only the tips of quivery ears poking up through the lace. Rose’s “patron” sucks in her newly minted lips. “Nuffing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing to me.” I pick up the stem of a lavender flower on the table. “These are supposed to be for Aurora. Why are you wasting them?”
Rose’s usual snobbery locks on like armor. “I need the creatures nearby to conjure my enhancements. The gardens here are atrocious. Not that I’m surprised, given everything else you’ve sullied. Quite useful creatures, these Imps. We would have welcomed the darlings in our parlors. Then we wouldn’t have needed those dreadful apothecaries, with their filthy fingers and stinking shops.”
As if Rose ever deigned to visit those shops. One of the Imps makes a sound like a satisfied purr. I shoot him a look, and he burrows back into the mountains of pastel skirts.
“Do you mean to say you haven’t given Aurora any elixirs yet? That’s the entire reason I let you leave the dungeon.”
“I haven’t perfected the recipe.” She busies herself with the ingredients. “You don’t expect me to give the princess just anything, do you?”
“But what of the curse? She could…”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that when you bled all the healing Graces dry,” Rose snipes. “My gift is beauty. I’m doing my best. And I’ve been monitoring her. The princess is fine for now, which is no mystery. She’s ingested so much of the Royal Graces’ elixirs in her life, the effects would probably last two hundred years.”
That’s true, I suppose. Aurora told me that the palace maids used to slip elixir into her tea when she refused to drink it. But I still do not appreciate the Grace’s defiance.
“Even so, if you cannot complete the tasks I require of you, there’s no purpose for you being here.”
She crosses her arms. “Are you the Grace Council now? Threatening consequences for poor performance?”
The jab lands as intended. I suck my teeth.
“Don’t send her away, Mistress,” one of the Imps pipes up. “We like her potions.”
“Do you?” I tilt my head at Rose. “And why have you selected the Imps for your experiments? Wouldn’t the human servants be better?”
Rose fusses with her instruments. “Because—”
“She gives them to us so we don’t dress her up like the other one,” the other Imp supplies. “Fair trade, it is.”
The other one? They must mean Derek. And I’ve wondered why Rose’s appearance remained unfailingly flawless when the Imps could have outfitted her however they deemed fit. I’d assumed Aurora had a hand in the Grace’s wardrobe, but this explanation makes far more sense. “A century later, and you’re still obsessed with your gowns and trinkets. I should have guessed.”
She snatches the lavender out of my hand. “And what are you obsessed with, Nimara? Severed heads and broken staffs? Oh, and the princess. I’m happy to present her with inadequate elixirs if you wish. What do I care if her hair turns blue?”
“Oh, blue, yes!” An Imp bounces on the mattress. “Do mine that way.”
The silty taste of my power lands on my tongue, magic poised to call on the necklace. No, to reach into her body and crush her cord of magic, as I should have done before I left Lavender House that last day. Would that I could go back.
“I warned you not to test me.”
Rose toys with the charms on her bracelet. A minuscule golden seahorse. An oyster with a pearl. “You think I give a dragon’s tooth about your warnings? If you send me back to the Garden, who will report on Aurora?”
Her arrogance knows no bounds. “Because you’re doing such a good job of it? I know you’ve been keeping something back.”
Confusion flashes within her gilded gaze. Did she really think I wouldn’t find out?
“I’ve done exactly as you instructed. See for yourself.” She lifts her chin, displaying the rose-and-thorn necklace, which rests harmlessly against her throat.
My brow furrows. Aurora must not have told Rose about the secret plan. Why not?
The Imps have begun playing a gambling game with dice and finger bones. One argues about a bad throw, and the other tears off her shoe and clobbers her accuser over the head with it. He curses and scrambles backward, knocking over a table and upsetting several books. Then they’re fighting in a tangle of knobby limbs and feathers and skirts.
“Can’t you imbeciles see that I’m working?” Rose shouts at them. “Calm down or get out.”
“We don’t leave without you, Rosey Posey,” the Imp with the burgundy lips announces with a stump-toothed grin.
Rose picks up a book and chucks it at them. It thuds into flesh, and an Imp howls.
“Rosey Posey?” I repeat.
“Don’t you even dare, Malyce. She won’t be getting any elixirs for at least a week for that.” The Imp splutters in outrage. The others laugh until she starts pelting them with finger bones. “If you’re done accusing me of imaginary transgressions, I need to concentrate.” Rose swivels back to her work. “The princess was provided her elixirs by the Royal Graces, and they didn’t publish their recipes. I’ll never get these done in time for—”
She stops herself and flushes, bright dandelions blooming on her cheeks. But she’s caught. Rose might not know of Aurora’s plans, but she knows something. I select a sprig of mint and begin rolling the leaves between my fingertips. “In time for what?”
The Grace dumps a spoonful of powder into the mortar. “It’s not important.”
But the necklace tightens at her lie, diamond thorns pricking her throat.
“That’s not true and we both know it.”
Stone thumps on stone as Rose drops her pestle and faces me. “Go on, then. Let this wretched collar leave a wound she will see. Or better yet, kill me.”
Her tone needles me the same as it did when I was the Dark Grace.
You are not that person anymore. Mortania’s presence whips inside me like a maelstrom, sucking every other thought inside it. I’m hit with the scent of rich wine and molten steel.
The Imps have given up their game and are gaping at us, saucer-eyed.
“Careful, Rose.” I run my knuckle along her jawline so that the onyx thorns on my signet ring graze her gold-tinted skin. “I might feel compelled to rise to such challenges.”
A bright flash of fear finally shows in her eyes. The necklace continues to cinch around her throat. But I am patient.
“Her birthday,” Rose says at last, the words slightly breathless. “It’s nearly Princess Aurora’s birthday.”
Birthday?
Aurora was born in late summer. I look out a high window. The sky is a sheet of steel, low-hanging clouds the color of smoke. Since the fall of the Court of Seasons, it’s nearly impossible to tell what time of year it is. But I used to count the days religiously. Bring Aurora trays of delicacies I’d inevitably get sick eating myself, and read to her all day on her birthday, the anniversary of our first meeting.
The last time was only a year ago. Wasn’t it? Or has it been two years? I rub my thumb over the cracked jewel on my signet ring. When had I stopped counting? Stopped noticing? And, far more important—why?
The necklace loosens and Rose sags in relief. Anyone else would be panting and horrified. But the beauty Grace was never one to be cornered. She smiles that saccharine simper she always reserved for me at Lavender House.
“If you came here hunting secrets, that means the princess is smart enough to keep them from me. I hope she has a thousand plots. That she finds just the right place to dig her knife in, and that she chops off your head and displays it in the throne room. But most of all…” Rose leans close. A pink curl flutters against her collarbone. “I hope I’m here to see it.”
A mix of horror and indignation surges up from my toes, even though I know that’s exactly the reaction Rose is hoping to achieve. Aurora wouldn’t hurt me. But then Mortania’s voice skates along the curve of my skull, repeating what Regan said in the abandoned library.
Sometimes people are not who we think they are.
My head throbs with the force of my unspent adrenaline. But I will not let Rose see the effect of her blow. I force my shoulders to relax. “Do be careful making those.” I gesture at the mixture. “Perhaps you’ll be like Marigold when I brought her to the Garden—Faded and dead in the same instant.”
The pulse at her throat quickens.
Satisfied, I head for the door. But I’m not two steps into Aurora’s sitting room when I hear the pop of an Imp’s conjuring. I melt into the shadows and watch as the creature sets a tea cake on Rose’s table, delicately frosted with a strawberry on top.
“Sorry for being noisy,” he says sweetly. “Since Mistress didn’t kill you, could you change my hair again? Green this time.”
“Wicked thing,” Rose admonishes. But she scoops a bit of icing up with her fingertip and licks it off. “Later perhaps, if you behave. Fetch me a mirror so I can see what damage this horrid necklace did.”
The Imp giggles and scampers off to obey. And something about the interaction makes me even angrier. Even the Imps possess a crumb of affection for Rose. Aurora does, too. It’s as though the years when the Grace was so cruel to me never happened. As if we never happened.
Perhaps, Mortania suggests, you did not.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Neve is back.”
Regan and I are sitting together with the court in the throne room after dinner that night. The Demon’s game of strategy is between us, various pieces strewn about the board. She taps her chin, contemplating her next move.
“I know,” I say. “I ran into her earlier. She told me that the Fae are visiting the human realms, but she doesn’t know why yet.”
The mournful music a few Demons are playing on their lute-like instruments floats around us. Across the chamber, the Imps are cobbling together sculptures out of leftover food. Malakar is the center of his own court, recounting a war story for the thousandth time. The Goblins roar when he tells a joke.
“Really?” Regan looks up. “I wonder if Oryn’s strategy is to involve the humans, now that all but one of his courts have fallen.”
She captures a gargoyle-shaped piece, and I mutter a curse. Regan tosses it up and catches it, laughing.
“Though I’m not sure what Oryn thinks the humans can accomplish now.” She shrugs. “Neve’s Starlings will figure it out.”
