There is nothing to say. Nothing I can do but drop into another curtsy, the marble tiles blurring. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“We will not have this conversation again, Dark Grace.”
I bite my lips to keep my words locked inside them and wait until the clacking of her slippers has faded before I rise from my position. Because that was not a warning. Not a threat. It was a promise.
After the queen is gone, all I can do is seethe. I press my forehead into the cold veneer of a column, but it does nothing to ease my temper. Nothing to extinguish the rage licking my insides like tongues of flame. I want to tear this palace down, stone by cursed stone. Find every heart of human magic and grind them all up like I do enhancements beneath my pestle. I want—
Feeding off my desire, my power explodes out of its cage and dives for the first target it can find. It careens into a rosebush, plump Grace-grown blooms lolling their heads in the breeze. The plant’s magic is nothing more than a wriggling worm against mine, filling my nose with the scent of summer rain and velvet petals.
Dragon take these roses. This entire realm, saturated with its own self-importance and willing to smother the rest of us under its greed. A tingling starts in my toes and surges upward. My blood sings through my veins. The scent of charred stone and flint floods my lungs.
At my slight push, the rosebush triples in size, stems growing as thick around as my arms. The leaves sharpen, edges barbed. Soft lavender petals darken to a red like wet mortal blood. Jagged-toothed thorns cut through the meaty flesh of the stems. The branches sway and groan in the breeze—a sound like a growl. Like the whole bush is a beast waiting to strike. And it would strike, I realize, if I wished it to. I could command one of those branches to tighten around someone’s neck until it snapped. Bid the thorns to shred their skin and arteries to ribbons.
The grisly image startles me back into the present. My magic loosens its grip and ebbs away. What a fool I am, using my power this close to the palace. To Endlewild. The fountain was an accident. But this—this is dangerous. No one can know the true extent of my power.
I turn back to the porch, smoothing my skirts and schooling my face into neutrality. Panic slams into me like an icy wave. A shadow lurks in the doors of the drawing room, huge and hulking and most certainly King Tarkin. His face is in darkness.
But even from here, I see the white gleam of his smile.
* * *
—
I cannot breathe. Not as my feet fly across gravel paths to the waiting carriages, where I demand to be taken back to Lavender House. Not as I hurl myself upstairs and claw off my gown, snapping at the servants to leave me be.
Seams pop. Fabric rips. It isn’t enough. I can still see Tarkin leering at me in the night. Endlewild watching my every move like a wolf about to pounce. The same way he looked at me every day during his “treatments.” I rip the coverlets off my bed and flip over the mattress. Grab one of the pillows, tear the cover apart with my teeth, and yank the feathers out in fistfuls. The washbasin shatters when I heave over its table, the sound of breaking porcelain undeniably satisfying. The wardrobe is too sturdy to take much damage from my bare hands, but I kick and pound at it anyway. Throw open the doors, toss my pathetic dresses to the floor, and attempt to stomp them into the floorboards.
When I have run out of things to destroy, I crumple amid the mess. Sweat drenches my back and neck. Feathers float around the room and stick to my skin. It is only then that I let myself weep. Sobs wrack me for what feels like hours, days. Until my eyes are swollen and my throat raw and my chest aching. It’s been a long time since I cried like this. The last I can remember was when I was a child, after sessions when I was locked in Endlewild’s frigid, dank chambers for long stretches of time. Burned and pricked and reminded with every horrified glance how different I am. How freakish.
I cry until I can’t anymore, nothing but soft whimpers escaping my salt-stained lips. And then there is only darkness.
* * *
—
Before dawn, I push myself up from the wreckage and clean up what I can. Mistress Lavender will dock my wages if she sees the state of my room. For the first time since my appointment with Duke Weltross, a schedule arrives when the servants make their rounds. I suppose word of my invitation to the palace wormed its way through the Grace District. If the king and queen see fit to dine with me, the nobles must feel far more comfortable soliciting my wares. I squeeze the black-sealed parchment in my fist, wanting nothing more than to feed it to a candleflame. But that would only bring more trouble.
Downstairs, the Graces are taking breakfast. Sunlight streams in from the side gardens, searing against my tear-crusted eyes. The tempo of the hammer in my head increases.