“I find that hard to believe, Your Grace.” Tarkin rubs his chin. “Seeing as this was not your first offense against the Crown.” More mumblings from the nobles. Narcisse looks confused. “Indeed, two years ago, you were accused of refusing to use your gift. Isn’t that right?”
“I— I—” Narcisse looks to her sisters, chin wobbling. But no one can help her now. “I was never charged. I made a mistake. I was afraid.”
“Afraid?” Tarkin presses a hand to his heart. “What have you to fear in this realm?”
Laurel and I exchange a look. Everything. She has everything to fear.
Narcisse is weeping openly now, tears leaving tracks in the dirt on her face. “Willow House was slipping in the standings. I didn’t want to be sent to a lesser house if my elixirs were weakening. And so I asked our housemistress if I could limit my patron appointments. But I never—” She chokes on a sob. “I was taking two dozen appointments a day. I would have Faded if my patron list didn’t lessen.”
Two dozen appointments. That’s more than even Rose might see in a day. Do all the greater houses require such a schedule from their Graces? Narcisse was cruel to me at Aurora’s dinner, carelessly so. But I’d never thought of what she might be enduring beneath her mask of haughty vanity.
“Do we not provide for our Faded Graces?” A trap wrapped in velvet.
“It isn’t the same,” Narcisse insists. “The best a Faded Grace can hope for is a marriage or to become a housemistress. But I couldn’t count on either.”
“And so you acted out of greed?”
“No.” She shakes her head. Bits of copper dance in her hair. “No, I—”
But Tarkin doesn’t let her go on. He circles her like a winged Fae-beast from a story, gluttonous and ready to dive. “And then, after we granted you clemency for your infraction—allowed you to keep working and earning in your house—you attempted to leave the realm. No doubt to sell your blood across the sea and grow rich.”
Narcisse swallows. Musters the last of her strength. “It was the only thing I could do.”
A splash of heat lands on my wrist. I look to Laurel. A single tear quivers at her jawline, glittering in the sunlight.
“It was not, in fact, the only thing.” Tarkin’s grin is wolfish. He knows he’s won. “It was betrayal. Treason to the Crown. And you admit it.” His attention swivels to his audience. “I’ve summoned you today”—he rubs his thumb over the Briar rose on his signet ring—“because these Grace trials grow tiresome.”
Tiresome? It’s rare to hear of a Grace facing punishment, much less being brought to trial. A few Graces around me look puzzled, too.
“I have consulted with the Grace Council, and we are in agreement. No matter how severe the punishment, Graces continue to break the law. I mean to stop it. Once and for all.”
A few cheers sound from the mezzanine. Probably from the members of the Grace Council. Laurel stands straighter.
“Narcisse.” Tarkin wears the same look he wore when commissioning my service, and a chill needles between my shoulder blades. “You attempted to steal from the Crown when you tried to remove yourself from the realm.” More grunts of agreement from the nobles. “And so the Crown is just in taking what it rightfully owns. You, obviously, cannot be trusted.”
Dozens of vibrant Grace heads bend toward one another, trying to sort out what the king means. I find Aurora. Her lips are pressed together into a firm line.
“You, Narcisse, have forfeited your gift. You will be bled until you Fade, your blood used immediately in elixirs for the Crown.”
A heartbeat of stunned silence. And then the room explodes. The nobles are shouting and jeering. A few Graces faint, falling into one another like wilting flowers. Narcisse begins to wail, crumpling in a boneless puddle as the guards work to heave her upright.
“She will die!” a Grace pleads. “You will kill her!”
And it seems even a few of the nobles agree. Cries against the king’s decision ring sharp and clear across the hall. Tarkin ignores them.
My arm wraps around Laurel’s waist, expecting her to sway and falter. But she is rigid, steel-spined and eyes blazing. Mariel rubs her temples, her true age eating through the veil of countless Grace elixirs and revealing a bone-weary woman Leythana would not recognize as her kin. And Aurora—Aurora looks like it is everything she can do to remain seated. She closes her eyes and breathes in short, staccato bursts as several healing Graces enter the hall.