“Remember.” The king’s voice soars above the muddle. “She brought this on herself.” He jabs a finger at the Graces. “Let it be a warning.”
As if struck by lightning, Narcisse flares to life and tries to bolt, bare feet slapping the marble as her earsplitting shrieks threaten to cleave me in half. The guards are faster, catching her around the middle and swinging her back as her legs kick in the air.
And then one of the healing Graces pulls on a pair of thick leather gloves. She produces a wooden box, opens the lid, and extracts the very same golden bracelet I cursed for the king.
The room tilts and I waver with it.
No, no, no, no.
Dragon’s teeth, it was never a bracelet.
It was a shackle.
“No, no!” Narcisse’s screams are knives of panic.
The healing Grace fixes the shackle to Narcisse’s wrist. The paralysis curse hits instantly. Narcisse stills all at once, the echo of her wails ringing against my eardrums. The guards strap her to a table, and one of the healing Graces begins arranging a series of elaborate tubes. The other produces a long needle and punctures the fragile skin on the underside of Narcisse’s elbow. And then her golden Grace blood begins to flow, gushing through the tubes and dribbling into waiting vials.
Marigold collapses at the sight of so much Grace blood lost. Years and years of gift. Rose doesn’t move to help her. Like Laurel, Rose is all defiance and fury, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. But I see beneath the gilt powder on her cheeks and neck, the sallow ravages of the bloodrot. Know that what she’s doing, trying to alter her power, is a violation of the Grace Laws. She could be in Narcisse’s place in an instant.
Some of the Graces press toward the doors, but the guards keep them back. Not even the swooning Graces are carried out. Soon, the hall reeks of rancid bile and salty tears and thick, musty fear. Even the nobles are affected. Some clamor for Tarkin to ease the punishment once a half-dozen vials are filled with Narcisse’s blood. He does not. Not until that sparkling river of gold dulls. Until the roots of Narcisse’s fire-touched hair bleed silver. Only then are the doors opened and the rest of us allowed to file out, dazed and sick.
But I cannot move, transfixed by the sight of the shackle I cursed. I helped do this. Narcisse is unbound, her wooden limbs falling in unnatural angles as she slides from the table. No one even bothers to keep her head from smacking the tile. Tarkin is the one who ordered the bleeding, I tell myself. He would have done it with or without my curse. And yet he used it. He used me. And I let him.
As if called by my thoughts, the Briar King’s gaze finds mine in the thinning crowd.
He dips his chin to me, and smiles.
* * *
—
I cannot think. My skin feels too tight for my body. Narcisse’s screams chase me through the rest of the day and night. The sticky-sweet scent of her blood scalds my nostrils. The next morning, the Graces and I drift through the corridors of Lavender House in a fog. Even the patrons are skittish and avoid eye contact. Many of mine don’t show.
With nothing to do, I ricochet around my Lair, biting my nails to bits as I count the hours until nightfall, when Mistress Lavender takes the Graces with her to a party given at another house. After what happened yesterday, I can’t imagine that it will be much more than dull-eyed Graces drinking away the blood-soaked memories.
But the trial will soon be behind me. When I first began cursing items for the king, it was easy to convince myself that it was his hand committing the violence. The same way that it’s my patrons who decide how to use the elixirs I craft for them. But watching my curse used against Narcisse, her stiff, splayed limbs and silver blood pooling beneath her…I can no longer deny my own responsibility.
There is only one thing to be done.
Once I’m sure the house is empty, I gather the largest, strongest sack I can find, race up to my room, and throw in what meager belongings I care about. A few spare, worn dresses. An extra cloak. Then I’m back in my Lair, shoveling all my earnings from my safe into the sack—years’ worth of gold, plus the king’s commissions. When I toss the last coin in, the damn sack is so heavy I cannot lift it. I Shift, sending strength into my back and shoulders and arms. The muscles grow hot, stretching and expanding and bulging against the fabric of my dress. When I’m done, the sack is as light as a pillow. I sling it onto one shoulder, then take Callow from her perch and settle her on the other. Her anxious talons dig into my flesh.
I creep around the back of the kitchen and through the side gate, my hood close around my face as I tear through the Grace District, dodging late-night deliveries and irritable carriage drivers. The oil lamps are lit, casting slick pools of light on the cobbled streets. My skin itches, instinct begging me to Shift to invisibility. But I don’t think I could manage such a difficult Shift the whole way to the tower. And it would make me even more conspicuous—my sack and Callow floating in midair. So I settle on my beggar woman disguise, spine protesting as it hunches under the heavy sack.