She doesn’t argue. Tension masses around us, between us, like a storm lumbering in from the sea.
“Can you blame me if I do hope, just a little?”
I shove away from the safe and wheel to face her, my blood roiling in a way it never has with Aurora before. “So you’re not interested in breaking the curse yourself anymore?”
“That isn’t fair.” Two spots of pink burst on her cheeks.
“Maybe not.” I sense the recklessness driving me on and I tell myself to back away. But I don’t listen. I never do. “But it’s the truth. A princess needs her prince.”
Aurora blinks back tears, but her tone is hard as flint. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I thought you were different. I thought you wanted Briar to be different.”
I thought you cared for me.
“I am. And I do.” She stands and paces in front of the hearth. “I also want to break this curse. And we’re nowhere closer than we were when we started. I have months left. If Elias can break the curse, so be it.”
I snort. “I’m sure his silk trade helps. More money for balls and gowns. You should tell him to hurry. Pay for a faster ship to go and fetch him.”
The splotches on her cheeks blaze crimson. For a moment I think she will lash back at me. But then a single tear tracks down her cheek. It might as well be an ocean. I will drown in it.
“Enough,” she whispers. “I won’t do this anymore. Not with you.”
And it’s only now that I see just how tired she looks. The Grace elixirs keep her skin supple and healthy. But there are fine, dark lines under her eyes. A midnight tinge of exhaustion behind the violet. The hearth light illuminates the subtle hollows of her cheeks.
“If he breaks the curse,” she continues after a while. “And that’s in no way certain. I still want you by my side.” Aurora kneels on the grime-slick stone next to me and catches my wrists in her warm hands. “I always will.”
A smile falters on my lips. Aurora is sheltered and privileged. She means well, but she has no idea of the ugliness of the real world. Of my world. If this prince—Elias—breaks her curse, I do not know what she will do. But the vision of myself as her advisor, of a life in a realm that does not despise me, is already disintegrating. And as the pieces crumble to ash, I find that I cannot depend on what the future Queen Aurora might decide.
There is no one but myself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Over the next few weeks, I funnel every free second into practicing my Vila powers. Teasing my fire into specific shapes and colors. Giving brief life to a tiny set of armor I find on a shelf in a parlor and even turning stolen quills into miniature swords. Anything that requires me to find deeply hidden magic and strengthen my control. I refuse to be in Briar when Elias arrives, which can’t be long now. I won’t watch him break Aurora’s curse and burrow like an eel into her heart.
The princess visits only once. She is distant and taciturn, barely glancing at the armload of books she brings as she hands them to me, the fissures that formed during our last visit still raw. And she doesn’t even stay long, making some feeble excuse to get back to the palace when she used to stay practically the whole night, no matter what time her maids were scheduled to wake her the next day. If she doesn’t want to see me anymore, I wish she would just stop coming. It would be easier on both of us. But I don’t say that, coward that I am. Just watch her disappear into the night as if she’s one of the ships leaving the harbor.
A blizzard shoves in from the sea on the day of the Grace competition, its punishing winds battering the walls of Lavender House and smothering Briar beneath a snowfall so thick we can barely see the gates of our garden. My Lair is frozen solid, the fire utterly useless, no matter how many logs I pile up. Luckily, I have no patrons brave enough to face the weather. And so I move my miserable animals up to my attic room and hole up in the main parlor, hibernating under a mountain of furs.
Rose is implacable. She launches from room to room, squawking about how her enhancements aren’t fresh enough. Her kit is misplaced. Something is missing from her stores. I don’t envy the mousy servant who is herded out the front door with strict instructions not to return without Rose’s exact requirements. I pray for his sake that Hilde is open.
It’s a relief to everyone when Mistress Lavender at last announces that she’s secured a snow carriage and that it’s time to depart.
I can’t help but notice Rose’s face just before she hurries out the door. She’s chosen a thick brocade gown the same color as her name, with golden ribbons latticed across the bodice. Her skin sparkles with Grace powder, as if dusted with fallen stars. Her eyes are limned in the stuff, even her eyelashes gilded. Every inch a Grace. But her movements are jerky and rapid, like an animal deciding whether to fight or flee. Desperate. As if she can feel me watching, her gaze cuts to mine. She scowls, daring me to call her out.