Rose flushes, the first color I’ve seen on her face since I picked her up off the floor. “I might have bled out five years of my gift on my own parlor rug. Five years, maybe more, when I could have beaten Pearl tonight. Will your gift ever Fade?”
The truth needles between my shoulder blades. “I don’t know. Probably.”
But I am Vila and Shifter, and will wield magic until my dying breath. Which, because I do share the blood of my ancestors, is a very long time from now.
“It won’t,” Rose snarls, as if reading my thoughts. And for a moment I’m sure she knows about me. But it’s suspicion, not conviction, that paces behind her gaze. “Vilas don’t Fade, even if you are only a half-breed. You will always be strong and powerful, even if everything you do is ugly.”
“You—” The wheels of my mind click and spin. “You’re jealous of me?”
Rose’s color deepens. “Of course not.”
But she is. I can see it in the shape of her shoulders, bowed and defensive. In the way she is suddenly fascinated with the books on my shelves. Rose, who has tormented me all of my life, always rubbing my nose in her precious golden blood, is jealous. A feeling I do not recognize simmers behind my sternum.
“I always wanted to be one of you,” I say softly, unsure why I’m offering her this bit of myself. Her attention lashes back to me, sharp as a whip. “To craft beauty and charm and to make people love me instead of—” I bite the inside of my cheek. “We’re not as different as you think. I’m a prisoner, too.”
“I’m not a prisoner,” Rose says quickly. Automatically—as if she’s said it often to others. Or to herself.
“Aren’t you?” I finish applying the ointment to her hand and begin to wrap it with a clean cloth. “Forced by law to spend your gift on nobles who have little interest in you once you’ve Faded? I was at the trial, too. What they did to Narcisse was…” I can’t bring myself to go on. Narcisse’s ghostly presence flickers between us. “You’re worth more than your blood.”
Rose scoffs. “You sound like Laurel. Soft and weak. We’re nothing without our gifts. What do you think would have happened to you if that grotesque shade of green didn’t mean you had power? You would have been killed. A mongrel not worth her own breath.” The rage in my veins burns hotter. My wrapping is brutal, too tight. But I don’t ease up. Rose doesn’t, either. “And I’ve read my birth records. I would have been a sailor’s daughter had I not been gifted. I would have had no fine things. No admirers or importance. I’d be barely better than the fish sold in the Common District. I want more than that. And so would you, if you had any sense.”
“I have sense enough to know when I’m being used.” I tie up the bandage roughly enough to make her yelp. “What the royals give, they can take away. And they will—as soon as it suits them. Just as they did to Narcisse.”
For half a breath, I think I see anguish flash behind her Fae-blessed eyes. Her fingers twitch, like she wants to reach out to me. But I must have imagined it. “If you’re finished,” she says, familiar acid back in her tone, “I need to go.”
“You’re not going anywhere but to bed.” I toss the bloodied water into the fire. Ochre steam rises. Rose looks sick.
“The rug—”
“I’ll clean it.” Dragon knows why. I’m feeling generous, I suppose. Or I know what it’s like to want out of your life so badly you’ll do something desperate. Whatever the reason, it’s not to ingratiate me in Rose’s eyes. She doesn’t even thank me.
Rose stands, still unsteady on her feet. She runs a shaky hand through the remains of her chignon and my insides clench.
“Rose.”
“What is it?” she snaps.
I approach her slowly, as one would a cornered animal, and reach my fingers into her snow-matted ringlets.
“What is it?” But the question wobbles in a way that tells me she already knows.
Carefully, I tug a lock free, stretching it out under Rose’s nose. She doesn’t scream, but her mouth hangs open. And then a horrible, inhuman keening escapes her.
The once vibrant-pink curl is silver.
CHAPTER THIRTY
If any of the servants saw the evidence of Rose’s accident before I cleaned her parlor, they have the good sense not to let on. It had taken me until the small hours of the morning to finish scrubbing the blood from the rug, marveling at my own stupidity all the while. A parting gift, I kept telling myself—not that Rose deserves one.