by Ally Carter
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“And everyone else?”
“Noah and Lila’s mother tell me that they’re well. They are … concerned, but unharmed.”
“Megan?” I ask.
“Aside from trying to hack into the palace’s security feeds so that she can track your every move?” Ms. Chancellor raises an eyebrow and I know that she’s not teasing, not guessing. “She’s fine. Rosie, too.”
I swallow and nod. I can’t bring myself to say his name. Turns out I don’t have to.
“Alexei has a … visitor.” Karina, I think, but neither of us dares to say her name aloud. Ms. Chancellor eyes me over the top of her glasses. “I don’t believe they’re staying at the embassy, but I know that he is well.”
It’s supposed to give me comfort, let me rest. But all I can remember is the look on his face, the hurt that filled his eyes as I turned my back on my embassy and on him. They say if you love something to set it free. Alexei’s free now. And I’ll never love again.
Behind us, Ann is speaking in rapid Adrian, something about finding a picture of me where I look the right kind of ordinary and then leaking that to the press along with a story.
I turn and look at my reflection in the three-way mirror the seamstresses set up before they began their work. My dress is blue. Royal blue. Ann is certain that the people of Adria are going to see me in it and take that as a clue. The waist is narrow and the skirt is long. They’ve already decided to put my hair up and that I shouldn’t wear too many jewels to the gala.
But I can’t help thinking about another party and another time.
“Remember my pink dress?” I ask, and Ms. Chancellor meets my gaze in the mirror. Her smile is a little nostalgic. A little sad.
“It was beautiful.”
Was being the operative word. It was beautiful before I saw Dominic and ran from the palace in a daze, before I stumbled down the streets of Adria and crawled through the rain. Before I set into motion this terrible sequence of events. Before I knew better than to leave well enough alone.
“I should have stayed home. If I hadn’t seen Dominic … if I hadn’t heard him with the prime minister … if I hadn’t …”
“Look at me, Grace.” Ms. Chancellor’s grip is solid. “Look at me and listen closely. You did not do this. This is not your fault. These events were set into motion two hundred years ago, and you are simply trying to bear this weight as well as you can.” She tips my head up, makes me look into her eyes. “This is not your fault,” she says one final time.
I only wish I could believe her.
“Well, what have we here?”
A kind of panic fills the room at the sound of the deep voice. At first, I think it must be because a man has dared to invade such a feminine space, but all around us, seamstresses fumble and maids curtsy and even the air is changing.
As soon as I turn, I see why.
Even Ms. Chancellor drops into a curtsy—one far lower than the one I’m supposed to give a duchess.
“Grace,” she whispers, and I realize I’m still standing atop the little stage the seamstresses use, looking out in my blue dress. I’m just starting to remember where and what I am when the king reaches me in two long strides.
“We meet again, Ms. Blakely.”
“Uh …” I drop into my curtsy. My head is bent when I say, “I’m honored, Your Majesty.”
“Stand up, girl. Let me look you over.”
I do as the king says because … well … he’s the king. But he doesn’t seem like a king in this moment. His smile is too broad, his laugh too loud as he reads my bemused expression, then asks, “How’s the old man? Pinching all the pretty nurses, I’d bet.”
It takes me a minute to remember the camaraderie he shared with my grandfather the night we met.
“He is much improved, Your Majesty. I’m told he should make a full recovery.”
“Excellent. Very glad to hear it.”
Slowly, I force myself to look up, to meet his gaze.
He doesn’t seem evil. He doesn’t look like a monster who would see everyone with my DNA exterminated just to keep his place on the throne. But I know better.
No one in this palace is my friend.
“Is this for something special?” The king gestures at my new blue ball gown.
“You know it is, you big flirt,” Princess Ann tells him with a laugh. “Now, shoo. No boys allowed.”
“Even sovereign rulers?” he asks.
“Especially them,” she says, playfully pushing him toward the door.
“Five decades on the throne and this is how they treat me, Ms. Blakely. Makes me wish I’d been a teacher.” His voice drops. He almost sounds a little wistful. “I would have liked to have been a teacher.”
And then the king of Adria is in the hall. He is walking away.
He didn’t chose to wear the crown, I realize. But he has chosen to keep it.
It’s all I can do not to take his head.
The walls around the palace are at least twenty feet high. Higher in places. But they’re short compared to the wall around the city. When darkness falls, I ease out my third-story window and drop onto the brick ledge below, but I’m not even a little bit afraid. I should be, I know. If I were normal. If I had good sense. If I were sane.
But I’m not any of those things, so it doesn’t matter.
The gardens are surprisingly dark in the middle of the night, but it’s not hard to find the big tree I saw on my walk with Dominic. Its limbs stretch across the top of the wall, and it’s like I am on autopilot as I start to climb.
Part of me thinks I should warn palace security that they have some serious gaps in their perimeter. Part of me is just glad that they’ve spent all their time keeping people out. Makes it that much harder for them to keep me in.
The moon is high and the streets are empty. I was gone for weeks, I have to remind myself. It’s like a part of me expects the Festival of the Fortnight to still be going on, to see hordes of tourists, to smell smoke and see fire. But the streets of Valancia are almost empty, almost still as I walk away from the palace.
I am almost alone.
Almost.
“Hey, Lila,” I say, studying the girl before me.
She’s like a shiny, sparkly specter as she steps out of the shadows. “I was wondering when the prodigal was going to come home.”
She’s Noah’s twin sister, and they’re both tall and thin with beautiful dark skin and jet-black hair. They have the same strange accent that’s a blend of Portuguese, Hebrew, English, and Adrian. But, really, that’s where the similarities end.
Noah would have made a joke by now.
Noah would have made me smile, made me laugh, made me forget.
Lila looks like she’s here to make me pay.
“What did you do to Alexei?”
Has she been lingering outside the palace for hours, lying in wait? Is this some kind of coincidence? Or maybe Lila just knows me well enough to know that it was only a matter of time until I did something stupid.
“How is he?” I ask, even though I’m half-afraid of the answer.
Lila raises one shoulder, the chicest of shrugs. “How do you think he is? He’s got a mother who is back from the dead, a father who wanted to hand him to the wolves, and a whatever-you-are who has dumped him for a prince. He’s Alexei. He’s Russian. He’s fine. Except in all the ways he’s terrible. You’re a smart girl. You knew that.”
“I—”
“What are you doing out here?” Lila asks me.
“I needed some air.”
“There’s plenty of air in there.” She points toward the palace.
“I needed to see everyone and … explain.”
“You didn’t explain before you left?” It’s not a question. It’s an accusation. And I really hate how much she’s right.
“I didn’t want anyone to talk me out of it, okay?”
Lila eases closer. “What exactly is it?”<
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I look back at the palace, at the spotlights and the turrets and the walls.
“Running away,” I whisper, but I don’t explain and Lila doesn’t ask for more.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
Lila eyes me. “What makes you so sure they’re all together?”
At this, I have to smile. “I know them.”
She rolls her eyes and cocks a hip but goes ahead and says, “Come on.”
Iran.
Of course they’re in Iran. Lila freaked out the first time we brought her here, but I guess she’s gotten over it because she doesn’t bat an eye as we move out of the tunnels that run beneath the city and into the basement room with the hot-springs-fueled swimming pool and golden walls.
“They’re up here,” she says, starting up the stairs.
I’ve never been on the third floor, but that’s where we find them.
Rosie is pacing. Megan and Noah are too close on the couch, so at peace and at home in each other’s presence that I feel a little guilty for having seen it, having spied on what it looks like to be happy.
“Look who I found,” Lila says, and everyone turns toward us.
“Grace!” Rosie is a tiny blond blur, hurling herself into my arms. “Where have you been?”
“You know where she was, Rosie.” The accent is thick and the voice is deep and I know without turning that Alexei is angry. He closes a door behind him.
Heavy draperies cover the windows, pulled tight to block the light of the little camping lanterns that are scattered throughout the room. We’re a long way from the cave in the hills where Alexei took refuge last summer, but we’re still hiding, I realize. Alexei. And me. I just have to do my hiding in plain sight.
“How …” I start but trail off when I hear the singing.
“‘Hush, little princess …’”
I look at the closed door, but I don’t try to move past Alexei.
“How is she?”
“She’s crazy,” Alexei says, as if he can’t believe that I forgot.
But Megan is up and coming toward me, pulling me into a too-tight hug. “Karina has started eating,” she says when she pulls back. “And she’s been sleeping, too. We’ve gotten her to take a shower and—”
“Now she smells good while she rants and raves like a crazy person,” Alexei says.
It should hurt me. I’m pretty sure it’s meant to. But I’m numb now. It’s going to take a lot more than that to make me bleed.
“Has she mentioned my mom?” I ask. Megan shakes her head.
“But we haven’t asked,” she rushes to add.
“So, Grace.” Rosie is practically bouncing. She’s like a golden retriever puppy that has just been asked if it wants to go play. “What’s the plan? I mean, you do have a plan, don’t you? I know you have a plan.”
“A plan for what?” I ask.
Rosie practically rolls her eyes. “For vengeance.” She sounds more than a little bit evil. Then she laughs. “Or revenge or justice or whatever you’re planning. So tell us. What. Is. The. Plan?”
I realize they’re all looking at me now. This is supposed to be some kind of move in the chess game of my life. But I’m just a pawn who has already been sacrificed. I don’t know how to tell them that the game is over.
“I …”
“Are we going to blackmail Ann?” Rosie guesses. “Kidnap the king? Ooh. I know. Palace coup!”
“A coup is how we got into this mess in the first place,” Noah reminds her.
I have to shake my head. I have to find the words. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, disappointing people. I’ve certainly had enough practice. But there is something in the way Rosie is staring up at me. These people trusted me once. They trust me still. I’ve already decided to break my own heart. Not even I am cruel enough to keep on breaking theirs, too.
“There is no plan,” I tell them at last. Maybe I’ve somehow given up on the dream of finding whatever my mother was looking for. Or maybe I’m just through letting other people get hurt.
Rosie rolls her eyes. “There has to be a plan. You wouldn’t just move into the palace and—”
“I’m going to end it, Rosie. I just want to end it. And if I move in with Ann and let her groom me into whatever I need to be, it will end. Eventually.”
“I don’t understand,” Rosie says. “How is that going to end anything?”
“It will end … when I marry the prince,” I say.
I’m ready for stunned silence. I’m prepared for outrage and indignation. But I’m not expecting the sound of a voice I barely recognize yelling, “When you do what?”
No one bows. There are no curtsies. I don’t know what is more unexpected—the sight of the future king of Adria standing in the lantern-lit room inside the Iranian embassy or the looks on the faces of my friends as they recognize the boy who is now screaming inside the sanctuary of Iran.
“Hi, Thomas,” I tell him.
“Grace.” He strides toward me, but he doesn’t seem very prince-like. He just looks like a scared kid who snuck out looking for adventure and got so much more than he bargained for. “What were you talking about?”
I glance from the prince to my friends. “I should introduce you to everyone.”
Then he seems to realize that we’re not alone. He shifts from scared kid to future ruler in a heartbeat. “I am sorry to interrupt,” he says, as if he’s just popped by during high tea, unannounced.
“Thomas, these are my friends.” One by one I make the introductions, but he doesn’t care about the names, the nationalities.
“Hello, Rosemarie,” he says to Rosie as I get to her.
“Hey,” she tells him. When I look at her, she shrugs. “Thomas and I go way back.” I must make a face because she throws up her hands. “What? I know people.”
I’m just starting to realize that Rosie knows everyone, but that is hardly the point.
“What is the meaning of this?” the prince asks, turning back to me.
“These are my friends,” I repeat like an idiot. “I’m allowed to have friends even though I live in the palace. Aren’t I?”
“That’s not what I was talking about, and you know it,” Thomas snaps. “What did you mean when I came in, about marrying a prince. This prince?”
I look around the group, but they all just shake their heads, and I know I’m on my own.
“Your mother and my mother were friends.”
“Yes. I know. But why should that mean—Don’t tell me we’ve gone back to arranged marriages?” He tries to laugh. I think this is his idea of a joke. Or maybe he just wants it to be.
“Not exactly,” I say.
I hear Alexei mutter something in Russian and then move to the opposite side of the room, as far away from me and my future husband as possible.
I am officially on my own.
“Your mother is of the opinion that it would be best for everyone if you and I were to marry,” I choke out.
“Why?” There’s a hard edge to the prince’s voice, a deep mistrust in his eyes.
“It’s a long story,” I tell him.
“I have time,” he says.
“But—”
“Oh, have mercy!” Lila snaps, then takes the prince by the shoulders and spins him around to face her. “Two hundred years ago, when the royal family was massacred, the baby lived. Grace is her descendant, and Grace’s brother should be king, so Grace is going to marry you and have your babies so people will stop trying to kill her. Is that everything?” Lila eyes me, then edges away. “I think that’s everything.”
For a second, the room is silent, but then the door opens and Karina starts to sing. “‘Hush, little princess, don’t you wait.’” Karina reaches for me and refuses to let go. “‘The truth is locked behind the gates.’”
I can feel the prince easing away as Karina comes closer. I don’t know if he’s afraid of me or the truth or this too-thin woman with the haunted eyes, but I can tell he hasn’t just gone o
ver the palace fences; he’s gone through the looking glass and his world will never be the same again.
“‘Hush, little princess, pretty babe,’” she sings again.
“Yes,” I tell Karina. “That’s nice.” I try to soothe, but her eyes are growing wilder, her face paler. When her hands start to shake, Alexei lunges toward us.
“Come on,” Alexei says, his voice soft. “Karina, come with me.”
But his mother keeps looking in my eyes, and when she speaks again, the word is almost a whisper. “Caroline?”
“Caroline died,” I tell her. “She’s gone.”
For a second, her eyes focus. Her gaze clears. It’s like she heard me, understands. Knows. But then she sees the prince and spins on him, slaps him hard across the face and starts kicking and clawing. It takes both Alexei and Lila to pull her off while Noah shoves the prince behind him and tries to keep Karina away.
But no one can keep me back. Not ever again.
“What is it, Karina?” I ask, moving closer even as I should be pulling away. “What is going on in there?” I lean down, look into her eyes.
“They never knew.” She sounds panicked but oddly lucid.
“Who, Karina? What didn’t they know?”
It’s like she’s trying to find the words when the dreamy gaze descends again, falling across her face like a veil as she softly starts to sing. “‘The sunlight shines where the truth is laid.’”
“Karina, what are you talking about? Did my mother come to see you? What did you tell her?” Is that why she’s dead? I want to scream but Alexei is shouting, pushing me toward the door.
“Stop! Leave her alone. Go home.”
“But—”
“Just get out, Grace. You’re upsetting her. Just go.”
I could argue and I could fight, but even I know better than to stay where I’m not wanted.
Still, it’s harder than I’d like to admit when I take my future husband’s arm and give a gentle tug toward the door. We’re almost to the stairs when I hear Megan call, “Grace, wait up a sec.”
“What is it?” I hope I don’t sound as frazzled as I feel.