by Ally Carter
“You’re telling me not to lie to you?!”
“You said you would not scream.”
“Oh, I can show you screaming …”
But Alexei is on me in a flash. “You might want to lower your voice if you don’t want your grandfather and a whole host of your American marines to find a killer in your bedroom.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what I want,” I bite out.
Alexei grins. “Once upon a time that would have meant we’d have to marry, you know. It would have been the only honorable thing to do.”
“Don’t!”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t flirt with me. Don’t tease me. Don’t lie to me.”
I’m mad and I don’t trust him — not to tell me the truth, not to do anything but hypnotize me with a touch. Mainly, I don’t want the reminder of how weak I was, how easily fooled. I don’t want to remember being used.
“You’ve been busy, Gracie.”
“You can’t call me that anymore,” I tell him. “I revoke the privilege.”
“Jamie came to see me,” Alexei says.
“Did he bring the police with him?” I ask, even though I’m almost afraid of the answer.
He glares at me, betrayed. “I didn’t wait around to find out.”
He releases me then, moves around my mother’s room. When he stops at the window he draws the curtains and blocks out the light. I’d almost forgotten it’s still the middle of the day. Time doesn’t mean anything to me anymore.
“Why are you here, Alexei?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m a dangerous murderer and there is a nationwide manhunt. I have more Americans to kill.”
“Why are you here?” I practically shout. “If you can break into the US you can break into Russia. You’d be safer there. Why are you in my room?”
“Because you and I have unfinished business.”
I expect him to grab me or tease me or … kiss me. I expect him to shout from the rafters about my betrayal or throw me over his shoulder and drag me away.
But Alexei just stalks into the bathroom and starts pulling out drawers, throwing open cabinets. There’s a pack of toothbrushes, and he grabs one, wheels on me.
“This is mine now,” he announces. I don’t say a thing to protest as Alexei starts to brush his teeth.
I sleep in Dad’s old T-shirts, and one is lying on top of my dresser. Alexei grabs it. “This, too!” he says, toothbrush sticking out the side of his mouth, toothpaste foaming on his lips. He looks like a rabid dog.
“Okay.” I sit down on the edge of the bed and wait silently as he brushes his teeth and rips off his stained and sweaty shirt. He wets a washcloth and rubs it over his chest, then pulls on my clean shirt. Finally, he leans over the sink and splashes water on his face. When he looks up again, our gazes meet in the mirror.
“You don’t look scared,” he tells me.
“I’m not.”
The look that crosses his face next is one I’ve seen before: Maybe she really is crazy.
“I thought you believed I was a killer.”
“And I thought you got a ride home with some kids you didn’t know and went straight back to Russia. We’ve both been disappointed.”
Alexei huffs and slowly turns. As he leans against the sink I can feel him studying me. It’s not the first time I’ve watched someone wonder, What am I going to do with Grace?
“Jamie probably has shaving stuff,” I tell him, but he shakes his head.
“You’re not running to Big Brother. Not this time, Gracie. This time you will sit right there. And I’m going to tell you a story.”
Alexei doesn’t move toward me. I’m happy for that, I think. When he touches me I get stupid, so I vow to never, ever let him touch me again.
He crosses his arms and studies me, as if we have all day, as if this is the most natural thing in the world.
“My mother was Adrian.”
It takes a moment for me to register what Alexei’s just said, for me to realize that I have never heard him mention his mother before.
“I didn’t know that.”
“There is no reason you should know. I doubt you ever saw her. She has not been seen by anyone in ten years. Not since she went missing.”
“Your mother’s missing?”
Alexei looks away for a moment. It’s like he doesn’t want to face what comes next.
“I know, Gracie. I’ve always known. About the Society.”
“Your mother was a member?” I ask. Alexei nods.
“She … and her friends. I used to see them together, meeting in secret, talking in whispers. I watched them obsess over things that disappeared hundreds of years ago. It is rather ironic, is it not? That now she is the thing that is missing?”
“Who exactly were her friends?” I ask, even though I already know at least part of the answer. Alexei must see it in my eyes, because he nods.
“Yes. Your mother was one of them. How do you think Jamie and I became so close? The two of us were pushed together practically in the cradle, told to go play while the three of them did whatever it is they would do.”
Alexei reaches into his pocket, pulls out his wallet, and tosses it in my direction. I catch it as he says, “Look.” There among the euros is an old snapshot of three women. No, three girls. They’re laughing and smiling, so happy as they stand atop the wall with the blue sea stretching to the horizon beyond their shoulders. I stare into my mother’s eyes and know I never knew her at all.
“My mother carried that photo with her,” he says. “Almost always.”
“Alexei …” I start to stand, to reach for him, but I’m rooted to the spot. I’m half afraid that if I get any closer he’ll jump out the window, never to be seen again.
“What happened the night Spence died?” I ask instead.
“We fought.” Alexei shrugs. “And I saw the medallion around his neck and knew it had to do with the Society, so when he went to search the ruins I followed him. I wasn’t going to stay behind just because I did not care for the company.”
“So you came back via the tunnel? With Spence?”
“Yes.”
“The last time I saw the two of you, you were trying to claw each other’s eyes out.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Alexei tells me, and in a strange way it makes sense. I can see it. “I did not kill John Spencer.”
I think it might be the first time I’ve heard him say it. And even ten feet away, with his arms crossed and his gaze down, I have to admit that I believe him.
“Did you see anyone when you were down in the Society?”
“No.”
“Did anyone see you?”
Alexei shakes his head. “I cannot be sure.”
“Was anyone on the street with you? Were you being followed?”
“No!” Alexei pushes away from the sink and bolts toward me. “I don’t know who killed him. I wish I did. I wish I had been there because then … It was late, but he was still on American time and wasn’t tired. He wanted to look around the city more, and I wanted to come home, so I left him. I did not see him again until the next morning. With you.”
I must sit in silence for longer than I realize because eventually Alexei says, “Say something.”
“Stay here.”
“I can’t.”
“You’re the most wanted man in Adria. This is the US embassy. Can you think of someplace they are less likely to look for you? Stay here. In this room. I’ll be back.”
I’m grabbing my sweater and walking toward the door when Alexei gently takes me by both arms and pulls me closer.
“It’s not safe out there,” he says, too close to my ear.
“Yeah, well …” I look up at him. “Maybe it’s not safe in here either.”
Once, when I was little, my mom took me on a tour of the city.
It wasn’t like the tours the real tourists do. No. It was My Mom’s Valancia, and we spent a whole day, just the two of us, eating gelato
from her favorite stands and riding bikes down her favorite streets.
We browsed in the store where she bought her first fancy party dress.
We took charcoal and palettes and tried to sketch her favorite view of the city from high up in the hills.
As the sun set that evening, I held my mother’s hand and walked back down Embassy Row, knowing there was no place else in Adria that I ever really needed to visit — that I’d seen everything worth seeing.
I was wrong.
Because now I’m walking into a room that no tourist — no mere mortal — is supposed to ever see.
“Hello, Grace.” Princess Ann stretches her arms out as she greets me. “I was so glad to get your call.”
The man who escorted me up from the private entrance leaves us and closes the big double doors behind him. I’m filled with a kind of nervous energy that I can’t quite hold in.
“I can’t believe the phone number my mom had for you was your actual phone number.”
At this, the princess laughs, and that makes me remember that she really was my mother’s best friend, that once upon a time she was just a regular girl.
Before she married the crown prince of Adria.
Before she gave birth to a future king.
Before my mother died.
Long before I became a killer.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know how I got here exactly, I just … You’re part of it, aren’t you? You’re one of them.”
Princess Ann considers answering, I can tell. But instead she turns toward the staircase that curves along the edge of the great room, lush red carpet running down its center. It’s a staircase meant for a queen.
“Come, Grace, you must be thirsty. I’ve already rung for tea.”
I’m not the kind of girl who has tea parties. Not when I was little. And certainly not now. I was the kind of girl who might set her teacups up along a fence, use them for target practice with her slingshot. But I don’t say any of that to the princess of Adria.
She leads me to the massive staircase, then up and up to the fourth floor of the palace.
These are the family rooms, I can tell. The paintings on the walls are all less than three hundred years old. The cheap ones. And the ceilings are lower than in the grand staterooms and ballrooms below. But when she pushes open a wide set of double doors, the room she leads me into is still maybe the most beautiful that I have ever seen. It’s smaller than the ballroom, less stately than the entrance where just a few weeks ago I curtsied before the king. No, this room isn’t quite that formal, but everything inside it is equally majestic.
Two fireplaces flank it on either end, surrounded by deep chairs covered in soft brown leather. There are plush couches, and tables covered with beautiful pots of orchids and family photos in silver frames. But there is also a soft blanket, an overturned book. Beneath one of the sofas there is a pair of discarded tennis shoes. This isn’t where Princess Ann entertains, I realize. It’s where she lives, and I know it is some great honor just to be here.
But perhaps the most striking thing about this room is the four large windows that dominate the far wall. Black silk curtains run from floor to ceiling and, wordlessly, I’m drawn toward them. When I look outside I see that we are exactly in the palace’s center — the gates are right outside — and I remember standing right there, looking up at this very spot while Ms. Chancellor told me a story.
“Is this …”
“Yes, Grace,” the princess says. “This is where they hung the bodies.”
Behind me, doors open and a maid delivers an elegant tray covered with the things for tea. But even the splendor of this room and all the trappings of the palace can’t keep me from the windows and the scene that is playing out down below.
“They’re setting up for tonight,” the princess says. I hadn’t realized she’d come so close.
“What’s tonight?” I ask.
Princess Ann looks at me, surprise all over her face. “You don’t know?”
I shake my head, stare back at the window. “Mom didn’t like the festival. She always kept us away from it. She said it was dangerous.”
Gently, Ann reaches out and touches the glass. “It is.”
Down below, workers are stringing lights throughout the square and over the sidewalks. Vendors are setting up carts draped with fabrics in white and red. And in the center of it all, the fire still burns.
For the first time, I see it all through the eyes of the woman beside me. When a group of tourists look up at the palace and start taking pictures, I expect her to step away, but she just shakes her head, reading my mind.
“The glass is one-way,” she says. “And bulletproof.”
Every girl thinks about growing up in a palace. Few ever ponder living in a cage.
“What’s tonight?” I ask.
“It’s the fourth night,” Princess Ann tells me. “The Night of a Thousand Amelias.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
She looks at me. “Your mother really never told you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “She didn’t want us anywhere near here during the festival. We weren’t even allowed out after dark.”
“I’m not surprised,” Princess Ann says. “Caroline knew what this really is.”
“What is it?” I ask, even though I’m half afraid of the answer.
“It is a fourteen-day celebration of a time when people like them killed people like me.”
I’ve never thought of it like that — how it must feel to look out every night onto that scene, knowing.
“The royal family is very popular now,” I say, but Princess Ann just laughs.
“You are sweet to say so, Grace. Just like your mother.”
It is the perfect time to change the topic, to ask her what she knows about my mother’s death and my mother’s work and all the ways the two things are intertwined. But for some reason I can’t. Not yet.
“Why does the royal family allow it?” I ask instead.
“Because perhaps allowing people to remember history will help us all be less anxious to repeat it.”
“I see,” I say, even though I don’t. Not really.
“Come, Grace,” the princess says. “Your tea is getting cold.”
I follow Princess Ann around to sit on one of the straight-backed chairs that face the window. She pours me a cup and adds a generous dose of honey without asking how I take it.
“You knew,” I say as she hands me the cup.
The princess smiles. “You are very like your mother. I couldn’t imagine you would take it in any other way.”
“Thank you,” I say, but I’m not talking about the tea. I am grateful for the compliment, until I remember all of my mother’s secrets. Maybe being just like her is not such a great way to be after all.
“This is the worst night,” Princess Ann volunteers after a moment. She sips her own tea, places the cup gently on her saucer. “I always sit in this room — in this chair — on the fourth night.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Ms. Chancellor should tell you,” she says, as if I’ve just asked where babies come from and she wants nothing more than to avoid an awkward conversation.
“Please. What happened on the fourth night?” Suddenly, the room is cold even here, on the Mediterranean in the middle of summer.
I watch the princess weigh her options, contemplate what she should and should not say.
“You say your mother never allowed you to attend the festival, but you know the reason for it, don’t you?”
“I know the royal family was murdered, and that it started a war.” I study Princess Ann. “And I know about the treasure.”
For a while, the moment stretches out, the silence hangs heavy between us. “What do you know about it?”
“Ms. Chancellor told me everything,” I try.
“I doubt that, Grace, because no one knows everything. Three elders came to the palace the night of the coup. They salvaged what they could, bu
t died before they could tell anyone the details.”
I nod.
“It must have been chaos,” Ann says. For a moment I wonder if she’s even really talking to me. “They say it was an angry mob, but it wasn’t, you know. In truth it was no more than a dozen people who stormed the palace. At first. Did they come intent on murder? I don’t know. I’ve often wondered, though. Maybe all they wanted was food for their families? Maybe it simply got out of hand? Or did they come up those stairs intending to kill? Does it make me a bad person if I think it was the latter?” She doesn’t really wait for an answer. “Because I do, Grace. I really do. I think they came to kill.”
Ann holds her teacup in her hand, but she doesn’t sip, doesn’t move. It’s almost like she’s frozen, looking back in time.
“Those windows,” she says after a long moment. Then her cup begins to shake. Hurriedly, she places it back on the table. “They hung the bodies from those windows, like trophies. Like a warning. They hung their bodies from those windows,” Princess Ann says, stronger now, “until the fourth night, when the Society came and cut them down.”
I can’t help myself. I look at the windows before me, now tinted and bulletproof and bordered by black silk. There’s no way to see what actually happened, but this room carries the truth inside it still. And maybe it’s just the sadness radiating off of Princess Ann, but I swear I can feel it.
“The Society did that?” I ask.
Princess Ann nods. “They came through a passageway and smuggled the bodies out of the palace. They took them and buried them. I don’t know where. No one knows, and that’s probably for the best. They deserve to rest in peace.”
My tea has gone cold in front of me. I’ve lost all desire to drink it. So I just sit here, thinking about how the king and his family are just people, and for two weeks every year an entire nation celebrates the moment their ancestors died.
“I’m surprised your mother never told you,” Princess Ann says.
Now my teacup is shaking too. “There were a lot of things my mother never told me.”
She must hear the bitterness in my voice. She has no trouble guessing why.
“She never told you about the Society?”