The White Rose

by Amy Ewing

  “I was thinking that, too. Raven, do you think . . . could you take me back there?” I ask.

  Raven smiles and holds out a hand, her palm facing up. I reach out to take it, then stop myself.

  “Could you take Sienna there, too?”

  Her face darkens. “I guess,” she says. “I could try.”

  Our breath makes white clouds in the air as we skirt the edge of the pond and head to the tree line. As we approach, I can see Sienna’s figure, huddled against an old spruce. I’m glad I gave her the blanket.

  “Who’s there?” she calls.

  “It’s Violet,” I say. She rubs her eyes and looks up at us.

  “Are you going to let me go?” she asks. “It’s freezing.”

  “I’m going to try something,” I say. I sit down next to her, and Raven follows my lead.

  “That old witch is crazy,” Sienna says.

  “That old witch didn’t tie you up out here,” I say. “I did.” I reach out a hand to her.

  “You really expect me to hold your hand?”

  “Do you want to stay stuck to this tree for the next few months? I think Raven can show you something,” I say. “But we need to be connected.” I glance at Raven. “Don’t we?”

  Raven sighs and holds out a hand to each of us. Hers is warm in mine. Sienna’s is still cold.

  I close my eyes. For several long seconds, nothing happens. Then Raven’s grip tightens and my whole body tilts backward, falling, my heart in my throat, and we are there. Back on the cliff. The ocean cries out a welcome as it crashes into the rocks below.

  The scene is different than it was the first time I came here. The trees are barren, black branches against a white sky. Snow falls thick and fast, covering the ground in an ivory blanket and leaving a trail of white on the spiraling, blue-gray statue. The ocean foams beneath us, frothy waves of slate-colored water.

  Raven is beside me, and she is my Raven from before. The differences are subtle now that she’s recovered so well. But she’s plumper. And her hair is short like it used to be. But it’s her eyes where the difference is most pronounced. They are bright and sparkle with mischief.

  Sienna stands on the opposite side of the statue. She looks different, too. Her hair is loose, not in its usual braids, but tight curls that fall to her waist. Her face is full and healthy, and there is a warmth in her eyes I have never seen before. I wonder whether this place shows us as we were before diagnosed as surrogates. Before the Auguries twisted us.

  Sienna stares out at the ocean, a rapt expression on her face. Then she sticks out her tongue and catches a snowflake. Her laughter is silent as snowflakes leap and dance around her.

  She circles the statue, making big footprints in the snow. She is giddy, like a child. Underneath her hard exterior, there is a little girl who wants to make a snowman. I can sense it. She always liked the snow.

  Time to go, Raven thinks. I can hear her as clearly as if she’d spoken out loud.

  The wind howls, and I feel myself being sucked up and away, the dizziness growing painful, until we are back in the real world.

  Sienna slumps over. Her back shudders, and it takes me a second to realize she’s crying.

  The roots release their hold on her. Sienna isn’t going anywhere.

  She looks up, her face a jumble of emotion. “What was that place?”

  “Home,” Raven says.

  “I felt . . .” She clutches her chest. “I feel . . . everything.”

  Tears spill down Sienna’s face, as she looks around the forest like she’s never seen anything like it.

  “Look down,” I say with a smile.

  A patch of brilliant orange flowers has blossomed at her feet. They wither back into the ground as a light snow begins to fall.

  I’m still holding her hand. It is as warm as Raven’s now. I give hers a reassuring squeeze. I can sense the riot inside Sienna, the struggle to understand the sudden rush of emotion. More flowers bloom and die around her.

  “What is it?” she asks, breathless.

  “It’s life,” I whisper.

  We sit there in a silent circle as the snow falls softly around us.

  Twenty-Four

  SIENNA CAN ONLY CONNECT WITH FIRE AND EARTH.

  We sit outside the next evening, a large fire burning in a pit surrounded by heavy gray stones. Sienna loves making the flames leap higher and higher. Sil won’t let her in the house.

  “Fire is the most unpredictable,” she told us. Then she added privately to me, “And I don’t like the look on her face when she connects with it.”

  Even now as I watch, Sienna’s body is inclined toward the fire. She sits closer than I feel is safe, her expression peaceful but her eyes alight. I’m trying to make a blueprint of Southgate on a sketch pad, to remind myself of every wall and door and what might be the best point of entry. The back hall by the kitchen? The windows of the music room?

  The flames crackle and bits of burning embers spray across the stones.

  “Sienna,” I say sharply.

  She blinks and the fire dies down.

  “It’s fun,” she says.

  “It’s dangerous,” I remind her. “Remember that.”

  “I feel like I could burn all their palaces to the ground.” There’s a hungry look in her eyes as she says it. “I think I could—”

  She is interrupted by a shout from inside the house.

  “Stay out here,” I tell her and rush through the back door.

  Sil and Ash are facing each other down in the living room.

  “You can’t stop me,” Ash is saying.

  “This isn’t your call,” Sil shouts. “It’s dangerous and foolish and it could ruin everything.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “I heard her talking to Lucien,” Ash says. “There’s a meeting tonight, for the Society. I want to go.” He turns to me. “I want to help.”

  “A meeting?” I look at Sil. “Where?”

  “Not you, too,” she says. “You have to stay here.”

  “I’ve gone out before,” I insist.

  “Not like this.”

  “I’m sick of being stuck here while everyone else helps,” Ash says. “I have to do something more. Let me try at least.”

  “And what do you plan to do for the Society, anyway?” Sil asks. “Entertain the female members?”

  His face turns crimson. “If you think that will be useful,” he says.

  “Ash,” I say sharply.

  “I can’t sit around anymore, Violet,” he says. “Everyone forgets about the companions. We don’t have any powers. We aren’t special in any way. But we’re still people. We still have the right to fight for our freedom as much as any surrogate or lady-in-waiting, farmer or factory worker.”

  I think about how hard he’s tried to be patient, how accepting he’s been of everything that’s happening around here. The new surrogate. The elements. The true history of this island. There hasn’t been much room for him.

  He deserves this.

  “You’re right,” I say. “You should go. And I’m going, too.”

  “No one is going, and that’s final,” Sil says.

  I fold my arms and stare at her. “Keeping us in the dark won’t keep us safe. We have a right to be involved.” I hesitate before adding, “Don’t make the same mistake you made with Azalea.”

  A gust of air, so forceful it feels like a solid wall, blasts out from Sil’s small frame and hits me squarely in the chest. I stumble back, gasping. Ash grabs my arm to keep me from falling.

  “Violet!”

  “I’m fine,” I wheeze as Sil turns on her heel and marches out the front door, the wind slamming it behind her. I straighten my spine. “We’re going to that meeting.”

  THAT NIGHT, IT IS BITTERLY COLD. ASH AND I BUNDLE UP in our warmest clothes.

  Sienna has been allowed inside. She sits on the couch, Raven in Sil’s rocking chair by the fireplace. Sienna keeps making the flames leap and roar while Raven’s
expression becomes increasingly irritated.

  “Be careful,” I say. “Sil might kill you if you burn this house down.”

  The flames quiet. “You better tell us everything,” Sienna says.

  “Of course I will.”

  Raven reaches out to me. I take her hand and squeeze it.

  “Be safe,” she whispers.

  I nod.

  Sil is climbing into the driver’s seat of the cart when Ash and I walk out the front door. “Come on,” she says reluctantly. “We’ve got a long way to go. Don’t want to be late.”

  I hop up into the bed of the cart, Ash climbing up behind me.

  Sil cracks the reins and the cart rolls forward.

  “Where is the meeting?” Ash asks.

  Sil pauses, clearly still mad that we are going with her. Finally, she says, “In a town called Fairview, about an hour from here.”

  I snuggle into Ash’s side for warmth. The trees reach out over our heads, stars twinkling through their branches. I want to join with the earth and feel those branches stretching toward the sky.

  When we emerge from the forest, Ash sits up straighter. Fields of wheat stretch out before us, stunted stumps poking up from the ground, dormant until spring.

  “So this is the Farm,” he says. “It’s . . . big.”

  I forget that Ash hasn’t seen the Farm before. Just the forest that first night we came to the White Rose.

  “Rye is from the Farm,” he muses. “Not this quarter, though.”

  I hadn’t given Rye much thought since Sienna joined us. But of course, Ash would worry about his friend.

  “I’m sure Carnelian is having a fabulous time with him,” I say dryly. “Like Garnet said.”

  “Carnelian is very lonely,” he says. “She wants someone to care about her, to like her best. Her own mother refused to stay alive for her. Those sorts of scars don’t heal easily.”

  I hate when he talks that way about Carnelian. I don’t want to feel bad for her.

  “She turned you in,” I point out.

  “I think, technically, she turned you in,” he says.

  “Does that make it better?”

  “Of course not. But you don’t see her the way I do. You dislike her too much.”

  “Because she’s awful.”

  “But she has also suffered at the hands of the royalty,” Ash says. “You saw how the Duchess treated her. They mocked her. No one wanted to marry her. Dirty blood, the other royal daughters called her. Bank trash. Does she not count as their victim, too?”

  I hadn’t realized Carnelian was bullied like that. Though I suppose I’m not surprised.

  “We can’t choose who we free from them, Violet. It has to be all or nothing. Do you think Lucien would ever choose to help a companion?”

  “All right,” I say. “I understand. But don’t ask me to like her.”

  Ash grins and kisses my temple.

  “Do you think we can do this?” I ask.

  “Overthrow the royalty?”

  I nod.

  “I certainly hope so. And it seems worth trying, doesn’t it?” He gazes out over the moonlit fields. “We were all going to end up dead, one way or another.”

  “That’s an awfully bleak way of looking at it,” I say.

  He shrugs. “I’m being honest. I’d rather die fighting the royalty than serving them.”

  “Well said,” Sil barks from the driver’s seat. Ash and I exchange a smile.

  Slowly, the landscape begins to change. Hills break up the skyline in craggy peaks, bigger than the ones surrounding Bartlett Station. We pass a couple of small towns, sheep grazing in paddocked pastures. Sil turns the cart down a narrow path that leads into a little copse of trees.

  “We walk from here,” she says as Ash hops off the back of the cart to tie up Turnip.

  The town of Fairview is much bigger than the town outside Bartlett Station. Houses slowly spring up around us as we walk, a handful of cottages at first, one-story stone structures with thatched roofs. As we get closer to the center of town, the houses become more uniform, all wooden shingles and peaked roofs. They crowd together, lining the hard-packed dirt that forms the roads, though they’re not connected like the row houses in the Smoke. Some have picket fences surrounding them; others have porches with rocking chairs or cats prowling on their steps. The main street is quiet at this time of night. We pass a barbershop, and a bakery, and a used-clothing store. There are no gas lamps to light our way, like the ones in the Bank. Sil stops at a dilapidated storefront. A dusty purple curtain hangs over the glass-paned door.

  She knocks once, pauses, knocks three times, pauses again, and knocks once more.

  The curtain flutters and the door is thrown open.

  A pistol is leveled directly at Sil’s face.

  I leap back, but Sil seems entirely unperturbed. “Put that away, Whistler, before you shoot somebody.”

  “Who are they?” the man in the doorway asks. He is hidden in shadows, making it hard for me to see his face.

  “Friends,” Sil says. “You think I’d bring some random strangers here? Mind you, I told them to stay put, but these two are as stubborn as . . .” Her voice trails off and she clears her throat. “The Black Key knows them,” she finishes.

  “Have they been marked?”

  Sil smirks. “Not yet. But she’s one of mine.” She jerks her head in my direction. “And he’s—”

  The man steps forward into the light.

  “You’re Ash Lockwood,” he says.

  The man is large, heavily muscled, and covered in tattoos from his shaved head to his knuckles. A thick mustache covers his upper lip. He wears a black sweater and pants, and lowers the gun as he gapes at Ash.

  “I am,” Ash says. I look at Sil—is this man going to turn Ash in? Was that her plan all along?

  “You escaped the royalty,” the man says. His tone is almost reverential. “Right under the Duchess of the Lake’s nose. How . . .” He shakes his head, then extends his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  Ash looks as shocked as I feel. I suppose I assumed everyone in the city would be after Ash’s head on a spike. But this man looks at him with respect.

  He takes the man’s hand.

  “You can call me the Whistler,” the man says.

  Ash half smiles. “I suppose it’s a little late for a code name.”

  “Are you going to let us in, or should we stand on the doorstep until a Regimental passes by?” Sil snaps.

  The Whistler steps back. “Of course. Come in, come in. We’re waiting for one more.”

  The shop is lit with only a single oil lamp. Sheets of paper line the walls filled with a myriad of designs. A delicately detailed sparrow soars toward the corner of one sheet. A peacock feather, all thick brushstrokes and bold colors, is pinned nearby. There is a sun and moon entwined, and a rustic-looking birdcage. I blush at the outline of a naked woman. There is a small desk by the front door and in the back corner of the shop sits a chair that reminds me unpleasantly of the medical bed at the palace of the Lake.

  “The Black Key didn’t tell you what this is all about, did he?” Sil asks.

  “Not a word,” the Whistler replies. “He said call an emergency meeting in the usual spot.” He sweeps out a hand to indicate the shop. “But the Printer arrived first—says he has big news, but wouldn’t say anymore until you got here. Go on down. I’ve got to wait for the newest recruit. He’s late. Not exactly starting off on the right foot.”

  “Come on,” Sil says to me and Ash, still hovering in the front of the store. “This is what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?”

  We follow Sil to the back of the parlor, where murmured voices can be heard from behind a green painted door.

  “Who is he?” I whisper, glancing at the Whistler, who’s still waiting by the front door, pistol in hand.

  “Local tattoo artist. Used to run with a rough crowd; the Black Key helped him out of a tight spot. Knows all the criminals and thieves in the Sout
h Quarter of the Farm. The Black Key was wise to have recruited him. They can be remarkably helpful, the dregs of society. And they love rebelling against authority.” Sil looks at Ash. “Let’s hope they all like you as much as he did.”

  Then she opens the door.

  Twenty-Five

  I STARE DOWN AT A LONG SET OF RICKETY WOODEN STAIRS leading to a basement.

  The voices are louder, and a warm yellow light emanates from somewhere deep within the underground room. Sil shoos us forward. As soon we reach the bottom of the stairs, the voices fall silent.

  We’re in a storage area underneath the tattoo parlor. The walls are made of cracked gray stone, and various crates have been piled in one corner, along with scraps of paper and sheets of canvas. A circle of five chairs is set up in the center of the space with everyone else crowded around them. Two of the chairs are empty.

  There are so many people here. And people of all ages, male and female. There’s a boy of about fourteen, with a thatch of blond hair and an impish expression. There’s an old woman sitting in one of the chairs, knitting what looks to be a baby’s sock. And there is a handful of what I’d guess Sil would call the “dregs of society.” Men and women with gaunt faces, many of them heavily tattooed, with sharp eyes and twitchy fingers.

  A bald man with dark skin and even darker eyes gets up from his chair as we enter the room. His gaze falls on Sil.

  “The Rose!” he exclaims, then calls to the room at large. “The Rose is here.”

  I smile at her code name.

  The tension in the room dissipates, the voices picking back up again. Several people come to greet Sil, who nods and shakes hands reluctantly.

  “And who are your guests?” the bald man asks.

  The blond boy pushes through the crowd. “That’s . . . that’s Ash Lockwood!”

  “Oh, don’t be stupid,” a girl, his same age, says. Her blond hair is tied back in two pigtails. They look like brother and sister. “Ash Lockwood is in hiding. Or dead.”