by Amy Ewing
“Ash Lockwood fought a hundred Regimentals to get out of the Jewel,” the boy insists. “He could be anywhere, and I’m telling you that’s him.”
“If Ash Lockwood really escaped the royalty,” the girl shoots back, “he’d never come within five miles of us.”
“This is surreal,” Ash whispers in my ear. I nod.
A girl in her midtwenties shushes them. She has coppery hair and a willowy figure that reminds me of Annabelle. My heart throbs.
“There’s no need to spread more of the royalty’s gossip and lies,” she says. “Why don’t we ask him?”
More people have stopped to listen in on this conversation. The boy looks at Ash through his thick mess of blond hair.
“So?” he says. “Are you Ash Lockwood or aren’t you?”
“That isn’t polite,” the Annabelle-girl says. “And you know the rule about names here.”
The boy scowls. The girl twirls one of her pigtails around her finger.
“Please, sir,” she says, fluttering her eyelashes. “Are you the companion who was falsely accused and escaped the royalty?”
Falsely accused? My bones soften with relief. They know. They know he is innocent. But . . . how could they know that? All the papers reported the rape as if it were fact.
“I am,” Ash says. “Though I can’t say I fought a hundred Regimentals.” He extends his hand to her. “Ash Lockwood.”
The girl turns pink and shakes his hand. The Annabelle-girl blushes, too.
“I told you,” the boy says.
“We’re not allowed to use names,” the girl says, ignoring the boy.
Ash nods. “Yes. The Society of the Black Key has to be protected.”
The girl’s eyes widen. “Do you know the Black Key?”
A small crowd has gathered around Ash at this point. A woman in her forties pushes forward.
“Did you know a boy named Birch?” she says, grasping his hand in both of hers. “They took him, made him a companion. I don’t know where they sent him. He’s a beautiful boy, he’s blond and tall, with green eyes and . . .” Tears fill her eyes. “Do you know him?”
“My son was taken, too,” a man in plaid trousers interrupts. “They made him a Regimental. For the House of the Light. Have you been there?”
A frail woman with wispy brown hair pushes forward. “They took my daughter,” she says. “They took her right off the street one day. Do you know where they take the girls? She was only fourteen. The coach that took her was from the Bank.” Her eyes fill with tears. “Why would they take my Calla?”
Ash looks distraught. I catch Sil’s eye. This isn’t fair. He cannot be asked to account for all the royalty’s faults, to know everything that happened to these children.
“That’s enough,” Sil says. “Leave the boy alone. From what I’ve gathered, we have more important things to talk about.” She moves to sit in one of the empty chairs. The crowd shuffles back around, re-forming the circle. The boy stays close to Ash and keeps glancing over at him.
“We’ll start without the Whistler,” Sil says. “He can get filled in later.” She looks at the old woman knitting the sock. “What’s the status for supplies?”
“One hundred and twelve handguns, eighty-three rifles,” the woman says. “And a countless amount of makeshift swords.”
“Still not enough,” Sil says. “Not nearly enough now.”
“What’s going on?” a man in a green jacket demands. “I thought the plan was to coordinate the attacks and the Auction. We’ve got plenty of time.”
“No, we don’t.” The bald man stands up. “That’s why this meeting was called. I received my shipment of tomorrow’s paper late this afternoon.” A newspaper sits, folded in half on his chair. He opens it and holds it up.
The headline reads, NEW DATE FOR AUCTION! And underneath it, in slightly smaller print, it says, EXETOR TO MOVE AUCTION TO APRIL.
I gasp. That’s only a little over three months away.
“How can they do this?” I whisper to Ash.
“They do what they want,” he says.
“Do you think—”
“It might be a coincidence,” the bald man announces. “Or they might suspect something. There has been a healthy amount of vandalism recently, some of which was unapproved by the Black Key.”
He shoots a look at one of the gaunt, tattooed men.
“How are we supposed to be ready in time?” a gruff man with bushy eyebrows and a gray cap asks. “We don’t even know our exact numbers. We don’t know who can handle a gun. We don’t have enough guns, for that matter. How are we supposed to fight an army of Regimentals?”
“The surrogates,” Sil says. “You know this. The surrogates will help.”
The man scoffs. “I still don’t see how a group of little girls is going to help us take down an army.”
I bristle, and so does Sil.
“Of course you don’t,” she says. “That would require having a brain. You’re good with weapons but don’t try strategy, it doesn’t suit you.” It’s nice to see Sil’s attitude being directed toward someone else. She looks around the room. Some of the people look as skeptical as the gruff man. Others seem curious, and still others seem resigned, like they’ve heard about this plan for a while and are tired of trying to work out the secrets. I’m very familiar with that feeling.
“You’re all here for a reason,” Sil says. “There isn’t a life in this room that hasn’t been affected in some way by the royalty. If we want it to stop, we have to do it ourselves. We have to trust the Black Key. But more importantly, we have to trust one another.”
“She does a good impression of caring,” I mutter to Ash.
“Oh, I think she cares a lot more than she lets on,” he says.
“How do you think they knew?” I ask. “That you were falsely accused, I mean.”
The boy pipes up from Ash’s other side. “The Black Key sent a warning. He said none of us was to turn you in if we saw you. He said you were on our side.”
“Well, look at that,” I say, giving Ash’s waist a squeeze. “He doesn’t hate you so much after all.”
“I’m sure he was protecting you more than me.”
“It’s a start.”
“Who are you, anyway?” the boy asks me.
“I’m Violet,” I say.
The boy’s eyes widen. “We’re not supposed to use real names.”
“Well, I’m not going by anything but Violet,” I say. “Ever again. The Black Key will have to deal with it.”
Ash barely suppresses a smile.
“We’ll have to make do with what we have already,” the bald man is saying. “But we need to start training.”
“There’s a field about an hour away from here,” Sil says. “It’s quiet and out of the way, deep in a forest. This contingent could train there.”
It sounds like she’s talking about our forest. But she can’t mean the clearing with the White Rose—I imagine there must be another field nearby. And that forest is so thick and huge, it could provide perfect cover.
“That’s too far,” the gruff man protests.
“Tough,” she says.
“You need me to help with the training,” he says. “Who else here has experience in combat?”
“A couple of altercations with Regimentals doesn’t make you an expert,” Sil snaps.
“I’m the only one you’ve got,” the man says.
“No,” Ash says. “You’re not.” He seems surprised by everyone’s eyes on him, as if he hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud.
The man’s bushy eyebrows rise so high they fade into his salt-and-pepper hair. “What do you know about fighting, boy? I thought they sent you to the Jewel to dance with royal daughters.”
A few of the other men snigger. I glare, but Ash ignores them.
“They train us in everything,” he says. “I know how to use a gun. I know how to handle a sword. I can help.”
My heart swells up with pride. This is what
he’s supposed to do. This is how he can help.
“Prove it,” the man insists.
“Of course. Do you happen to have a sword handy?” Ash asks politely.
The man grumbles something unintelligible.
“I know the Jewel,” he continues. “I know how they train the Regimentals. If you don’t think that’s useful information, I suppose I don’t need to share it.”
“What about the girl?” a voice in the crowd asks. All heads swivel in my direction.
“What about her?” Sil asks.
“Who is she?”
“Where is she from? I’ve never seen her around here before.”
“Does she have the mark of the Key?”
“How do we know we can trust her?”
The chorus of voices rises up. Ash moves to stand in front of me protectively, but I pull him back. I can face this myself. I’m going to have to face much worse before this thing is over.
“My name is Violet,” I say. “And I was a surrogate.”
The word sets off a fury of panicked murmurs. Several people back away from me. The man in the green jacket whispers something to the woman beside him. She nods her head, frowning at me.
“I’ve seen firsthand what the royalty are capable of,” I continue. “And I want them stopped.”
I realize most of them have never known a surrogate. They clearly don’t know Sil was one. I’ve never thought about what the surrogates must seem like to the other circles. Even the boy who’s attached himself to Ash’s side has taken a step away from me.
“I heard surrogates can kill you with their thoughts,” he says.
“I heard they can make you beautiful if they touch you,” his sister says, eyeing me eagerly.
“That’s a load of nonsense,” the gruff man says. “They make royal babies. That’s all they do.”
I’m sick of this man and his attitude.
“No,” I say. “That’s not all we do.”
I connect with Earth, feeling myself become strong and broad, rooted in the ground. Somewhere deep below my roots, I can sense water.
“Violet,” Sil murmurs. The floor begins to tremble, and I quake with it. The crowd gasps and everyone shuffles away from me. Even the people in the chairs have stood and backed up. Ash stands beside me, a strong and steady presence, like a heartbeat.
“I’m not sure this is the best idea,” Sil says.
But I am the earth and these people need to see me.
I feel a mighty ache in the center of my chest, and the cement floor cracks open. Several people scream. The Annabelle-girl grabs the brother and sister and pulls them back.
I can smell the water now, its earthy tang.
I become the water.
My fingers grow fluid, my body light and stretchy, and a spray of water bursts from the crack in the floor. It swirls up in a glassy ribbon, bursts apart, then re-forms. It fills me up with a bright, bubbly joy, slippery tendrils circling one another before I release my connection with Water and it sinks back to the river below. The looks on the crowd’s faces change from terrified to awed.
I connect with Earth again, and the crack in the floor closes up.
The silence that follows is deafening. It presses against my eardrums with the weight of disbelief and fear.
“Violet?”
I turn and see the Whistler at the foot of the stairs, his hand on the shoulder of a fourteen-year-old boy, his mouth gaping at the place where the water used to be.
But the boy holds my full attention.
I’m staring into the wide eyes of my brother.
Twenty-Six
“OCHRE!” I LET OUT A STRANGLED YELP AND THROW MY arms around him.
“What are you doing here?” I say.
“What are you doing here?” he says. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the Jewel?”
I release him. “It’s a long story.”
He glances behind me. “Isn’t that the companion everyone’s looking for?”
“He’s part of the story,” I say.
“How do you know this boy?” the Whistler asks.
“He’s my brother,” I say. “Ochre, how is Hazel? And Mother? Are they all right?”
“Hazel’s going to have to be tested soon,” Ochre says. My heart sinks to settle somewhere around my knees.
“Mother isn’t handling it well,” he adds.
I shudder. My mother doesn’t even know the worst of it.
Maybe the new date is a gift. Maybe Hazel won’t have time to be tested.
If I can stop the Auction before Hazel even gets a chance to be diagnosed, she’ll never have to go through what I went through.
“Can someone please explain what happened here?” the bad-tempered man says. “Is she some sort of . . . witch?”
I forgot I was in the middle of proving myself to these people. “I’m not a witch,” I say. “More like . . .” I try to think of how I can explain it. “Like a conduit. I can call on the elements. This island has been torn up by the royalty. It wants to help. Don’t you see? This thing is bigger than all of us.” I don’t know how much to say—do I tell them about the Paladin and the original conquering of the island?
Many faces are definitely looking at me like I’m crazy. But a few seem intrigued.
“What else can you do?” the blond boy asks.
“I’d like to know that, too,” Ochre says. “Is that what they teach you at Southgate?”
“No,” I say. “That’s what they intentionally don’t teach us at Southgate. But with all the surrogates working together, we can take on their army. We can get inside the Jewel and destroy it from the inside.”
“No one breathes a word about this to anyone,” Sil says. “Or the Black Key will hear about it.”
“Does the Black Key know about this?” someone asks.
“Of course he knows,” Sil scoffs.
“Why didn’t he tell us?”
“He doesn’t tell anyone a damned thing if he doesn’t want to,” Sil says. “And look at your faces now. You wouldn’t have believed him if he did. You have to see it for yourself.”
“It’s late,” the bald man with the newspaper says. “And we’ve settled what needs to be settled. Training will start tomorrow night.” He glances at me warily. “If the Black Key accepts this surrogate, so will we.”
People begin to leave, in twos and threes, spacing it out over time so there isn’t a huge exodus from the tattoo parlor in the dead of night. That could easily arouse suspicion.
The Annabelle-girl leaves with the brother and sister. The boy leans over to me as he walks past and whispers, “My name’s Millet.”
I smile. That’s one person on my side.
Slowly, the crowd dwindles until there’s only me, Ochre, Sil, Ash, and the Whistler left.
I don’t want Ochre to leave, but I know he has to. “You can’t tell Mother or Hazel you’ve seen me,” I say. “It’s too dangerous.”
He nods. “I know.”
“How did you get involved in this, anyway?”
“Sable Tersing,” he says. “There are lots of boys our age who are angry—we get treated worse than the animals at the dairy. They’ve started docking our pay for no reason at all. They whip us if we show up even a minute late. We wanted to do something, to push back, and Sable said he’d heard about this Society that was secretly undermining the royalty but we didn’t know how to find it. He said he’d heard something about a black key, so we started drawing them everywhere. That’s when the Whistler came to see us. Told us we could stop vandalizing and actually do something.”
“You can’t seriously expect I’d let you fight, Ochre,” I say. “You’re only fourteen.”
“And you’re only sixteen,” he says. “And it looks like you’re in the thick of this thing, whatever it is.”
“It’s too dangerous,” I say.
“You’re not Mother,” he insists.
“Mother would agree with me.”
“Well, it’s a good thing she�
�s not here then.”
I open my mouth to protest, but Sil cuts me off. “As charming as this family reunion is,” she says, “we have to be getting home.”
“Wait,” Ash says. “There’s something I have to do first.”
“What?” I ask.
He looks at the Whistler. “I’m going to need one of those key tattoos.”
“DOES IT HURT?”
Ash places his hand gently on his shoulder, where the Whistler put the bandage after he’d burned Lucien’s symbol into Ash’s skin. The cart rolls over a rut, and Ash winces.
“It’s just a little sore,” he says.
I’m freezing and exhausted by the time we get back to the White Rose. And I desperately miss my brother. The short time with him only made me yearn for home. It must be nearly three o’clock in the morning, but there is a light on in the living room.
Raven is awake in the rocking chair. Sienna must have gone to bed.
“How did it go?” she asks, putting down the book she was reading.
“I saw Ochre,” I say.
She sits up. “What? What was he doing there?”
“Joining the forces of the Black Key.”
“How was he? How are your mother and Hazel?”
The arcana begins to buzz. I yank it out of the knot at the base of my neck.
“Something has happened.” Lucien’s voice is exhausted but tense.
“Are you talking about the Auction?” I say. “I went to a meeting with Sil tonight, they’re saying the date has been changed. Do you know why?”
“Someone has betrayed me.”
“What?” I gasp. “Who?”
“It will be dealt with,” Lucien says. “And the informant only knew a small piece of this puzzle—that the October date would not be safe. But it gave the Electress the very excuse she needed.”
“Excuse for what?”
“She wishes for her daughter to succeed the throne,” he says. “You and I know the Duchess foiled any plans for her to have a daughter from the last Auction. Now she has another chance. Unfortunately, this means our timetable has been moved up considerably.”
“But we still don’t have girls from Eastgate and Westgate yet.”