by Ally Carter
I have to squint against the sunlight as I slide to the edge of the seat and step outside. A hand in a white glove reaches down to help me, but for a second I honestly don’t know what to do. I’ve never been one to ask for help—I don’t even know how to take it—so I crawl out of the backseat by myself, study the man in the ornate uniform who stands before me, formal and surreal. It’s like stepping into a dream. A bad one.
“Hello, Grace!”
That’s when I turn to see Princess Ann coming down the stairs, walking past a long line of uniformed servants. A man in a full tuxedo follows closely behind the princess, carefully listening to every word.
“Welcome home, dear,” Ann tells me.
She tries to pull me into a hug, but I recoil. It’s instinct now. I can’t help it. After all, home was wherever Dad was stationed. Home was wherever Jamie was in school. Home was where my mother was, but my mother is gone now and the woman before me is responsible. The thought makes me want to kill someone. Again.
But instead I just shudder and want to cry.
“Grace, may I present Henson. Henson is the butler for the family wing. He and his staff will take care of your needs, dear. Henson,” the princess says, turning back to me. There’s a sickly sweet smile upon her face. “This is my goddaughter, Grace.”
The butler speaks. I’m pretty sure he bows. But I’m too busy looking at Ann, wondering how I’m supposed to live here with a woman I hate.
“As you know, Henson, Grace’s grandfather, Ambassador Blakely, isn’t well, and so we agreed that it would be best if she were to live here for a while. With me. I’m sure you and the staff will do all you can to make her feel at home.”
At this, the butler bows again. “Of course, Your Highness,” the man says in Adrian. Then he turns to me and switches to English. “Ms. Blakely, if you ever need anything—anything at all—you have only to ask. The staff and I are here to serve.”
I’m supposed to say something, I know. But all I can do is mumble something like “Okay, sure,” and then follow Ann down the long line of servants. Maids and footmen bow and curtsy as we pass. And soon we are in a dim, quiet entryway that bears almost no resemblance to the grand, main doors of the palace.
“Do you think people are really going to believe you’re my godmother?” I say as Ann starts to climb the stairs.
“Your mother was my oldest, dearest friend, Grace. No one will question that.”
“I’m questioning it,” I say, and Ann stops. She’s standing one step above me, looking down.
“We had a deal, Grace.”
“The devil makes them all the time.”
Something in her eyes makes me laugh. It’s either that or cry.
“You have a choice, dear.” Ann steps down to my level, glares into my eyes. “Life here,” she says, then gestures up at the crystal chandelier, at the veritable army of servants who are filing in through the doors behind us, returning to their work. “Or a life out there, looking over your shoulder. No peace for you. Or your brother. Or whatever descendants either of you might someday have. Those are your options. Now choose one.”
In my head, I know she’s right—that this is true. But my mind has been too wrong about too much for too long. How am I supposed to trust it with something like this?
I think about my grandfather and my brother. I think about life on the run and the way Alexei held me close and said that I was home to him. But, most of all, I think about what Noah said—that whatever my mom found, she probably found it here. In Adria.
This was where she came. This was why she died. And if I’m going to find it, too, I’m going to have to stop running. It’s time to keep my friends close and my enemies closer, and you don’t get much closer than under the same roof.
Still, with every step, the reality becomes greater. Heavier. I stop and try to breathe, but there’s not enough air here in this massive building. My vision narrows and my heart pounds, and it’s not a beautiful day in Valancia; it’s the middle of the night outside my mother’s shop and my whole world is about to catch fire.
“I … I have to go back to the embassy.”
Ann eases closer. “I thought you understood, Grace. There is no going back.”
“I don’t have my bags or my clothes or …” My mother’s boxes and journals and papers. “I didn’t bring my clothes.”
“Is that the problem?” Ann asks, and then she throws back her head and laughs. It’s like I’ve just made the best joke ever. “Your clothes? Oh, sweetheart, you won’t be needing your clothes.”
“Why?” I snap. “Am I going to be chained naked to a radiator or something?”
“You watch too many movies, Grace.”
“I need to go back,” I say as my gut fills with some unknown, unnamed dread. “I want … I need to bring my things.”
“No,” Ann says. “You don’t.”
Then she turns and climbs the stairs. My following her isn’t up for debate or discussion. I have made my bed, I know. And now the most beautiful woman in Europe is going to go chain me to it.
“It’ll never work,” I call. “No one is going to believe that I belong here.”
“They will,” Ann says. “I do a great deal of charity work.”
“Great,” I say as I start to climb. I’m charity.
“This is your life now, Grace. And it can be a good life. Or it can be miserable. From this point forward, it is a choice. And the choice is entirely up to you.”
For a second, tears well in my eyes. My throat burns, and I can’t help it because, for a second, she sounds just like a mother.
Like my mother.
When Ann leads me down a long, wide corridor, I have no choice but to follow.
“The palace is comprised of many different spaces that serve many different functions. I believe you are familiar with the state ballroom and perhaps some of the more formal, public areas, but those are typically only used for functions of state. You’ve also seen the royal drawing room, if memory serves. As you might expect, there are a number of rooms dedicated to the royal family as well as individual apartments for those of us in permanent residence. In addition, there are guest quarters and entire floors reserved for servants. In total, there are, I believe, one hundred and seventy bedrooms inside the palace.”
Ann stops suddenly. She places a manicured hand against a pair of wide, double doors. Then she pushes.
“This one is yours.”
The lights are off, but the sun streams through floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of the room, cutting through the darkness like a spotlight upon a stage. It’s fitting, I have to think. This is my great role, and I’m going to have to become a brand- new person in every way that really matters.
“Do you like it?” Ann asks. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me, but I could almost swear that she sounds nervous, like she actually cares about the answer.
“It’s pretty,” I say, and that much is true.
“Grace. Is that all you have to say?” She flips a switch, and light fills the room, falling from a crystal chandelier that dangles from a ceiling that’s probably twenty feet tall. The walls are covered with silk. The bed is massive and canopied with lace. There’s an antique dresser, a vanity table, and a mirror. Every surface is covered with fresh flowers, and the hardwood floor is so polished that it shines.
“It’s the prettiest prison I have ever seen,” I say. It’s the only compliment I can muster at the moment.
Ann looks like maybe she wants to lecture me again, but she thinks better of it. I’m the textbook definition of lost cause, so she’s quiet as I walk to the tall windows and look out on the world outside.
“I really do hope you’ll be happy here, Grace. When I married the prince, I wasn’t prepared for this life. You will have a huge advantage, you see. By the time you are in my place, this will truly feel like home to you. Someday soon you won’t even remember what it felt like to live anywhere else.”
I’ve lived a lot of places—tha
t’s the life of an army brat. None of them were a palace, and yet I’d trade this place for any of those in a heartbeat. But my deal has already been made and the devil stands behind me. It’s far too late to look back now.
“Yeah. Sure.” I force a smile. “Home, sweet home.”
“Hey, Mom, have you seen my—”
The words are in Adrian, and it’s a voice that I don’t know, but when I turn, I’m not entirely surprised by who is standing in my doorway.
His feet are bare and his hair is mussed, and overall the effect is undeniable. If I were the kind of girl who reads magazines or gossip sites, I’d probably be panting right about now. But I’m not that kind of girl.
I’m the girl he’s going to have to marry.
“Oh. Hello,” he says, switching to English.
I expect some kind of sly smile, maybe a roll of the royal eyes or something to show what he thinks of my situation—of me. But he doesn’t do any of those things. “So you’re the goddaughter.” He’s grinning as he says it. He actually steps forward, offers me his hand. “I’m the son.”
The prince, he means. The heir’s heir. Someday, this barefoot boy will wear the crown of Adria. And he’s the reason why I’m here.
“Darling, come in,” Ann tells him. “There’s someone I’d like for you to meet.”
I keep looking at the prince, trying to read his thoughts, but I can’t see anything in his eyes besides boredom. When he comes closer I realize that he and I are about the same height. He’s a little younger than I am, I remember. And he’s no doubt still growing. His hair is lighter than Ann’s, more like his father’s. But he has Ann’s eyes—her smile. If he were a girl he’d be beautiful, but he’s a boy and so that just makes him … striking. He’s going to break hearts, I know. I just hope that, someday, he doesn’t break me.
“Welcome to Adria,” he tells me.
“Do I curtsy?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“I have before,” I say. “I didn’t like it.”
When the prince laughs it’s such a natural, honest sound that I have to look at Ann; I have to wonder what he knows and what he fears. Is he unaware of the bargain his mother has struck, or is duty so much a part of the royal DNA that he doesn’t even register how weird it is to be meeting his future wife at the age of fifteen with his shoes off?
That’s when I realize that I’m staring.
“Sorry,” I tell him. “It’s weird, though, right? I mean, I never thought I’d move into a palace one day and meet my future—”
Hurriedly, Ann steps between us. “Grace is going to be staying here with us, dear. I hope the two of you will become close.”
The look on her face tells me that he doesn’t have a clue just how close the fate of Adria needs us to be.
“I’m Thomas,” he says with a broad grin. “They tell me I’m supposed to make you feel at home.”
“Is that right?” I glare at his mother. “What else do they tell you?” I ask, but Ann is reaching for her son.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you run along? I need to get Grace settled in.”
“No,” I tell her. “You don’t.”
“Yes. I do.”
Prince Thomas looks between us. He knows girl drama when he sees it, so he starts toward the doors. “It was nice meeting you, Grace. I’m sure our paths will cross again soon.”
We are going to share a palace. A future. A life. He gives me a cocky, silly bow, and I want to laugh. My future husband is funny, I realize. And handsome. And everything a literal Prince Charming is supposed to be.
He just isn’t for the likes of me.
“Grace.” Ann’s voice cuts through the fog that fills my mind. “Grace, what do you think?”
The prince is gone and Ann is no longer in my bedroom. I start toward the open door into the hall but stop when I realize that another pair of double doors has been thrown open and Ann stands inside this other room. Except it’s not a room. It’s a …
“It’s your closet!” she exclaims, as if something like that matters to someone like me.
Megan should be here. Or Noah’s twin sister, Lila. Or Ms. Chancellor. The closet is twice the size of any bedroom I ever had on any base. It’s full of dresses and neatly folded sweaters, row after row of shoes. But it’s all lost on me. I know I’ll just rip them, stain them, ruin them like I ruin everything else.
“See?” Ann sounds almost giddy. “I told you you wouldn’t need your own clothes.”
I walk to one of the racks of sundresses, finger the soft cotton and look at the pretty colors. I walk slowly past shoes with heels so high I’m pretty sure it’s just a matter of time until I fall and break my other leg.
“I hope you like them.” Ann actually sounds nervous, and I realize that she never questioned the order to have my mother’s line exterminated, but choosing her future daughter-in-law’s shoes seems to be keeping her up nights.
“They’re beautiful,” I say.
“I wasn’t sure of your size, but we can always send them back. Or get more. The designers will love working with you. And the palace has a seamstress. Well, actually, I believe it has an entire staff of seamstresses and tailors. We can have anything altered—anything at all. It’s really no—”
“You didn’t tell him, did you?”
Ann doesn’t even slow down.
“I want you to feel comfortable here, Grace. If these clothes don’t suit, then we can get you more. Any designer will work with us. We will cultivate the perfect style for you. Soon—”
“What does Prince Thomas know?” I shout.
Finally, Ann turns to me. “He knows what everyone knows. You are the daughter of my best friend. You are troubled and alone and desperate for safety and some degree of stability. He knows the truth, Grace.”
I wish I could tell her that she’s lying—that she’s wrong. But it is true, I have to admit. Every single word.
“It’s going to be fine, Grace. You will adjust. You will accept this.”
The scary thing isn’t that Ann believes it. The scary thing is that, deep down, I think she might be right.
“Do try on some of the clothes. Good clothes are like armor, I’ve found.”
“So I’m going into battle?”
Ann smirks and raises one eyebrow. “Women are always in battle. Your mother knew that better than anyone.”
“Don’t talk about my mother.”
Ann stops fingering the dress in front of her and turns on me. “Why not? It was her idea.”
Something about this stops me. It spikes my guns and tempers my rage.
“What was her idea?” I ask, my voice like ice.
“For Amelia’s heir to marry the prince. Your mother was the one who first thought of this solution.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m not surprised that you don’t believe me, but it’s true. The only problem is … well … we got the heir wrong. It should have been her who married the prince.”
“So you killed her.”
“No.” Suddenly, Ann’s voice is hard. She’s not the smiling, waving paragon of virtue anymore. She’s anything but a princess as she steps closer. “I’ve never killed anyone. Can you say the same?”
I know that Ann walks away. From the corner of my eye I can see her at the closet’s big double doors. I want her to close them, to lock me in here like a cell. Like a tomb. I want to do whatever time—whatever penance—I have to do to move on. But my mother doesn’t get to move on. Not ever. So why should I?
“Grace?” Ann finally gets my attention. “We want this to work. We need this to work. You are the solution to a two-hundred-year-old problem, and I assure you your safety is our top concern.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
“That’s fine.” Ann smiles. She eases toward the doors. “But perhaps you’ll believe him.”
Ann steps away, but I don’t follow. I’m too busy staring at the man who stands behind her, at his dark
suit and broad shoulders, the all-too-familiar scar that marks his face.
“Hello, Grace Olivia.”
As soon as Ann leaves and the door closes, the panic is the first thing to hit me. I fly toward Dominic.
“Where’s Jamie?” I practically yell.
“He is well.”
“Where is my brother?”
Dominic had one job, one responsibility. If he left Jamie to be hurt in order to come find me, then I will never forgive him. Never forgive myself.
“Where is he?”
“He’s safe, Grace.” The Scarred Man’s hands are on my shoulders, holding me tight before I can run away or lash out—hurt someone, especially me. “He is resting and recuperating with people I trust. He is fine. I swear to you. His only problem is that he is constantly worried about his little sister.”
Instantly, I feel guilty. I never thought that worry for me might keep Jamie from getting better. But it has. Of course it has. Jamie is a good person. Good people worry. And even when I try to help, I hurt.
“Why are you here?” I pull back, calmer now, and Dominic lets me go.
“I am to be your personal security detail.”
“But—”
Dominic brings a finger to his lips and looks around the room. For the first time, I look past the antique furniture and soft, silky draperies. I try to see the room through the eyes of a man who has spent his whole life looking in shadows, chasing down ghosts. And I know even the room around us can’t be trusted.
“Come with me.” Dominic starts toward the doors, and I follow. He never wavers as he leads me down wide corridors and narrow staircases. The halls of the palace twist and turn. It’s not a building—it’s a maze that runs horizontal and vertical. Maybe I’m the Minotaur, I realize. Maybe it’s better for the world if I never find my way outside.
But Dominic doesn’t have that problem. Soon, he’s pushing through a door and leading me out onto the palace’s grounds.
White gravel crunches underfoot as we walk along manicured paths, between tall hedges and beneath shady trees. I had no idea that the grounds were this large, this grand. But it shouldn’t surprise me. It certainly doesn’t surprise Dominic.
