by Ally Carter
“You know the palace.” I don’t know where the words come from. It’s hardly the most important thing. But the Scarred Man lived inside my mind for years, and now every piece of him I come across makes him less villain, more human. Dominic isn’t a figment of my imagination anymore. He is flesh and blood and here to help me.
“I have had occasion to learn some of its secrets, yes,” he says.
“But not all of its secrets?”
Dominic’s eyes stare into mine. “The palace of Adria is five hundred years old—older in places. No, Grace, I don’t know all of its secrets. I doubt any one person does. And it is better that way, I believe.”
He’s not talking about secret societies or lost princesses. Adria is a thousand years old. Even older in many ways. And that many secrets could press a person down, grind her into dust.
“What about you?” I ask.
“What about me?”
“Does anyone know all of your secrets?”
Dominic shakes his head. “You do not want my secrets, Grace Olivia,” he says, and I don’t doubt that it’s true.
Eventually, the garden path leads to a massive glass house—a giant room that isn’t like a room at all. Dominic opens the door and, immediately I feel the air change. It’s hot and humid. The floors are tiled and damp, and everywhere I look there are plants and flowers. Bushy green ferns and orchids so fragile they look like I could crush them with the tip of my little finger. I tell myself not to touch a single thing.
“So now can you tell me why you’re here?” I ask, spinning on him.
“I’m your protection detail,” he says, as if I’m silly to have forgotten so quickly.
“Why are you here, Dominic? Why aren’t you with Jamie?”
“Jamie is no longer in danger.”
“Do you really believe that?” I can see on his face that he doesn’t. Danger is a way of life for people like Dominic. He sees it everywhere and has for a very long time. He will for the rest of his life.
So the Scarred Man doesn’t lie. He just says, “I am where Jamie wants me to be.”
“Jamie doesn’t know where you are.” I shake my head, defiant. “And he definitely doesn’t know why you’re here.”
Dominic eyes me. “What brings you to this conclusion?”
“Because I know my brother.” I turn from Dominic, walk down a long row of flowering plants. “And I know that if the royal family doesn’t kill me for taking this deal, Jamie will.”
Dominic doesn’t tell me that I’m wrong. “Jamie is fine. He is safe. He is getting stronger. And I am where I need to be.”
I know better than to argue. I can’t change anyone’s mind, not even my own. So I just ask, “Do you know what my mom found here?” It’s the only thing that matters.
I look around the plants. A few feet away, sprinklers spring to life, coating a long row with a very fine mist.
“Electronic surveillance doesn’t work in here, does it?” I ask, and he nods, almost impressed. “That’s why we’re here. No bugs in the greenhouse.”
“Grace—”
“Before Mom died, she took a trip. We know she went to see Alexei’s mom at Binevale. And we know she came here—to Valancia. I think she found something, and the royal family found out, and that’s why they wanted her dead. Did she tell you what she found?”
“Is that why you’re here, Grace Olivia?”
The Scarred Man sees too much. The Scarred Man knows too much.
“Keep your enemies closer, right?” I shrug. “She found something, and they’re terrified I have it. So if you know what it is or where it is or—”
“Have you ever seen the grounds before? The gardens of Valancia? They’re quite famous for people who care about such things.”
“Answer my question, Dominic. Do you know what she found?”
“Have you ever heard of this house?” Dominic looks up at the glass ceiling overhead. The pieces fit together like those in a puzzle, and the light that comes through is almost ethereal in its glow.
“It’s a nice greenhouse. The nicest. But I don’t care about greenhouses. I care about whatever it was my mother found!”
“Oh.” Dominic laughs. “It’s no mere greenhouse. This house was one of the last acts of King Alexander the Second. It was built right before the War of the Fortnight. The gardens, too.”
For some reason, this is the fact that stops me.
“They built those gardens during a drought?”
Dominic’s raised eyebrow is his answer.
“The coup was not right, Grace Olivia. But that does not mean it wasn’t without cause.”
I’d never considered this, but I should have. Nothing happens in a vacuum. There is a cause and effect to everything.
“And it was all built for the king’s mistress.” Dominic walks around a massive fountain that stands in the house’s center. Once on the other side, he looks up through the wavy glass, and I realize that we are almost in the literal shadow of the national cathedral. “They say the king chose this place so that his mistress would be between his wife and the church. He liked the idea of mocking both simultaneously.”
I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. And I’m not entirely sure why.
“He kept his mistress in a glass house?”
“She was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Helen of Adria, they called her. Fitting for a walled city, don’t you think? And what’s the use of possessing the most beautiful woman in the world if the world cannot see her?” Dominic walks on. “Originally the glass house was not on the palace grounds, but as a sort of revenge, the queen had the land annexed, the fences moved, hoping to drive the woman out. But the king only laughed and thanked her for making his mistress’s house an official part of the palace.”
I stop. Turn to him. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
“The royals who died in the rebellion consisted of two innocent children but also a king who openly mocked his queen and his church and a queen who built gardens so grand that before they were even half-finished they had drained the city’s reservoir. I am not saying they deserved their fate, but the war, the parliament, the prime minister—these things all grew out of that tragedy. The results were not entirely bad.”
“What are we going to do, Dominic?” I snap, tired of history, of this walk down memory lane. “Are we going to look for evidence? Poison Ann’s tea? Please tell me you have a plan.”
“It’s important that you listen to me, Grace Olivia.” Dominic steps forward. He’s so tall he looms above me, ominous and omniscient. “We are not going to do anything.”
“But there has to be a way out. There has to be.”
“There is.” Dominic reaches for me, takes my narrow shoulders in his large hands and holds me steady. “There is a way out. There is only one way for it to end.”
“What is it?” I ask, but Dominic stays silent. It’s like he doesn’t want to tempt fate, like he knows that tempting me is the exact same thing. “Tell me! I’ll do it.” My voice cracks. My eyes water. “I’ll do anything.”
The whole world is a blur as the Scarred Man says, “You become a princess.”
I don’t remember sleeping. But that’s silly, isn’t it? No one ever does. Still, I’m surprised when I wake up, sun streaming through the tall windows of my pretty princess bedroom. I’m a little afraid to think that I might get comfortable here—that, someday, this might be routine. Normal.
I’m even more afraid to realize that I’m not alone.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness.”
When I bolt upright I see a maid at the foot of my bed. Her Adrian accent is strong, but her English is perfect. Her curtsy is sure and straight.
“I do hate to wake you, but you have a busy day ahead.”
“Oh.” I want to get out of the bed, but I’m so twisted in the covers that I struggle, trying to break free. It’s the story of my life, I have to think, but this girl doesn’t want to hear it.
“Will you
be wanting tea, Your Highness? Or coffee? The kitchen can prepare whatever you wish to have.”
“I’m not …” Hungry. Thirsty. There are a lot of words that could fill in that blank, but I say, “Your Highness. I’m not … I’m just Ann’s goddaughter. I’m not a member of the royal family.” Yet.
I expect the girl to curtsy and apologize, go about whatever business brought her to my room. But she just drops her gaze and her voice.
“I don’t believe that’s true … Your Highness.” The girl leans over as she curtsies again, deeper this time, then pulls a gold chain out from the neckline of her uniform. She lets a small medallion dangle. It’s the same symbol I followed through the streets and down into the tunnels last summer—the same image that’s been haunting me for months. She isn’t just a maid, I realize. She’s a member of the Society. And I’m suddenly grateful she didn’t try to smother me in my sleep.
“My name is Clarice, Your Highness. I am to let you know that you are not alone.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?” I blurt, and I mean it. “If the Society sent you to keep me in line, then tell them I get it. I made my bed. Now I’m sleeping in it.”
I expect the girl to smirk like the PM, to scowl at me like the women in Paris. But she continues to look at me with something approaching reverence.
“There are those among the Society who have longed for this day—for Amelia’s heir to finally claim her rightful place. Please consider me your loyal servant, Your Majesty.” This time she doesn’t act like I’m a princess; she’s treating me like a queen as she bobs one final curtsy and dashes toward the door.
I’m throwing off the covers, chasing after her, but I don’t know why. I only know I’m darting into the hallway and then …
Slamming to a stop.
“Hello, dear.”
“Ms. Chancellor?”
How many hours has it been since I last spoke with her? A little over a day at most. But that feels like ages ago, and now she stands before me like a ghost from another life.
“What are you … ?” I trail off, then look down the hall behind her, behind me.
I need to know what kind of tragedy is looming on the horizon now. I want to know if she knows that the Society has moles within the palace. I want to ask what Mom was looking for—what she found. But, most of all, I want her to tell me that my grandfather is okay—that she’s not here to break even more bad news.
“Grandpa?”
“He’s fine.” Ms. Chancellor eases forward. “He’s getting stronger every day.”
“Then … why are you here?” I ask.
“I came to see you.” She opens her arms, but I don’t go to her. If I let her hug me, hold me, I might cry. And if I start crying, I may never, ever stop.
Ann was right, I know. This is my path. My destiny. The one and only way out. And the sooner I make my peace with it the sooner I can grow numb.
The sooner I grow numb the sooner it will all be over.
“Grace,” Ms. Chancellor says, “are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine. It’s just … I just woke up.”
“Have you spoken with Dominic?” Ms. Chancellor asks, but I can only nod. “You aren’t alone,” she tells me with a smile.
I just shake my head slowly. Right now—in this moment—it feels like she is the young one, the naïve one, the foolish one. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I am always alone.
“What brings you by?” I ask, my voice too casual, too light. And she knows it. But she never gets to answer because that’s when Ann’s voice comes floating over my shoulder.
“She’s here to help, silly.”
I spin. “Help with what?”
“Turning you into a princess, of course.” She actually smiles when she says it. And I can’t help it: I turn to Ms. Chancellor, eyeing her, wondering if I’m the only one who sees this moment as surreal.
But Ms. Chancellor is a born diplomat. If she notices anything amiss, she doesn’t show it. Her brown eyes twinkle as she says, “Her Highness was kind enough to include me in today’s fun.”
Fun? Ms. Chancellor knows me well. I don’t even have to say the word aloud.
“Now, Gracie …”
As soon as Ann uses my nickname I want to scream. I want to claw. But Ms. Chancellor shakes her head, a gesture so slight that only someone who knows her well would see it.
“I just live here now,” I say. “I won’t have to be a princess for a long time.”
“Oh, but we have to start building you now,” the princess says.
“Building me how?”
“Your perception. Your persona. Your personal style. If in a few years, people are to believe that the prince has fallen for you, then we will need you to be a bit more polished.” She looks from my bare feet to the top of my bedhead and I want to recoil. This woman doesn’t have the right to judge me. If anything, this woman should fear me.
“It will be fine, Grace. Parts might even be a little fun. That’s why I’m here. To help you get ready for the party,” Ms. Chancellor says.
And this stops me.
“What party?”
“My father-in-law has been on the throne for fifty years now,” Ann says. “There will be a gala to commemorate the occasion in a few days, and this felt like the perfect time to bring you out, so to speak.”
I look at Ms. Chancellor. “It is for the best, Grace,” she tells me, and I hear what she doesn’t say.
If I’m going to do this …
If this is going to be my life …
If I’m to keep my deal with the devil, then eventually I’m going to have to live up to my part of the bargain.
“So?” Ann claps her hands together. She actually bounces a little as she says, “Let’s get started.”
It wasn’t that long ago that I stood with Noah in one of the formal rooms of the US embassy while Ms. Chancellor taught us how to dance. I remember trying on clothes with Megan, laughing in a limo with my grandpa.
It was only a few months ago, I realize, but it might as well have been another decade. I might as well have been another girl.
“No, Grace,” the princess snaps. “That curtsy is far too low for a countess. Unless she is a duchess or higher, then you mustn’t go below here.” She holds her hand at my midsection, orders me to try again.
“Now. You cannot stand in the receiving line of course—”
“Of course,” I echo, and Ms. Chancellor eyes me, a warning.
“But Thomas shall escort you in for the evening, and I assure you that as soon as you take your place on my son’s arm, everyone will notice.”
“Yay,” I say.
Ms. Chancellor steps on my foot.
“My office is spreading it around town that I’ve taken you in. The optics are very good, you know. Orphaned girl taken from homelessness to the palace.”
“I’m not homeless! I’m not an orphan. I have a father and a grandfather. I have people who love me,” I snap before it hits me. Before I realize that it’s true.
There are people who love me. But they are on the other side of these walls, and I can never go back again.
“We have to make you sympathetic,” the princess tells me. “Otherwise …”
“Why would anyone believe that a prince would choose someone like me?” I fill in.
She just shrugs. She can’t even be bothered to tell me that I’m right.
They shove me into dresses and heels. The royal seamstresses are summoned and I’m measured and poked and prodded until I bleed on something from a shop that’s so exclusive there’s a nine-month waiting list just to get in the door.
“You’re doing well,” Ms. Chancellor tells me as she unzips a gown that’s worth more than most houses.
Ann is across the room, conferring with someone on her staff. They’re always running to and fro, asking questions, getting approval. She isn’t the queen, but that doesn’t mean Ann doesn’t have her own little empire. No wonder it doesn’t matter to her that h
er best friend died in order for her to keep it.
“Don’t.”
I look up to see Ms. Chancellor’s big brown eyes staring into mine.
“What?”
“Don’t think about it, sweetheart.”
I should tell her that she doesn’t know what I was thinking, but that would be useless. Ms. Chancellor can read my face, my moods, my very mind. She knows me better than I know myself. And that’s why she looks terrified.
“Don’t think about your mother, Grace. It’s too late to save her.”
She doesn’t say the rest of it—that it’s not too late to save myself.
But, on this, even Eleanor Chancellor is mistaken.
I have one shot—one last mission. And I don’t dare waste it, so I ease a little closer to Ms. Chancellor. I finger a gown and lower my voice. “Do you know what my mom was looking for? Does the Society know?”
“Don’t do this, Grace.”
It’s all I can do to keep my voice down, my face placid. “Mom found something, and if I can find it, too, then—”
“Then they’ll kill you?” Ms. Chancellor guesses. “Is that what you want?”
Suicide by secret. I hadn’t really considered it, but that’s Ms. Chancellor’s deepest fear, I can tell. It’s one more thing about which I can’t help but feel guilty.
“No. It’s … If I found it, maybe I could stop it—stop this.”
“Grace, listen to me.” Ms. Chancellor turns me to her and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. Like a mother. And it makes me want to cry. “Even if you find whatever it is she found, it won’t change what happened to her. It won’t change what happened to Amelia. It won’t change who you are.”
What I did.
“Grace, if I could change this for you …” Ms. Chancellor trails off. “I know this isn’t how you saw your life playing out, and if there were any other way …”
She doesn’t have to finish. She’s a smart woman. She knows how the story ends.
So I look back at the pretty dresses that fill the pretty room, the perfect accessories for my new, ugly life.
“How is everyone?” I ask.
“Your grandfather is doing very well. He’s sitting up and speaking and feeding himself. The doctor said she expects him to make a full recovery.”
