by Ally Carter
The royal family keeps walking until they reach the fence, and then the most amazing thing happens. Slowly, the gates open wide until there is nothing between the crowds and the four royals who stand, almost at attention, as if daring history to repeat itself.
Two hundred years ago, someone threw open those gates and the people of Adria rushed in. But now the gates stand open and the royal family looks out.
I expect cheers from the crowd, applause of some kind. But the people outside the palace stay silent, as if imagining that centuries have not passed. As if they have traded places with their ancestors and are pondering this chance to do things differently.
But I know better. I know you never really get a second chance.
The king leads his family toward four black wreaths that sit on stands before them. They each pick up a wreath and carry it through the gates. Slowly, the royal family members raise their wreaths and place them in front of the palace, directly beneath the place where the king’s ancestors once hung for all to see.
Again, I expect applause, but there is no sound except the buzzing of the gaslight, the solemn breathing of the crowd.
It’s like all of Adria is waiting, watching as the king picks up a nearby torch and brings it to the wreath he’d carried. I can’t believe it as he lowers the flame to the wreath and lights it. In a flash, the fire spreads, and soon all four wreaths are ablaze.
I realize then there is a small path through the crowd. Barricades hold the people back, and soon I know why when the fire shoots away from the wreaths, chasing the darkness toward the wide grassy promenade where just last week the closing of the G-20 summit was held.
But now the grassy area is filled with the silent crowd that stands, watching, as the fire hurtles toward them from the palace, then leaps onto a massive tangle of timber and broken furniture, tree limbs and debris. In a second, it ignites. The fire shoots and spreads, spiraling up into the night.
Only then does the crowd applaud, the sound almost a roar as they stand in the orange-red glow of the spark that the king himself sent into their midst.
It’s supposed to symbolize something, I’m certain. But I’m not quite sure what. Maybe it’s a sign of peace. Maybe it’s a warning.
Like a rainbow, is this supposed to be a sign that the people will never destroy their king again? But I know better than anyone just how quickly the world we know can turn to flames.
“It will burn for fourteen days,” Megan says, but I only half hear her.
The king and queen and their son are turning slowly, solemnly away from the crowd and starting the walk back toward the palace.
Only the trim, beautiful woman remains.
For just a second, Princess Ann stands silently, looking right at me.
I don’t know how I lose Megan and Noah but they’re gone.
All I know for certain is that the air is filled with smoke and the sky is the color of fire, and my mother’s best friend was just looking at me as if maybe she might see what I see, know what I know.
“Grace!” I hear a woman yell, but I don’t turn. I don’t want to see my mother’s shadow in the crowd.
“Grace, honey, no!”
Then Princess Ann turns and starts back toward the palace, away from the commoners. Away from me. And I start pushing away from the gates and whatever little safety I’d clung to on the edges of the crowd. I have to find Noah and Megan. I have to go home. I have to keep moving, pushing against the current of people that keeps pushing back, too hard.
It’s growing late and the crowd is too close. I hear a popping sound, like gunshots. I imagine the glass breaking in the window of my mother’s shop, the burst of fresh fire as soon as the oxygen rushes inside.
“Grace!”
And now I don’t care about Noah and Megan. They’re together. They’ll be safe. They are probably holding hands and kissing somewhere. I would just be in the way, I tell myself. But the truth is I just need to be anywhere but here.
“Grace!” I hear my name again, but it’s too much. I close my eyes tightly against the memory. Like the flames of the bonfire, I expect it to explode inside of me, to leave me shaking with terror and guilt and grief.
If I can just make it to the tunnels, I might be able to climb inside and slip away, escape into darkness and silence. I might be able to have my attack in peace.
So I push against the crowd that seems to be growing thicker, wilder, by the second. People chant and cheer. Even as I get farther and farther from the bonfire, the pressure of the people around me doesn’t lessen. It just grows darker.
“Grace!” I hear my name again, my mother’s voice.
I stop.
I want to scream.
But then there is a hand on my arm, turning me.
“Grace, are you okay?”
And it’s not my mother. I look up into the same blue eyes that just a short time ago watched me from a Russian window. And, suddenly, I am completely unconcerned about myself.
“What are you doing here?”
Alexei shrugs. “I was getting ready to ask you the same question.” He looks around. “Where are Noah and Megan?”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure. We must have gotten separated and I … I was going home.”
“Yes,” Alexei says. “We must get you home.”
“And you,” I say. “You shouldn’t have come, Alexei.”
It’s a mistake. I know it as soon as I say his name.
There are too many people. The Festival of the Fortnight isn’t just an Adrian tradition. It’s famous. Visitors come from all over the world. Like people collecting beads at Mardi Gras or running with the bulls in Pamplona; the city fills with tourists. In the past ten minutes I’ve heard five different languages.
And just this morning another crowd gathered on another street. The setting and the cause are different, but all mobs are the same.
I don’t recognize the man who turns toward us, but I know him. I know the way he stumbles and the cadence of his words as they slur. “Hey, I know you.”
He is drunk on smoke and fire and the darkness of the streets, the heady mixture of whatever primitive drug seems to come with night and torchlight.
Valancian police are on patrol, but the crowd is too big. It always is. It’s why our mother locked us in the embassy, forbade us to leave. This place, this night — these people.
Are dangerous.
I see it in Alexei’s eyes as he reaches for my hand.
I speak to him in Adrian. “Let’s get out of here.”
Alexei nods and we start to push our way down the hill and back toward Embassy Row. But before we’ve even taken a step, the big man blocks our way. His friends see and circle us. Two of them carry torches. They are staring at Alexei and me as if we are their next meal.
“Well, what do we have here?” the leader asks. He’s not much older than Jamie. Maybe they’re American college guys. Maybe they are backpacking through Europe. Tourists.
But these guys aren’t content with the fire and the crowds and the music that is coming from somewhere deep within the city.
I know in my gut that they were outside the embassy today. I know that they have been looking for a fight for maybe their entire lives. A sick feeling fills me as I realize that they’ve found one.
“You’re him,” the leader says. It isn’t a question.
I speak in Adrian again, pull harder on Alexei’s hand, but it’s no use.
“It’s the Russian!” one of the men with the torches yells. The world is full of Russians. He doesn’t bother to specify which one.
Someone shoves Alexei, and he stumbles back, crashing into me.
“Grace, I’m so —”
But as soon as Alexei speaks, the mob descends. Hearing him — his accent — is proof enough. Besides, they don’t care about justice. They aren’t here to take Alexei to the cops, turn him over for questioning.
In the crowd, I hear words like murderer and communist and diplomatic immunity. It is the
last phrase that really does it.
The fist that hits Alexei knocks him nearly off his feet. He doesn’t see it coming. I don’t know which one of the men swung first, but now the floodgates have opened. I can feel myself getting pushed, almost knocked to the ground. I lash out, kicking a man in the knee as he lunges at Alexei. But two other men are already upon him. I feel a sharp, searing pain in my side. I think about the torches and the bonfire and the smoke. There is so much smoke.
“Grace, run!” Alexei manages to yell as he knocks one of the men away, but no sooner does that man fall than two others take his place.
“Let him go!” I shout, then jump onto someone’s back and elbow the ringleader in the nose.
He curses and blood begins to stream down his face. And then there is a loud bang and, for me, the world begins to spin. Perhaps it is the motion of the man trying to throw me from his back, but the pain that slices through me is real, even as the sights and sounds that fill my mind descend to shadow.
The sound of the shot.
The smell of the smoke.
And the fire that grows and grows, filling the space and climbing up the stairs.
Most of all, I see blood. There is so much blood.
“Grace, no!” my mother yells.
And I know that I have to break free of these thoughts that fill my mind. I have to help Alexei. I have to be stronger, smarter, tougher.
I see the Scarred Man rising, walking through the smoke. I hear him yell my name.
But this is different. The Scarred Man has never spoken to me before, not in the flashbacks or the nightmares. I feel his hands on my arms.
“Grace, are you okay?” Dominic yells. And just that quickly, fresh air fills my lungs. Terror is replaced with a different kind of panic.
“Alexei,” I say. The mob is growing. “Help Alexei!”
Dominic presses me up against a wall, as out of the way as I can be, then starts toward the center of the mob. But before he can even reach Alexei, I hear a voice crying out, cutting through the madness.
“Let him go!”
Jamie has always been tough. He was raised by our father, a born soldier. But what I see isn’t his West Point training; it’s not the result of years of wrestling with our dad on the living room floor.
No. What I am seeing is sheer rage as Jamie battles ahead of Dominic, plowing through the crowd. He tosses grown men aside as if they were rag dolls. He knocks bullies to the ground like the toy soldiers he and Alexei used to play with on the embassy stairs. He is turning them all to dust because they touched his friend.
Jamie starts yelling, warning the college kids to back off, but it’s Dominic who pulls Alexei from the mob’s clutches. He drags him toward me while, behind him, Jamie keeps fighting like a man possessed by demons no one can ever exorcise or name.
I want to stop him. To hold him. To let him pummel me until I feel as bad on the outside as I do within. But Dominic is thrusting Alexei toward me.
He limps, and one eye has already swollen shut. Blood is soaking through the front of his white T-shirt.
“I’m okay, Gracie,” he chokes out, and the smile that follows makes me want to fall to the ground and cry.
“Get him home,” Dominic orders, pushing Alexei forward. He gives me a knowing look. “You know the way.”
I don’t wait for Jamie. He’s with Dominic. He’ll be fine. I just place Alexei’s arm around my shoulder and drag him into an empty alley. It’s the very place I saw the Scarred Man disappear weeks ago. Alexei leans against me, heavy and warm, but I don’t stop to explain as I reach down and trigger the opening of the tunnel. I just hope that Alexei can make it down the ladder as I push him toward it, the two of us descending into the dark.
There are hundreds of miles of tunnels and catacombs beneath the city. The Romans built them, or so I’m told. They are thousands of years old and twist and turn, climb and fall. People died here, are buried here. But I am not afraid. As soon as the tunnel entrance closes overhead, there is nothing but darkness and the dank, musty smell of a damp enclosed space.
It smells a little bit like home.
That’s why I let myself rest against the old stone walls. My shoulders rise and fall as I try to breathe deeply. It hurts — but if there is one thing I’m good at it’s not letting myself think about the pain.
I reach for the flashlight in my pocket, and when I turn it on, Alexei flinches. It’s like the bright light actually hurts. I shift the beam away from him, but there is still enough light for me to see the details that I didn’t have time to fully notice on the dark, crowded street.
Scrapes and blood cover his knuckles. There is a split in his lip. Old bruises blend with new. The cut on his forehead has come open again, and his black hair is coated with red blood that still trickles slowly down his right temple.
“Don’t,” he says. I think it’s because I’m reaching for him. I’m bringing my sleeve to his cut, wiping his blood away.
“No, Gracie. Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine.”
“You are not fine!” I run my fingers through his hair, pushing the strands away from his forehead. “They’re monsters.”
“Come on.” He takes my hand. “We should get home,” he says, but doesn’t move.
He stands too close. He looks at me too long. I think, for a second, that maybe he is going to kiss me.
I think maybe I am going to let him.
Thousands of people fill the streets above us. We are just feet away from an angry mob. But we are also alone in the glow of my flashlight’s narrow beam.
“Gracie.” Alexei exhales my name. He pushes my hair away from my face with one hand and holds on to me with the other, slipping his arm around my waist and pulling me close. It hurts but I can’t say so, not when he breathes deeply and says, “What are we going to do?”
Not I.
Not my government.
Not the embassy.
We.
What are we going to do?
Alexei and I are a we now, I realize. At least right here, right now. In this moment. And with the way he rests his forehead against mine and closes his eyes, I feel like maybe this feeling — this togetherness — is going to follow us when we finally decide to go back into the light.
Alexei doesn’t speak again. He just holds me to his chest while he takes long, deep breaths. I feel my body moving with his chest.
Spence kissed me.
But this is more.
More intimate. More gentle. More emotion pounds through my veins than anything any boy has ever made me feel. For a second, we both just breathe, him out and me in. Me out and him in. It is like we are sharing breath, the very air that will keep us both alive. And in this moment, I stop thinking about my mother.
“It will pass, Alexei,” I say, remembering Ms. Chancellor’s words.
“Will it?” he asks. But it’s not really a question, I can tell. He pushes me away but takes my hand. He’s still holding it when I aim the flashlight down the long tunnel, to the place where it curves out of sight. It’s what the old explorers must have felt like, seeing the earth disappear over the edge of the horizon.
I know where we’re going.
And yet I can’t help but fear that beyond this point there might be dragons.
“Where have you been?”
Sure, Jamie’s hair is mussed and his shirt is ripped. Bruises and scrapes seem to cover every part of him. And yet it’s almost like he’s bulletproof. I knew he’d be okay, but as soon as I see him, I exhale and slump against the door, breathe a sigh of relief. I didn’t even realize how worried I was until I croak out, “You’re back.”
“Of course I’m back,” he tells me. “I’m worried about you.”
I just saw him take on a half dozen grown men, and yet I almost knock him off his feet when I say, “Thank you.”
He can’t decide whether to be mad at me or just happy that I’m here in the embassy, safe and sound.
“Where were you?” he asks instead
.
“I helped Alexei home. We had to take a … back way. We couldn’t let anyone else see us.”
“What were you thinking, Gracie? Were you thinking? Going out there? Tonight? With him? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” He jerks back. It’s like the most awful thought in the world has just occurred to him, a thought he can’t unthink. “Are you?” he asks again. It’s not hyperbole, an exaggeration.
Jamie thinks I have a death wish.
He reaches for me, but I wince and pull away. My brother fought off a mob tonight, and yet this is what hurts him, I can tell. He didn’t save Spence. And this is one more reminder that he is three years too late to save me. Jamie’s armor isn’t quite so shining anymore. Which is probably a good thing. If I were to look in it, I know I wouldn’t like what I’d see.
“I wasn’t there to get hurt,” I assure him. “I’m fine. Alexei is fine. Thanks to you.”
This should bring them back together, mend whatever rift Spence’s death has caused, but Jamie hardens.
“I wasn’t there for him. I was there for you.”
“And I am fine,” I say again.
“You were literally being chased through the streets by an angry mob carrying torches!” Jamie yells, then shakes his head. His anger fades, and all that is left is a deep-seated fear as he whispers, “Mom hated this night.”
Compared to the shouts of the protestors and the noise of the crowd, the embassy is too quiet, too empty. So I say the words that, someday, Jamie is going to have to hear.
“He didn’t do it. Alexei isn’t a murderer.”
“You don’t know what he is.”
“I know he’s your best friend.”
Jamie looks like maybe he wants to tell me something. But in the end he just shakes his head again and steps away. I know he wants to climb up to his old room, maybe take a shower, and crawl into bed. Or maybe he intends to stand guard all night, a sentinel against whatever ghosts might try to slip beneath my door.
“When are you going back?” I ask, suddenly not wanting him to leave.
He takes a couple of steps. His hand rests on the railing.
“Jamie,” I call out, “when are you going back to West Point?”
