Take the Key and Lock Her Up

“Your mother and I hadn’t really spoken in years. We were very close as girls. And even in adulthood for a while, but then I became … but then I married, and she had you and your brother, and life took us in different directions. It was nothing specific. It was just life. It is simply something that happens. I wish I had known what she was doing. I wish I could have stopped her or helped her or—”

“Stop lying to me!”

People don’t shout at princesses. I can tell as soon as the words are free, but I don’t want to take them back. They are out. And they are almost magic.

It’s like a spell is broken. Ann is still smiling, but her expression is morphing somehow. It’s more a smirk when she asks, “Have you been to the tomb? Have you seen it?”

Numbly, I shake my head. They took my mother’s body to Adria, but I’ve never been able to bring myself to visit her grave.

“Answer me, Grace!”

“I … I’ve never been there!” I snap, and I don’t have to act confused and clueless. Lately, that’s my natural state.

“Don’t play coy, Grace. Tell me what you know so I can help you.”

This whole conversation must be another figment of my messed-up mind—like a dream where your English teacher keeps asking you why you didn’t bring a rhinoceros to the picnic. It doesn’t make any sense.

People change. I know it. I’ve seen it. I have changed, that much is true. But people don’t change this quickly. In a matter of minutes, she’s morphed from meek to worried to outraged.

Something isn’t right with her.

No.

Something isn’t right.

The people who are looking at the touristy knickknacks on the vendor’s cart haven’t made a decision since we’ve been talking. They haven’t moved.

The policemen who were wandering through the crowds haven’t wandered on. There’s a woman with a baby in a stroller. But that baby is too quiet—its mother too still.

No one on this bridge is as they seem. Especially the woman before me.

Now I don’t even try to hide it. I ease away, moving until my back hits the rail.

“Who did you tell?” I demand of her. I’m tired of playing pretend. “Who knew you were meeting me here?”

Ann shakes her head. She actually takes off her dark glasses, looks me in the eye. “No one. My husband doesn’t even know where I am. Or who I’m with.”

“What about your father-in-law, the king?” I ask.

Ann shakes her head, her eyes impossibly wide. “No, Grace. No one knows. I’d never tell …” She trails off, thinking. Recognition seems to dawn. “Grace, do you think the royal family would try to harm you?”

I shrug. It’s all I can do not to laugh. The whole thing is so preposterous—too crazy even to be a dream.

“Who else has so much reason to make Amelia’s heirs disappear?”

“The Society!” she shouts, as if she’s held it in too long. “Sweetheart, there is so much that you don’t know. Your mother and I … They didn’t want her to dig into it. They wanted Amelia lost. They needed her to stay lost. Please tell me they don’t know where you are.”

I don’t know what to say—who to trust—so I don’t say anything at all, and my silence is enough to make Ann panic.

“Grace, come with me. I have Dominic’s men. I can keep you safe. Tell me where Jamie is so I can send some guards to help him. Grace?” She inches closer and closer.

Closer.

“Tell me!”

“Like I said,” I say, moving along the railing toward the center of the bridge. “He died. Someone stabbed him outside the palace that night. You saw him. He was bleeding so much. I tried to stop it, but … he’s gone.”

Ann squints against the sun. “I wish I knew if you were lying,” she says.

“That’s okay.” I shrug. “I know you are.”

And then the mask is gone completely, thrown away. It might as well be floating down the river below because the illusion is never, ever coming back.

“You need to come to the palace, Grace.” Ann is pleading. “You’re one of us. You belong with us.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you!”

“I can help you!” she cries. “Maybe something can be done. The royal family has vast resources. You could—”

“No.”

“Grace, your mother was my best friend. You know you can trust me.”

At this, I finally do laugh, but there is no joy in it, no love or happiness.

“No.” I shake my head. “I really don’t know that.” Then I stop laughing. I am just as serious as the situation when I say, “But there was one way to find out.”

A cloud passes over the sun and for a split second there is shadow as Ann speaks, seemingly to no one.

“Get her.”

Everything happens at once. The clouds shift. In the distance, a siren sounds. And the guards at the ends of the bridge start toward Princess Ann and me. She doesn’t even try to stop me as I bolt away. That’s not her job. She has people for that, and the people don’t look happy. Two of the men are tall and strong. Even in their dark suits I can practically see their muscles rippling. I know they could sprint five miles without even breathing hard. I know because they’re like Dominic. Like my dad. Like Jamie.

Or like Jamie used to be.