“That was my plan,” Rosie tells him. “And it worked, I’ll have you know. My plans always work.”
She’s got a cocky gleam in her eye. This is Rosie’s proudest moment, I can tell.
She pauses for a second, listens to the woman on the speaker. “Okay,” she says. “We’re clear.”
“Rosie,” Alexei says, trying to summon all of his calm, “what are you—”
“Well, hello, stranger,” Noah says, and Alexei spins. “Enjoying Paris?” Noah asks as if we’ve all just bumped into one another outside the Louvre.
Alexei looks at him and then glares at me. It’s a look that is the same in every language: I have some explaining to do. But I’m too worried to stop now.
I turn to Noah. “Did we get it?”
He shrugs. “There’s one way to know.”
Then he and Rosie turn and start toward the stairs that lead to the lower levels. The steps are narrow and slick as I follow Noah, Alexei on our heels.
Somehow, Alexei doesn’t seem surprised when we find Megan sitting by herself behind a laptop in the boat’s tiny café. Really, there’s just a couple of tables and a vending machine. No one else is here. The day’s too nice, and they didn’t pay good money to sit in a tiny room with only a sliver of a view.
“We were right,” I say when I reach her. Megan barely looks up.
Noah is tall enough to glance out the high windows, almost at the same level as the water. “Grace, what are the odds they’re going to follow us?”
“Very, very good,” Alexei answers. He’s trying to control his worry and his anger. Trying. But failing.
Megan has barely looked up from the laptop. Her fingers practically fly across the keys. “Did you get it?” I can’t keep the impatience—the fear—out of my voice.
Megan pulls a cord out of the headphone jack. In the next instant, Princess Ann’s voice comes through the laptop’s speakers.
“Grace, do you think the royal family would try to harm you?” Ann’s voice says. Then, a few moments later: “Get her.”
It’s not a confession, but it’s not nothing. I’m not sure what this means. Is it leverage? Is it proof? Is this a recording that might guarantee my freedom and my brother’s safety?
Not even close.
But it’s a start. And it’s more than I had an hour ago. Most of all, now I know. Not everything, but the list of people I can trust just got a whole lot smaller. The good news is that the list of people I can depend on is growing, too.
The train is almost empty. At least it feels that way as I sit in a forward-facing seat, looking out on the French countryside that is slowly going dark.
The sun will be down soon, but it’s giving one last burst of light, and the countryside practically glows. It’s almost like the golden aura that is so well known in Adria.
Almost.
But not quite.
I’m still hundreds of miles from Embassy Row, and I need for it to stay that way.
I’m barely aware of movement, the feel of heat when Megan slides a steaming cup of tea into my hands. Only then do I realize that a woman is pushing a cart down the aisle, handing out fruit and coffee and bottles of water. I cup my hands around the warmth and start to thaw, but part of me feels like I will always be a little bit frozen.
“Thank you,” I tell her.
Megan shrugs. “It’s complimentary,” she says, but that’s not the point.
“I wasn’t talking about the tea, you know.”
“Yeah.” Megan slides a little container of honey in my direction. “I know.”
My mom always took honey in her tea. Princess Ann knew that. She guessed that I would, too, when I went to see her at the palace last summer. Should I have known then what she was? What she would do? But Past Me has made so many mistakes that I can’t quite bear to add another one to the pile, so I force myself to look away.
Megan also brought me a change of clothes. The jeans are soft, the sweater baggy and starting to fray, and I feel like maybe it’s her favorite—the comfortable, easy, carefree thing that she throws on for rainy afternoons when all a girl has to do is curl up in her favorite chair and read. I know without asking that this is the sweater equivalent of macaroni and cheese—comfort food. I know my friend Megan somehow guessed that I would need it.
“Thank you. For answering when I called. And for coming. And for … believing.”
“Of course,” she says, as if it’s easy. Traipsing across a continent and setting up a sting operation on one of the most beloved women in the world. All on the say-so of a thoroughly messed-up teenage girl.
“Thank you for believing me, Megan.”
“Yeah, Grace.” She’s looking at me differently now. I think she can hear the tears I don’t dare cry. “Of course I believe you.”
It’s a mistake, I want to say. I want to tell her how wrong I’ve been and for how long. For years, no one believed me. And the worst part is that they were right. I shouldn’t have been believed. Not then. Maybe not even now. There has been so much crazy inside of me for so long that I no longer have any sense about it. I’m the last person whose opinion on this subject should ever be trusted.
But Megan trusted me. Trusts me still.
And trust is like an invisible tightrope. Only a true friend dares to take a step.
Megan is my true friend.
I know that now. And I swear that I will never, ever forget it.