Take the Key and Lock Her Up

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 her 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.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“And everyone else?”

“Noah and Lila’s mother tell me that they’re well. They are … concerned, but unharmed.”

“Megan?” I ask.

“Aside from trying to hack into the palace’s security feeds so that she can track your every move?” Ms. Chancellor raises an eyebrow and I know that she’s not teasing, not guessing. “She’s fine. Rosie, too.”

I swallow and nod. I can’t bring myself to say his name. Turns out I don’t have to.

“Alexei has a … visitor.” Karina, I think, but neither of us dares to say her name aloud. Ms. Chancellor eyes me over the top of her glasses. “I don’t believe they’re staying at the embassy, but I know that he is well.”

It’s supposed to give me comfort, let me rest. But all I can remember is the look on his face, the hurt that filled his eyes as I turned my back on my embassy and on him. They say if you love something to set it free. Alexei’s free now. And I’ll never love again.

Behind us, Ann is speaking in rapid Adrian, something about finding a picture of me where I look the right kind of ordinary and then leaking that to the press along with a story.

I turn and look at my reflection in the three-way mirror the seamstresses set up before they began their work. My dress is blue. Royal blue. Ann is certain that the people of Adria are going to see me in it and take that as a clue. The waist is narrow and the skirt is long. They’ve already decided to put my hair up and that I shouldn’t wear too many jewels to the gala.

But I can’t help thinking about another party and another time.

“Remember my pink dress?” I ask, and Ms. Chancellor meets my gaze in the mirror. Her smile is a little nostalgic. A little sad.

“It was beautiful.”

Was being the operative word. It was beautiful before I saw Dominic and ran from the palace in a daze, before I stumbled down the streets of Adria and crawled through the rain. Before I set into motion this terrible sequence of events. Before I knew better than to leave well enough alone.