Take the Key and Lock Her Up

I look into his eyes. “She won’t kill me.”

“How do you know?” he challenges, and I pull away.

“Because I’m playing her game. And she’s winning.”

I’m not surprised that I don’t sleep. When I close my eyes, I see the king fall. I hear the crowd gasp. I can feel Ann’s gaze upon me, and I know she saw it coming. She’s seen everything coming for ages, and it’s far too late for me to catch up.

So I throw off my covers and ease into the dark, still halls. Walking, pacing. It feels like I’m stuck inside the castle from “Sleeping Beauty,” dormant but alive and waiting for the right moment to wake up.

I shouldn’t be surprised when I find myself in the big sitting room where Ann invited me to tea right before the Night of a Thousand Amelias—right before Jamie almost died.

These are the windows where the bodies of the royal family hung two hundred years ago. The Society would have cut them down from here. They would have taken them through this room, out into the palace, and then … where?

Where did my mother find them? There are hundreds of miles of catacombs beneath the city—maybe thousands. The Society has a secret underground headquarters and their own private island. There are caves in the hills and lakes and a sea so big and so blue that it feels like this is the end of the world.

The Society wanted to keep the bodies safe, and they did it, I have to think. They just did it a little too well.

“Karina Volkov is crazy.”

I’m not surprised to hear Ann’s voice. I’m not even afraid to turn and see her by the doors. I didn’t lie to Alexei. She has me right where she wants me. I’m not a threat to her, and she knows it, so for the moment I really don’t have anything to fear.

“Don’t look so shocked, Grace,” Ann says, sidling closer. “There’s nothing that goes on within the palace that I don’t know. And, besides, I told you this was my favorite room. Did you really think I wouldn’t know you had stopped by?”

“I’m just leaving.” I start toward the doors, but Ann blocks my way.

“Stay.” It’s an order. The smile that follows is false. “Tell me, how is my old friend?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I try, just because that’s what’s expected. I’m supposed to lie and Ann’s supposed to sneer and neither of us is supposed to give a single inch.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know that you ran out of the palace earlier in a rather dramatic fashion? Did you think I wouldn’t know who you were following? I don’t want you to see her, Grace. She’s too dangerous and you’re too important.”

“I’m leaving,” I tell her. I’m almost to the door when Ann speaks again.

“The authorities know she’s here, Grace. And I’m beginning to think it’s time for Karina Volkov to go back where she came from.”

“Why?” I snap. “Hasn’t she suffered enough?”

“You’ve seen her. You’ve spoken with her. Does she seem stable to you?”

“There was never anything wrong with her. You did that. Being in that place did that. Spending ten years in a place like that would make anyone crazy!”

The calm smile that Ann gives me is enough to make me scream. “And you would know, wouldn’t you, Grace?” She cocks an eyebrow but doesn’t really wait for an answer. “Besides, what I’ve done I’ve done for Adria. I’ve done for peace.”

“Yeah. When I hear peace I always think hunt my friends down like rabid dogs.”

Ann’s anger is rising. It’s like she’s tired of having to explain this to me time and time again. “The Society agrees with me, you know. Adria needs peace and stability. Our plan—our bargain—assures that. Amelia’s kingdom was taken from her. Righting that wrong has been my life’s work. It was your mother’s work! Having the heir marry the prince was her idea. But you still fight it.”

“And the king …”

“The king’s death is a tragedy.” Ann sounds sincere. “My husband and son and I will mourn him fiercely.”

“But he had to die,” I fill in.

Ann just shrugs.

I want to slap her. I want to claw her eyes out. I want to hang her from that window and let the whole world see how ugly she really is.

But I can’t do any of that. Because even without Ann, the Society would still want me here, and the Society is too powerful to fight. Like it or not, I’m the solution to a two-hundred-year-old problem, and no amount of rage on my part is going to change that any time soon.

“Good night, Grace,” Ann tells me, heading for the door. “Do get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a trying day. We will need to prepare to bury our king, after all.”

It’s not an observation. It’s a threat. And I stay, shaking, long after she’s gone.

I should find my room, my bed. I should do something to make this right, but I just look out the big windows, wishing I could go back in time.

To save the king.

And my mother.

And the people who cut those bodies down and dragged them who-knows-where.

But that’s not true, I realize. My mother knew where the bodies were buried, and she came here—into the belly of the beast—and told the one person she thought she could trust. Someone she thought would help.

My mom trusted Princess Ann, I remember. It makes me want to cry, the realization that bad decisions must run in my family.