But one boy isn’t dancing.
He leans against the railing of the wide, sweeping staircase, looking up. I can’t help but think back to that day at the beginning of summer when my biggest worry was impressing Ms. Chancellor and trying not to cause an international incident in the rose garden. I was his best friend’s kid sister then, the bratty girl who was always climbing up trees and jumping off walls. So many things have changed, but one thing is constant: Alexei’s still the boy who will try to catch me.
“Wait,” Thomas says, following my gaze. “Don’t answer that.”
I’m pretty sure the prince and I are supposed to descend this gorgeous staircase together, arm in arm. Flashbulbs are supposed to go off. People are supposed to turn and stare. This is my big moment, my introduction. For the first time in my life, people are supposed to ask, Who’s that girl?—and not out of horror.
I know the prince knows this. I also know he doesn’t care, and that’s why he pushes me toward the stairs.
“Go on.”
I look back at him.
“He’s not here for me,” the prince says. Then he winks and walks away.
I can feel Alexei’s gaze on me as I descend. I keep my hand on the railing and am careful not to hook my heel in my hem or anything else that might send me tumbling down the stairs and into his arms. Not that I’d mind the end result.
“What are you doing here?” I say when I reach him.
Alexei smirks. “I was invited.” He pulls an invitation from the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket. “A palace messenger delivered it personally this morning. I felt very important.”
“You are important,” I say. Then I can’t help myself as I glance back at the boy who stands at the top of the stairs, grinning.
You’re welcome, the prince mouths, then walks away.
“I—” Alexei and I both start at exactly the same time. Then we both stop.
I want to tell him about the prince and the king and the key. I want to say out loud that it might be over, that I’ve placed this problem in the hands of the most powerful man in the land—that it’s no longer my burden to bear. I want to hug Alexei, kiss him, dissolve into him until all of the worry and dread that I’ve carried inside of me for weeks just fades away, rises up like the sound of the music.
But there’s not time for that because a tiny blond blur is already streaming toward me.
“Grace!” Rosie says, plastering herself against me. “How are you?”
“I’m okay, Ro,” I say, then look up at Alexei. Something about my face must show that something’s changed, though, because the wider I smile, the more worried Alexei looks.
“Wait. What’s wrong?” Rosie senses something and pulls back. “You look … happy. This worries me. Is anyone else worried about this?”
Megan and Noah have joined us now. They’re holding hands, I notice. And Noah looks so handsome in his tux. Megan is in a red gown with small gold flowers embroidered at the hem. But as soon as Rosie says it, they both stop smiling.
“Yeah.” Noah studies me. “What’s wrong?”
“Why does something have to be wrong?”
“You’re smiling,” Megan says.
“I can smile!” I tell them. “It’s allowed.”
“Yeah. Sure,” Noah says. “It’s just … unusual.”
I want to tell them that the status quo is changing, that this is who I’m going to be from here on out. But Rosie is scowling at me and shaking her head.
“Yeah. You look happy. Why are you happy?”
I’m not thinking. Really. It’s not a conscious thought. But with the words I can’t help myself—I glance in the prince’s direction. He’s in a group of people, but he’s looking right at me.
I’m so excited to tell my friends about the box and the key and the king’s promise to bring it all to an end, but Alexei follows my gaze. When Thomas gives me a wink, Alexei sees it, and bristles. He actually turns.
“Alexei, wait.” I reach out and grab his arm. His tux is smooth and soft beneath my fingers.
“It was a mistake to come here. I should never have left Karina alone.”
“How is she?” I ask before he can leave, before all my happy seeps away.
“Better.” Alexei glances around the room, distracted. “She is better.”
Noah and Megan share a look. Then Megan says, “She was lucid for a little while today. They must have had her super drugged up at the hospital. I really think that might be most of her problem. Maybe once all the drugs are out of her system …”
But Alexei isn’t like Megan. Alexei is like me. He has long been immune to hope, so he just shakes his head. “I should not have left her alone.”
“Wait.” I grab his hand and pull him back, then look at all my friends in turn. “Something happened yesterday morning. I think … Well, I mean, if everything works out, then I think it might be over.”
At first, my friends are stunned and silent. Confused. They’re as afraid to hope as I am, and before any of them can start to wonder if this is just another aspect of my messed-up mind, the band begins to play the Adrian national anthem, and everyone in the ballroom turns. For a second, I think they’re looking right at me, but then I realize, no, they’re looking higher, to the balcony above.
A uniformed man with a booming voice stands at the top of the stairs. As soon as all eyes are upon him he steps to the edge and yells, “His Royal Highness, the king!”
Almost as one, every soul in the ballroom drops into a bow or a curtsy when the king appears on the balcony overhead. Princess Ann and Thomas’s father are beside him.
A murmur is moving through the crowd, a wave of whispers that seem to say that nothing is as it seems. As I rise, I realize that someone has set a microphone stand on the top step. The king moves toward it, and the whispers get louder.
“What’s going on?” Megan asks. “The program didn’t say anything about the king giving a speech.”
I can feel my friends’ gazes burning into me, but I can’t take my eyes off the man at the top of the stairs.
“Friends, family, distinguished guests,” the king begins.
And there it is, deep inside of me, that tiny, fragile bubble that feels a lot like hope. I can feel it start to rise in spite of my best intentions.
“I am the luckiest of men to have worn the crown of Adria for fifty years. It has been my honor to be your king. But …”
The king falters. It’s like he’s going to cry—and maybe he is. At least that’s what I feel like doing.
“But I come to you tonight and admit …” Again the king stumbles. Sweat covers his brow. And that bubble inside of me …
It bursts.
At the top of the stairs, the king of Adria reaches for the microphone stand, but he can’t seem to grasp it. It tips and falls, crashing down the stairs. On the dance floor, the king’s subjects are quiet. A stunned disbelief fills the crowd as the man takes a hesitant step, but it’s like his legs can’t hold him—like he is an hourglass and a crack has appeared, sand rushing out, as the king stumbles.
He sways, then pitches awkwardly forward and crashes down the massive staircase.
It is a long, long way to fall.
Gasps and cries fill the ballroom, but the people of Adria are stunned. Frozen. I can see Thomas pushing through the people who stand like statues, trying to get closer to his grandfather, who has landed, limp and broken, on the polished parquet floor.
I’m not surprised when Dominic is the first to reach him. It seems like all of Adria is holding their breath as he reaches for the king, presses a hand gently against his neck even as he yells in Adrian for someone to bring a stretcher, for the crowd to make some room.
But then he goes silent. He hangs his head for a moment and pulls his hand away.
It seems to take forever for the Scarred Man to find the words.
“The king is dead.”
Then he looks to the top of the stairs, where Thomas’s father stands, Princess A
nn beside him.
The king’s eldest son—his heir—is deathly pale as Dominic finishes. “Long live the king.”
“Long live the king,” a shocked crowd echoes, their gazes shifting. But I don’t speak. I just stare at the woman who has hunted me and my brother for months, who wanted my mother dead.
Ann is the only person in the ballroom who doesn’t seem the least surprised.
I don’t know how she’s done it, but I know what a killer looks like. I’ve been seeing one in the mirror for years, after all, and a part of me wants to rise up and point at the new king’s wife, shout murderer for all to hear.
But the truth is the king was well—the king was safe—until I told him.
I knew the rules. I broke the rules. And the king paid with his life.
The king is dead, I think. And it is all my fault.
People don’t run, don’t scream. It’s more like two hundred and fifty formally clad strangers are struck silent at the same time, and yet beneath it all there is an undercurrent of panic. Of disbelief.
This isn’t happening, the good people of Adria are thinking. Things like this don’t just happen—not in public, not out of the blue. But it’s not a dream. The guards who are coming in and urging the crowd toward the doors prove that. It’s as real as the paramedics who rush inside with their gurney and their bags, everyone knowing they’re too late.
Thomas’s cries echo through the ballroom—too loud and too familiar. That’s what shocked disbelief sounds like.
Shocked disbelief and fear. And rage. And guilt.
It’s a sound I know better than anyone.
I’m starting to pull away—to go to him—when something passes across my field of vision, and for some reason I turn and watch as the prime minister rushes away, her movements calm, her mood cool. And I realize that it wasn’t just Ann’s deal that I broke when I told the king my story.
Alexei’s hand is on my arm. He’s trying to drag me away, into the flow of the crowd. But when have I ever gone with the flow?
So I break free, pushing against the grain, away from the chaos, following the woman in white, who is going down a smaller, more inconspicuous hallway. I know it leads to a private entrance and exit. It’s the one the royal family uses. I guess the prime minister, too.
“Did you do this?” My voice echoes in the long, narrow space, and the PM stops.
We’re alone, I realize. I guess her guards are getting the cars, blocking the corridor. I don’t know. Don’t care. I’m too busy studying the woman who stands before me, slowly turning.
“Do what?” the PM says.
“Don’t lie to me. Stop treating me like I’m an idiot—like I’m a child.”
“You are a child!” The PM is practically yelling. It’s as if this is the point that’s been haunting her—taunting her—for ages. I should have been squashed months ago. That I’m still here, a thorn in her side, makes her want to rage.
And in that moment, her walls go down. I can see right through her.
“He told you tonight, didn’t he?”
“What?” she snaps and draws back.
“He told you he was going to help me, didn’t he? Of course he did. You’re the prime minister. He’d have to let you know he was going to do something. But what is it you and your council like to say? ‘Adria is a pivotal cog in the wheel of the world, and we cannot have it destabilized’? You knew. And you had to stop him.”
I don’t like what I can’t help thinking.
“Did you kill him?”
The PM tries to act indignant. “The king’s heart was bad. Everybody knows this.”
“He was going to stop it!” I shout because I want to—I want to scream. “He was going to fix it!”
“It has been fixed!” She holds her long skirts in her hands and leans toward me. It’s like she’s getting ready for a fight. “There is one solution that doesn’t end with anarchy—with chaos and an economic ripple that could turn into a tsunami sweeping across the globe. And that is the solution that we have. That is the solution we agreed to.”
I back up, eye her. “Did you kill him?”
My voice is too calm, too even. It makes the PM realize how far down the rabbit hole of rage she’s already chased me.
She straightens and drops her hem. “The Society does not murder monarchs, Ms. Blakely.”
I don’t know why, but a part of me actually believes her as she goes on.
“I learned of this madness not ten minutes before the king fell. I would have tried to talk him out of it. I would have … If the infernal man hadn’t been in such a hurry …”
“It’s your fault,” I tell her. “If you and your Society would have just helped. If you’d listened. It’s your fault!”
“No.” The PM shakes her head. “The king’s death isn’t our fault, Ms. Blakely.
She looks like a queen as she gathers up her skirts again and pivots. “It’s yours.”
I always knew I could break anything. Everything. And now I guess it’s official.
One conversation with me can kill a king.
I know it’s true. My words are poison, my mere presence a fire. A part of me wants to run as far and as fast as I can before I spread like an epidemic.
Another part of me wants to stand right here and let the palace burn.
When I make it back to the ballroom, the king’s body is gone. The crowds are, too. But the ghost of the party still lingers in broken glasses and spilled food, overturned chairs and a dull, haunting ache that fills the ballroom like a pulse.
There’s a painting overhead of King Alexander II and his queen and the little princes. They’re my family, I have to think, as I look up at the painting with fresh eyes, trying to see some kind of resemblance. But it’s no use. Even their ghosts have probably moved on.
“She did it, didn’t she?”
I jump at the words and spin, and that’s when I see Thomas sitting on the floor behind me, directly in front of the painting of our mutual ancestors that hangs on the opposite side of the ballroom.
“My mother is a monster,” he says flatly. “You told me. And that says everything, doesn’t it? You come in here—a total stranger—and you tell me that my mom has been trying to kill you. My own mother! And I believe you. What does that say about her? What does that say about me?”
“Thomas—”
“I think I’ve always known it. Is that crazy? I think that sounds crazy. But just because something’s crazy doesn’t mean it isn’t true, you know?”
He looks up at me and I nod. I do know. Far too well.
“I’m going to—” He tries to stand. “I have to tell someone. My father. The authorities. Someone. I have to tell someone it’s her fault.”
“No.” I put my hand out and stop him. “It’s my fault.”
“No.” The prince shakes his head.
“Your grandfather would be alive today—right now—if I hadn’t told him. If I hadn’t kept picking at it and picking at it and making everything worse.”
I make everything worse.
“Grace, no,” the prince says, but I just hear my mother screaming.
“Grace, no!”
I shake my head. I start to rock. Someone dims the lights in the ballroom until only the gaslight in the sconces remains. There’s gaslight all through the palace, covering the grounds. It is the color of fire, and I close my eyes and try to block out the glare.
“Grace, no!”
“You’re shaking.” The prince’s arm is around me. He’s pulling me tight. I should be comforting him. He’s the one who’s lost a loved one. He’s the one who’s been betrayed.
But I can’t stop shaking, saying, “It’s my fault. It’s my fault. It’s my fault,” over and over again like a prayer.
He rubs my back, slow and steady. “Why do I get the feeling you think everything is your fault?”
He’s not teasing.
“Because it is. Because I—” I start, but he cuts me off.
??
?You’re not that important,” Thomas says, stopping the loop that’s been playing inside my head for years. “It’s not an insult. It’s just the truth. If you think you’re to blame for everything, then you’d have to be responsible for everything. And you aren’t. And even if you marry me and pop out a dozen royal babies, you won’t be, will you?”
Somehow, in this crazy place and time, it seems like an extremely valid point.
“No,” I admit.
“Good. Because if it’s your fault, then it’s my fault, too. I’m the one who told him about the box.” The prince looks away, his gaze set on that far-off painting, that far-off time. “And now I’m the reason they’re going to put him in one.”
“Will you go to the funeral?”
“We will go to the funeral,” he tells me. “My mother is going to like the optics. You comforting me in my time of grief, stepping in, being there for the family. She’ll have us married by the time I’m twenty.”
I should hate the sound of that, the truth of it. But I don’t feel anything anymore. Now it just seems like the end.
“Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe we should just accept it.”
“Somehow you don’t strike me as a person who accepts things.”
Silence draws out. In the distance, I hear a vacuum cleaner. They’re going to want to clean the room and polish the floors. But I just keep looking at that painting.
“They didn’t get a funeral,” I say.
“What?”
“King Alexander and the queen and the little princes—someone came and cut them down, took the bodies away. They were never seen again.”
Does the prince know about the Society? About the secrets and the lies on which this very country was founded? I don’t know. And, honestly, I don’t really care.
He just looks up at the painting and says, “I know. It’s practically the Holy Grail of Adria. People keep trying to find them. People petition my grand—I mean, people used to petition my grandfather all the time to get access to royal lands or records or … whatever. People are always looking for dead bodies.”
It’s like he remembers in a rush. The truth comes back, and he sinks lower. I sit beside him, and he falls into my arms.