The sound of voices freezes me in place. A man’s first, then a woman’s. I clap my hands over my mouth, a physical reinforcement to ensure I don’t make a sound.
I can’t hear what they’re saying. I think they’re on the ground floor. The voices become more muffled, finally vanishing into some part of the house too far away for me to hear.
The couch springs creak as I sit down. My whole body is trembling. My head throbs and I realize I’m clenching my jaw so hard my teeth are grinding together.
My solitude comes crashing down on me. Where are Raven and Ash? Have they been caught? My empty stomach contracts at the thought of Ash once again thrown into a cell. Ash, with his head on the chopping block. Raven, sent back to the House of the Stone. Or worse—side by side on a matching block with Ash.
I squeeze my eyes shut and will the images to disappear. I don’t know anything and thinking the worst will not help. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and a flurry of sparks appears in the darkness behind my lids.
The base of my skull begins to buzz.
I have a wild, fleeting thought that I’ve snapped from the stress before I remember the arcana. I gasp and struggle with the knot I made in my hair, so many lifetimes ago, when Annabelle was still alive, and I lived in the Duchess’s palace.
I finally tug it free, barely feeling the sharp sting when a few hairs come out with it. It rises in the air, hovering inches away from my face.
“Lucien?” I whisper.
His voice comes across immediately. “Where are you?”
“I . . . I’m . . .” I don’t know how to answer him. I have no idea where I am. “I’m in the Bank.”
“What happened? Why didn’t you make it to the safe house with the others?”
“I got—oh, Lucien, are Raven and Ash okay? Are they there?”
“Yes, but what happened to you?” Lucien’s voice is clipped, impatient.
Raven and Ash are all right. They’re safe. My legs melt into the couch.
“We got separated,” I say. “And then I ran into a friend, another surrogate. Someone I knew from Southgate. I’m hiding in her attic.” I want to hold the arcana, cradle it in my hands but I don’t know whether touching it will end the communication or harm it in some way.
“What do you mean? Who is she?”
“I literally ran into her. I knocked her down in the street. I didn’t even know she lived around here. But she’s a good person, Lucien. She helped me. We can trust her.”
“Violet, we don’t know who we can trust.”
“Well, she was my friend and right now she’s all I’ve got.”
“She doesn’t have a key. You must always ask about the key.”
“Garnet doesn’t have a key.”
“Did you ask him if he does?”
“. . . no.”
There’s a long pause.
“What is your friend’s last name?”
“Deering,” I say. “Her name is Lily Deering.”
“Lily Deering,” he repeats. “I’ll find out where you are.” He sounds disgruntled.
“We did everything we were supposed to,” I insist. “Someone recognized him.”
“I’m glad you’re safe.” I can sense Lucien holding back what he’d really like to say, and again, I worry that he’d be happier if Ash had been arrested in that market. If that was what he intended all along. “We’ll speak again soon.”
“Wait!” After everything I’ve been through, I’m tired of all the mystery. I deserve some answers. “I’ve followed your orders. I’ve done what you asked, but you haven’t given me a single, solid reason why. Why is this worth it? Why am I worth it?”
There is another long pause.
“Are you happy with the way this city is run, Violet?”
“You mean, the royalty? You know I how I feel about them.”
Lucien sighs. “You are not seeing the larger picture. This is not just about surrogates. This is about an entire population enslaved to serve the needs of the few. And it gets worse with every passing year. You have a power that you cannot even begin to comprehend. I am trying to help you realize that and do some good with it.”
“And yet, you don’t tell me what you want, or what that power is, or how I’m supposed to help. Let me help, Lucien.”
“Do you honestly think that all the Auguries are good for is making healthy royal children?”
I suppose I hadn’t really thought about it. I don’t like using the Auguries at all, so I never considered there could be another purpose for them. But I was able to put that fire out. Well, with Raven’s help.
Lucien takes my silence as an answer. “Exactly. You have more power than you think, but I am not the one who can show you how to use it.”
“And once I know how to use it, then what?”
“Help me. Help me tear down these walls that confine us, that separate us. Help me save not only the surrogates but everyone who is under the royalty’s thumb. The ladies-in-waiting. The servants. The factory workers who die of black lung, the farmhands who feed the royals but barely have enough to eat themselves. The children dying from lack of basic necessities in the Marsh. I am not the only one who thinks the royalty’s time is coming to end. We have all been bound to them in some way. We have all suffered for them.” He says that last part so softly, I barely hear him. “We deserve to be free.”
I think about Annabelle, so sweet and frail. I see the bloody gash across her neck and have to shut my eyes for a moment, swallowing back a sob. What was her crime? Nothing. Being my friend. Annabelle did not deserve to die. And no one will be punished for her death. The Duchess will go on as if it had never happened.
I think about Hazel—how much longer will my little sister be able to stay in school? How long until she has to join Ochre, working to keep my family alive?
How much longer before she is forced to take the blood test for surrogacy? The thought sets my stomach in knots. I picture Hazel ripped from my family, arriving at Southgate, alone, afraid. I see her nose bleeding as she learns the Auguries, see her standing on that silver X on the platform at the Auction House. Hazel cannot be a surrogate.
But I don’t see how I can help them. I hate that I’m stuck in this attic, alone and powerless. Lucien seems to sense my hesitancy.
“I don’t expect you to understand everything right now. Keep the arcana close. Someone will come for you.”
I open my mouth to argue but find I’m too tired. “Okay,” I agree.
“Get some sleep, honey. You’ve had a long day.” There is another pause. “And remember. Don’t trust anyone until they show you the key.”
The arcana drops into my open hands, leaving me with even more questions than I started. I sigh and secure it back into my hair.
I’M IN THAT STRANGE STATE BETWEEN WAKING AND dreaming when Lily comes to see me.
It’s very late. There’s hardly any light in the attic, just a tiny sliver of moonlight on the floor by the window. I’m lying on the couch, my thoughts tangled up in dark tunnels and dying fires and Annabelle and wanted posters, when the hatch creaks open.
I sit up so quickly it makes me dizzy. A flickering light illuminates Lily’s face as it pops up through the hole in the floor. She climbs into the attic, carrying a tray laden with two small jars, a glass of water, a fat white candle, and—my stomach groans—a covered plate that brings the faintest scent of cooking.
“Hi,” she whispers, setting the tray down on the floor. I practically fall off the couch toward the food. Lily’s brought me several slices of pot roast smothered in thick brown gravy and cold boiled potatoes. I want to ignore the utensils and shove the food hand over fist into my mouth.
“When was the last time you ate?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say through a mouthful of potato.
Lily lets me eat in silence until the plate is clean. I let out an involuntary sigh and lean back against the couch.
“Thank you,” I murmur, taking a huge gulp o
f water.
Lily moves the tray aside. “I brought these for your face,” she says, unscrewing the tops of the jars of cream. One she spreads on my cheek—it sends a pleasant, cooling sensation through the bruise. Ice ointment. I remember when Cora, the Duchess’s lady-in-waiting, used it, after the Duchess hit me for the first time. The second one smells sharply antiseptic, and Lily dabs it on the cut on my lip. It stings a little.
“There,” she says. “That bruise should be gone by tomorrow.”
She replaces the caps on the jars, covers the empty plate, and pushes the tray aside. Then she sits up on her knees and looks at me with wide blue eyes.
“So,” she says, in a tone of voice I know so well, one that I heard countless times, whenever a new issue of The Daily Jewel arrived, or the lot numbers were given out, or any particularly juicy bit of gossip reached her ears. “What happened?”
I’m so full and exhausted, and I can’t bear to lie anymore. I tell her everything—almost. I don’t mention Lucien by name, only insinuate that someone inside the Jewel helped me escape, and I don’t tell her where I’m going (not that I know myself). I tell her about Raven, and how I helped her instead of my taking the serum. Lily practically cries when I tell her I was bought by the Duchess—“A Founding House? Oh, Violet!”
And then I tell her about Ash.
“Shhhh!” I hiss as she lets out a yelp.
“You’re the surrogate?” Lily whispers. “But . . . but they’re saying he raped you, Violet.”
“That’s a lie,” I say vehemently.
“But did you . . . I mean, you didn’t have . . .
I nod.
Lily gasps and her hands fly to her chest. “It’s like . . . it’s like . . . the most forbidden romance ever. It’s better than the Exetor and the Electress!”
I smile at the simplicity of it. “I’ll tell you about it later,” I say. After all that food, it’s a fight to keep my eyes open. “Where are we?”
“Thirty-Four Baker Street. It’s not the nicest part of the Bank, but it’s prettier than the Marsh, isn’t it? Some people call this area the Cheap Streets,” Lily says with an indignant sniff. “But I think it’s very pleasant.”
“Who do you live with?” I ask. “Are they nice?”
“Oh, they’re lovely,” she gushes. “Reed and Caliper Haberdash. Caliper’s a wonderful mistress—she’s quite old, almost thirty, and she and Reed have been saving up for ages to buy a surrogate. She can’t have babies of her own.” Lily’s face darkens. “Not like the way the royalty can’t—there’s something wrong with her body. She’s very sad about that.” Then she perks up. “I sold for nine thousand seven hundred diamantes. Can you imagine? How much were you?”
I shift uncomfortably. “I don’t remember.” I don’t want to talk about the price of my body. It doesn’t matter much whether I sold for six million or six hundred diamantes. There’s something more important that she needs to know.
“Lily,” I say, “you can’t get pregnant.”
She looks offended for a moment, then laughs. “Of course I can! What a silly thing to say. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”
“No, I mean—” I grab her wrist and hold it tight. “Don’t let them get you pregnant.”
“Violet, you’re hurting me,” she says, wrenching her arm out of my grasp.
“Lily,” I begin again, alarmed that I didn’t think of this before, furious that my appetite and exhaustion overshadowed everything else. “If you get pregnant, you’ll die. That’s why surrogates never get to come home—childbirth kills us.”
She stares at me for a minute. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s not possible. Caliper wouldn’t do that. She cares about me. She’s already told me she wants me to stay with them after the baby is born.”
“She’s lying,” I snap.
Lily goes very still, and I can tell I’ve hurt her feelings.
“Caliper wouldn’t lie to me,” she says. “Not about something like that.”
“I—I’m sorry, but it’s true. I’ve seen the morgue where the dead surrogates go. I was told by someone who knows.”
Something settles in Lily’s expression, some strange mixture of acceptance and determination.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I went to the doctor yesterday.”
“But you don’t know yet, right?” I say.
She tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “You look exhausted. Sleep. I’ll come back tomorrow, when everyone’s left.”
“Tell me.”
She bites her lip and nods.
Lily is pregnant. Lily is dead.
“No,” I gasp. “No, no, no—”
“Shhhh,” she whispers. “It’s okay, Violet. It’s all right.”
“No!” I shout, then lower my voice before I wake anyone up. “No, it is definitely not all right. Nothing is all right about this. You can’t . . . you can’t . . .”
Lily takes both my hands in hers and holds them tight. “Listen to me. I want this. I’m happy.”
“You’ll die,” I snap.
“You don’t know that for certain. But . . .” She gestures toward the ladder, to the house below. “I love it here. I love them. And they want this baby. And, contrary to what you and Raven might feel, I have always wanted to have a baby.”
“It’s not your baby,” I say.
Lily sighs. “No,” she says. “It’s not. But these people have become my family. You know. How it used to be for me. What my parents were like.” She squeezes my hand. “Weren’t you just telling me how important it is to be able to choose? How you chose to be with the companion, even when it was dangerous? How you helped Raven, at personal risk? Am I not allowed the same choice? Can I not have the same freedom you have? To choose what I want. Choice is freedom, Violet.”
I shake my head. “You’re twisting it all up. You don’t get to choose to die.”
But Lily smiles, as if we were back at Southgate getting ready for bed. “You should get some sleep. You’ve had a long day.”
I want to keep fighting, but the food in my stomach is pulling my eyelids down against my will. I climb back up onto the couch and rest my head against the threadbare cushion. “You won’t tell anyone I’m here, right?”
Lily kisses my temple, the way I kissed Annabelle’s before I left her for the last time. The loss of her, which has been overshadowed by the incinerator and the sewers and the marketplace, rears up, raw and aching. It tunnels through my chest and squeezes my lungs into my throat.
“No,” Lily murmurs. “I won’t tell. It’s so nice to see you again.”
The tears are close, brimming behind my lids. “Good night, Lily,” I croak.
She picks up the tray and leaves, the soft thud of the door in the floor telling me I’m alone.
I think I keep crying even after I fall asleep.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Eight
I SPEND A GOOD PORTION OF THE NEXT DAY TRYING NOT to pace back and forth across the attic.
It’s hard to keep still. I can hear muffled voices, and at one point, the soft strains of a violin.
So these people allow Lily to play music. That’s nice. But no matter how nice they are or how well they treat my friend, they have sentenced her to death.
Sometime in the late afternoon, the voices stop. The house becomes silent. I get up and look out the half-moon window. I see a couple, a tall man in a long coat and a woman with a white hat walking away from 34 Baker Street. The rest of the street is quiet, except for a harried young man walking about six dogs. They yelp and bark, tangling their leashes together. I watch them until they disappear around a corner.
I go back to the couch and fiddle with the arcana, making sure it’s still secure in my hair. I think back to our conversation last night. What did Lucien mean about a key? And who exactly is going to be showing me
this power I’m supposed to have? I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. I’m sick of Lucien’s doublespeak, of knowing only fragments of what’s to come. I have trusted him. It’s time for him to trust me.
The doorbell rings and I sit up. My heart pounds in my ears. I think I hear the door open, and Lily’s voice. Then nothing but silence. It seems to go on and on.
The door to my attic opens and I freeze, gripping the couch cushions.
“197?” The voice is not Lily’s. It’s a man’s. I cringe at the use of my Lot number.
I walk to the opening in the floor and look down. The man standing at the foot of the ladder has graying hair and wears gold-rimmed spectacles. He peers up at me curiously.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“I have been sent for you,” he says.
Lucien’s voice enters my head. Remember the key. “Show me the key,” I demand, glad that I sound more confident than I feel, since I have no idea what to expect.
I feel even less confident when he opens his tweed coat and begins to unbutton his shirt. He opens the shirt collar wide. At the place where his collarbone meets his shoulder, there is a tattoo of a small black skeleton key.
“I work for the Society of the Black Key,” he says.
“What’s the Black Key?”
“He is not a what. The Black Key is our leader.”
Of course Lucien would use a code name.
“Come with me, 197,” the man says. “We don’t have much time.”
I climb down the ladder as he buttons up his coat.
“Don’t call me that again,” I say as we walk down the stairs to the front door. “I have a name. It’s Violet Lasting.” I’m done with being called anything but who I am. “What’s your name?”
The man purses his lips. “You may call me the Cobbler.”
“How long have you—oh!”
Lily’s body lies crumpled at foot of the stairs. “What have you done?!” I run to her, tilt her head back, and nearly cry with relief when I feel her breath on my cheek.