“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m—”
“They took my home away, too,” Ash says. I look up. His face is utterly serious. A lock of brown hair has fallen over his forehead and I have the strongest urge to brush it back, to run my fingers through his hair.
“They did?” I ask.
“The difference is, I let them.”
“Why?”
“My little sister was ill. I skipped school one day and took her to the free clinic. We waited all day to see the doctor. That was where Madame Curio found me.” He smiles at the memory, but his smile is incredibly sad. “‘I bet you drive all the girls crazy.’ That’s what she said to me. I had no idea what she was talking about.”
“What happened to your sister?” I ask.
“She had black lung. Common in the Smoke. Treatable, if you can afford the medicines. We couldn’t. When we got home, Madame Curio was waiting for me. She said I could help Cinder—that’s my sister. She said she could give me a job, money enough not just to pay for Cinder’s medicine but to take care of my family, to make sure they never wanted for anything. Just one little condition: I could never see them again.” He swallows hard. “I left with her the next day.”
He puts his cup down on the table, his voice becoming formal. “I am so sorry. This is not . . . appropriate conversation. I shouldn’t . . . I’m not accustomed to talking about myself so much. It’s not permitted. I apologize.”
“We’re breaking lots of rules today, aren’t we?”
Ash grins and relaxes a little. “It would seem so.”
“That was a very brave thing you did for your sister.”
“It wasn’t much of a choice.”
“Still,” I murmur. “If I had had a choice . . . well, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I don’t believe that,” Ash says.
He’s right. If it was Hazel being sent away on that train and I could save her by taking her place, I would do it in a heartbeat.
“How old were you?” he asks.
“Twelve.” I can still remember waiting in line at the testing office, holding my mother’s hand. The cold, probing fingers of the doctor. The sharp smell of the antiseptic. The sting of the needle. “Testing is mandatory for all girls after . . . you know, once you . . . become a woman.” My cheeks burn and I can’t look at him. “Anyway, that night they came for me.”
I blink away the memory, hiding my face in another sip of tea. It’s gone cold.
“Sometimes, I feel like I’m remembering someone else’s life,” Ash says. “Like that person doesn’t exist anymore.”
“He does,” I whisper.
“It’s hard to remember who you were when you’re constantly pretending to be someone you’re not.”
“I’m sure there must be some moments when you can be yourself,” I say.
Ash’s whole face softens. “You haven’t been here very long.”
I bristle. “Maybe not, but I can understand what you mean. Besides, you have more freedom than I do. You can talk whenever you want, and dress how you want, and go wherever you want. They treat you with respect.”
“Do you really think it’s respect, when the Duchess eyes me at dinner, or Carnelian demands that I dance with her over and over? Do you think they care if I am tired or hungry, or if I actually hate dancing? They don’t respect me, Violet. They own me.”
We’re quiet for a moment, lost in our own thoughts.
“No, they don’t,” I say suddenly, sitting up. Ash raises one eyebrow. “If they owned you, you wouldn’t have come to the concert hall today. And if they truly owned me, I wouldn’t be here.”
“That is a very optimistic way to look at it,” Ash says.
“You disagree?”
“I—” Ash sighs. “I’ve lived here too long. It’s hard to be optimistic.” He cups his hand around my neck, stroking his thumb down the length of my jaw. “But I will say this—when I woke up this morning, it was like I could breathe again. Like some weight had been lifted and I felt like myself for the first time in years.”
“What happened this morning?”
He smiles. “I decided to find you.”
Silence wraps around us, but it’s not an uncomfortable one. Ash moves his hand from my neck and rests it on the back of the sofa.
“What do you miss most?” he asks. “From your life before.”
“My family,” I say. I put my cold tea down on the coffee table. “Especially my little sister, Hazel. She’s so grown up now.” I smile sadly. “She looks just like our father.”
“Who do you look like?”
I laugh. “No one. My father used to joke that my mother must have had an affair with the milkman.” Something warm and sad trickles into my chest.
Ash twines one of my curls around his finger. “Is he a good man, your father?”
“He’s dead,” I say quietly.
His hand freezes. “Violet, I—I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right. It was a long time ago.”
“How old were you?”
“Eleven.”
He unwinds the curl. “May I ask what happened?”
I look out the window while I speak. “He was coming home after working the late shift in the Smoke. There was a fight outside a tavern by the train station—two men were beating another man badly. My father . . . he tried to stop them.” I swallow. “One of the men stabbed him. By the time the Regimentals brought him to our house, he was dead.” I close my eyes and the image appears—my father, blood and rain and mud soaking his clothes and skin, lying lifeless on our kitchen table. My mother wailing, making an awful, inhuman sound. I took Hazel and Ochre to our bedroom, but we could still hear her. The three of us huddled on the bed and cried all night. In the morning, Father was gone.
A tear drips down my cheek and I brush it away quickly, embarrassed. This is not the time to be crying. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I haven’t thought about that night in a long time.”
“He was trying to help someone,” Ash murmurs. “That was a very brave thing to do.”
I shrug. “I guess.”
“I’m so sorry.”
We are quiet for a moment. “What about your family?” I ask.
“What about them?”
“I don’t know. Tell me about them. Were you very close with your father?”
Ash chuckles once, a hard sound. “No. I was not close with my father. We did not . . . understand one another. I wasn’t like my two older brothers. They’re twins—Rip and Panel. They . . . I don’t know, they like roughhousing and getting into fights and making a lot of noise, and they were much bigger than I was. I preferred the quiet. If we’d had any books in the house, I’m certain I would have been happy to sit by the stove and read.”
“Is that why you were out in the gazebo?” I ask. “At the Exetor’s Ball. It was so loud inside.”
His hand curls around mine and all my focus pours into that place where our skin touches. “Yes, partly. And partly so I would stop staring at you.”
“Oh, sure,” I say, flushing.
“It’s true.” He slides closer to me. “Violet, if we don’t stop this now, I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid I’ll never want to stop.”
Never. The word doesn’t seem like an exaggeration. I don’t think I will ever want this to stop, either. A sobering thought occurs to me—when I leave the Jewel, I leave Ash, too.
I push it away. That thought can wait for another time. He is here now, and I am here, and there is nothing stopping us from having this moment together.
I lean toward him. Ash’s fingers graze my cheek, and my skin tingles with anticipation. “Are you going to kiss me again?” I ask hopefully.
He smiles. “Yes, Violet. I’m going to kiss you again.”
His lips touch mine, softly at first, then urgently, and I wrap my arms around him as we sink back together on the couch.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Twenty-One
“ARE YOU READY, VIOLET? VIOLET?”
Dr. Blythe and I are in the garden, by the oak tree. Late-afternoon sunshine filters through its leaves.
Time has been acting strangely since my afternoon with Ash yesterday. Sometimes every minute feels like an hour, and other times it passes in huge dollops, so that I arrive in one place without really remembering how I got there.
“Sorry,” I say. “Yes. I’m ready.”
I take off my gloves and put them in the pockets of my coat. Dr. Blythe smiles.
“You seem a little distracted today,” he says. “It’s all right to be nervous. But I think you’ll find that, after our appointment on Monday, you may surprise yourself.”
I have absolutely no illusions that I’ll be able to affect this tree at all. But I hitch a smile on my face and nod. I find a small knot in the bark and run my fingers over it, back and forth. It has a spiral feel, like a snail shell.
Once to see it as it is. Twice to see it in your mind. Thrice to bend it to your will.
An image appears, of the tree in winter, bare branches black against a pale gray sky. A light snow falls, swirling flakes of white that melt when they touch the ground. There is something sad and beautiful about it. It makes me homesick, though I can’t explain why.
I sense the life of the tree, as powerful as it was the first time. I’m better prepared for the power now. I acknowledge it as it throbs against my palm, and I welcome it thrilling through my veins. I very badly want the image in my mind to be real.
The tree recognizes me—I can feel it acknowledge my presence, react to the familiar thrum of life inside me. I gasp and fall to my knees, but keep my hand firmly placed on the knot. I’ve never felt such raw emotion. It’s dizzying, like nothing I’ve ever experienced, because the oak tree cannot feel in the same way that I do. I’m bewildered by a grief so tender it makes me want to cry, and exhilarated by an agelessness, a feeling of being ancient and brand-new at the same time.
I focus, pulling at the thick cables of life inside the oak. To my surprise, one moves. I coax it closer to my hand, and just as I feel a tickling between my fingers, it snaps away, and my body snaps with it, one quick, rigid motion that sends a painful buzz down my spine, like the way my elbow feels when I hit my funny bone.
I fall backward, blood dripping from my nose into the dirt. The suddenness of no longer being attached to the tree is disorienting, and my fingers claw at the earth, searching for the connection.
Dr. Blythe begins to clap.
“Bravo, Violet,” he says with quiet sincerity. “Bravo.”
He hands me a handkerchief. I press it to my nose and look back at the tree. A tiny leaf flutters in the wind, protruding from the knot.
“You see,” he says, crouching beside me and opening his medical bag, “the stimulant gun heightens your abilities, but it weakens you physically. If overused, it can have some very nasty side effects. I wanted to make sure your body had time to recover. But you, Violet, you have such a strong, natural power, that with one application, you’ve already exceeded my expectations. I’ve worked with many surrogates in my career, and not a single one of them could accomplish what you have just done.” He rubs an ointment under my nose that stings and smells like eucalyptus, but it stops the bleeding. “The Duchess was wise to wait for you. I feel the task ahead of us will be positively easy.”
He helps me to my feet and cleans my face with a piece of gauze and some rubbing alcohol. “There. Good as new.”
My skin feels thin and fragile. My insides float like they’re trying to rearrange themselves. The life of the tree swirls around my rib cage.
“I think we’re done for the day,” Dr. Blythe says, patting my shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He walks away down the tangled path. I stay with the tree for a moment and stare at the leaf I created. It’s shaped like a little mitten, a delicate greenish-brown. I catch it between my fingers and rub my thumb across its veined surface.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the tree.
I try to picture what it would be like, to have a child grow inside me at the rate that this leaf suddenly sprang out of the knot. I shudder at the image of my belly swelling up so quickly.
You don’t have to worry about that anymore, I tell myself. Lucien will get you out.
I shiver—the air has cooled, the sun veiled by a thin layer of cloud. I make my way to the western wall and stare up at the flowers, twined around each other. My first violet is beginning to wilt.
I have to send another message. For as long as I’m here, Raven needs to know I haven’t forgotten her. More flowers might be too conspicuous, with winter approaching. I search my coat pockets and find an old hair ribbon, frayed at the ends, a delicate pink. Raven would hate the color, so I quickly draw up a new image, and cracks of pale blue spread across the satiny surface. I create a new sprout of ivy and wrap the ribbon around it. Then I send it over the wall.
I put my gloves on and head back to the palace. As I’m passing the ballroom window, movement catches my eye. Cautiously, I approach and peer inside. My heart freezes and drops like a stone into the pit of my stomach.
Ash and Carnelian are dancing together. His arm curves around her waist, his hand resting on the small of her back, their faces close together. One of her arms is draped around his neck, the other clasping his free hand. His movements are smooth and graceful, but Carnelian follows his lead stiffly.
I should not be watching this. But I can’t seem to look away.
And then, as if time slows down in a moment that lasts an eternity, he leans forward and his lips touch hers. Pain splinters inside me, and I clutch the window for support. My hand scrapes the glass, and I throw myself against the wall, praying they didn’t see me, my heart hammering so hard it sends tremors through my whole body.
Then I start to run.
I stumble blindly along the gravel paths until I reach the maze and dive into it, taking lefts and rights at random, losing myself among the hedges. All I can see is him kissing her.
I collapse at a dead end, gasping for breath. I feel unbelievably stupid. A foolish little girl who doesn’t know anything about love. All this time he was kissing her.
I hate him. But I hate myself more, for being idiotic enough to believe that I could have that sort of happiness. Or any happiness. For thinking I made a choice that meant something. I disobeyed Lucien, I broke his trust, and for nothing.
I don’t know how long I stay there, my head resting on my knees, tears seeping into my coat, the cool air playing with tendrils of my hair.
“Violet?” His voice makes me jump, but I don’t answer or look up.
I hear him sit beside me, feel the warmth of him. “Violet, I’m so sorry. Let me explain.” A pause. “Will you look at me please?”
“No.” If I look at him, I’ll start crying again. I don’t want to cry in front of him.
He sighs. “What you saw . . . that’s my job, Violet. I have to do that. I have to . . . kiss her.” I hear the hesitation before he says the word. “But it’s not what I want. I thought . . . I thought you would understand that.” I hear his weight shift. “Do you have any idea how much I hate my life? I have to lie, all the time. I lie to these girls, and tell them whatever they want to hear, and the worst part is, they don’t seem to care. They don’t care if what I say is true. They don’t care about me at all. They don’t see me, they don’t know me. I am a piece of property to them, something to wear on their arm to a ball. I may not have experienced the Auction, but I am continually being bought and sold, all the same.”
After a second, I lift my head and meet his eyes. Words lodge in my throat, unable to escape. Because I do understand. I know exactly how he feels. And I can’t judge him, or blame him for it.
Ash smiles my favorite smile, the one that makes him look like he has a secret. “May I tell you something?”
I nod. br />
“The day we met, I heard you laughing. That’s why I came into the parlor.” I remember the hysterical laughter after my narrow escape with the two maids. “There you were, all flushed and smiling, and I thought you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. And you looked at me with this stunned expression . . .” He laughs softly and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear.
“And I walked into the coffee table,” I say with a grimace.
Ash laughs again, a little louder. “Yes. But you made me feel like . . . like a person again. You see me, Violet. Does that make sense?”
I don’t understand why this is happening. Why now? I sit in this maze and stare at the one person who truly understands. And the right thing to do, the smart thing to do is reject him. To listen to Lucien and just obey.
It isn’t fair. And I can’t do it.
I’ll have to leave him anyway, eventually. That should be punishment enough. I’ll have to leave him, and I’ll have to lie to him.
“Violet?” Ash looks nervous, and I wonder what my expression is.
There are only a few weeks left until the Longest Night. Surely that can’t hurt anyone. Just a few short weeks to be with him. I think it’s worth the risk.
I grab him by his coat and pull him to me, crushing my mouth against his. We are the same, he and I, both controlled by the royalty, neither of us free to make our own choices. But we can choose to be together. The royalty cannot own this moment. I sense his surprise, feel his shoulders tense then relax, his fingers sinking into my hair, and we fall back together on the cool grass.
THE NEXT MORNING, I SIT IN MY FAVORITE ARMCHAIR BY the window in my tea parlor and watch the traffic coming in and out of the Duchess’s palace.
There’s much more than usual—footmen hurry back and forth carrying small tables and yards of fabric and armfuls of flowers.
“What’s going on?” I ask Annabelle. Her face falls and her cheeks turn pink.
“What?” I ask. “Annabelle, what is it?”
She shrugs.
G is engaged
“Garnet?”
She nods.