Someone managed to blow up a car belonging to the Russian government. Someone managed to kill a West Point cadet and frame an ambassador’s son. Someone wants my brother dead.
The wind blows the PM’s chic white hair across her face, but I can see her eyes. I just can’t read them.
For a second, I am tempted. I really, truly am. But then the PM says, “Come with me, Grace. Come home,” and something inside of me snaps.
“I’m not going back to Adria. I am never going back to Adria. I made that decision while I watched my brother lie on a dining room table with his blood all over my hands. I am never going back there. Ever.”
I turn and start down the beach. As I round the bend, I can see the little water plane that brought her here, bobbing on the waves, waiting to fly far, far away.
“We can help,” the PM offers, as if it is a last resort.
But it just makes me want to laugh.
I face her. “Like you helped my mother? Like you helped my brother? He’s learning to walk again, by the way. He doesn’t even need the canes anymore if he goes slowly. We’re just lucky that he never lost blood flow to his brain, because then … Excuse me if I think your help might be a little too late.”
I spin and start back toward the cabin; the conversation is over. It’s not really up for debate.
But Alexandra Petrovic did not become the most powerful politician in Adria by taking no for an answer.
“You seem to think that I’m asking, Ms. Blakely. Which I’m not.”
I stop and turn. “And you seem to think that you scare me, Ms. Petrovic. Which you don’t.”
The conversation is over, but the PM is smiling. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?”
“I think we’ve already established that. Thanks.”
“I mean why I am here and not Eleanor Chancellor.”
At the sound of the name of my grandfather’s chief of staff, I go still. The PM’s right. Ms. Chancellor should be here. She’s the one who took me deep into the tunnels beneath Valancia and told me the Society’s tale. She’s the one who introduced me to this world and started guiding me on this journey.
She should be here.
But she isn’t.
“What have you done to her?”
“This problem is larger than you, Ms. Blakely. It is larger than me. It is hundreds of years old and lives in the shadows of the darkest halls of power in the world. So once again I’ll say: You need to come home.”
“No.” I shake my head again, like my consciousness is trying to drag me from a very bad dream. “No. I’m not going back to Adria.” It’s a mantra now. “I’m never going back to Adria.”
The smile on the PM’s face doesn’t belong there. She looks like someone who has almost won.
“Well, that works out nicely, then, because that isn’t where we’re going. I will be in Washington, DC, for a few days, and I’d like you to come with …”
She doesn’t finish. She just looks at me, a confused expression upon her face as her steps falter. It’s like all her strength is fading, her mission clearing from her mind like the fog.
I look down at the cup in my hands. My tea has gone cold, so I toss it to the moss-covered ground. The prime minister has almost finished hers.
“No, you misunderstand, Madame Prime Minister. I’m not just good at staying alive. I’m also really, really good at drugging people.”
She slumps slowly to the ground, getting mud and grass stains all over her pretty white suit. Well, that ought to show her, I think. It’s time she learns that I mess up everything I touch.
There’s a shout in the distance. I can hear my name being carried on the wind.
“Gracie!” Alexei is standing on the rocky shore of the beach. Behind him, the water plane is coming to life, and I know it’s time to go.
I don’t look back at the woman on the ground; I just run along the rocks to where my brother waits inside the tiny plane.
Alexei moves to help me inside as Dominic punches at the plane’s controls. The pilot lies on the rocks, unconscious, and the Scarred Man looks at me.
I knew he’d see the plane, subdue the pilot, collect my brother, and take him to safety. I’m only a little disappointed that they bothered waiting for me. The smart move would have been to leave me here on this island, but I’m not the only one who acts stupid sometimes, and I’m my mother’s daughter, so the Scarred Man will never, ever let me go.
“Grace Olivia, hurry!” he tells me as I climb inside. Alexei follows and slams the door.
The water is rough, and the plane bounces, fighting gravity and the current. Soon we’re in the air and rising through the fog. This must be how Jack felt when he went up the beanstalk. I wonder if we might find treasure, up here in the air. More likely there are just bigger, meaner people who want to see us dead.
Jamie’s in the seat beside Dominic, a headset over his ears, and the two of them talk like soldiers. Like grown-ups. Alexei and I are in the back, and with the roar of the air around us—the whirling of the small plane’s engines—it’s almost like we’re alone.