The walls around the palace are at least twenty feet high. Higher in places. But they’re short compared to the wall around the city. When darkness falls, I ease out my third-story window and drop onto the brick ledge below, but I’m not even a little bit afraid. I should be, I know. If I were normal. If I had good sense. If I were sane.
But I’m not any of those things, so it doesn’t matter.
The gardens are surprisingly dark in the middle of the night, but it’s not hard to find the big tree I saw on my walk with Dominic. Its limbs stretch across the top of the wall, and it’s like I am on autopilot as I start to climb.
Part of me thinks I should warn palace security that they have some serious gaps in their perimeter. Part of me is just glad that they’ve spent all their time keeping people out. Makes it that much harder for them to keep me in.
The moon is high and the streets are empty. I was gone for weeks, I have to remind myself. It’s like a part of me expects the Festival of the Fortnight to still be going on, to see hordes of tourists, to smell smoke and see fire. But the streets of Valancia are almost empty, almost still as I walk away from the palace.
I am almost alone.
Almost.
“Hey, Lila,” I say, studying the girl before me.
She’s like a shiny, sparkly specter as she steps out of the shadows. “I was wondering when the prodigal was going to come home.”
She’s Noah’s twin sister, and they’re both tall and thin with beautiful dark skin and jet-black hair. They have the same strange accent that’s a blend of Portuguese, Hebrew, English, and Adrian. But, really, that’s where the similarities end.
Noah would have made a joke by now.
Noah would have made me smile, made me laugh, made me forget.
Lila looks like she’s here to make me pay.
“What did you do to Alexei?”
Has she been lingering outside the palace for hours, lying in wait? Is this some kind of coincidence? Or maybe Lila just knows me well enough to know that it was only a matter of time until I did something stupid.
“How is he?” I ask, even though I’m half-afraid of the answer.
Lila raises one shoulder, the chicest of shrugs. “How do you think he is? He’s got a mother who is back from the dead, a father who wanted to hand him to the wolves, and a whatever-you-are who has dumped him for a prince. He’s Alexei. He’s Russian. He’s fine. Except in all the ways he’s terrible. You’re a smart girl. You knew that.”
“I—”
“What are you doing out here?” Lila asks me.
“I needed some air.”
“There’s plenty of air in there.” She points toward the palace.
“I needed to see everyone and … explain.”
“You didn’t explain before you left?” It’s not a question. It’s an accusation. And I really hate how much she’s right.
“I didn’t want anyone to talk me out of it, okay?”
Lila eases closer. “What exactly is it?”
I look back at the palace, at the spotlights and the turrets and the walls.
“Running away,” I whisper, but I don’t explain and Lila doesn’t ask for more.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
Lila eyes me. “What makes you so sure they’re all together?”
At this, I have to smile. “I know them.”
She rolls her eyes and cocks a hip but goes ahead and says, “Come on.”
Iran.
Of course they’re in Iran. Lila freaked out the first time we brought her here, but I guess she’s gotten over it because she doesn’t bat an eye as we move out of the tunnels that run beneath the city and into the basement room with the hot-springs-fueled swimming pool and golden walls.
“They’re up here,” she says, starting up the stairs.
I’ve never been on the third floor, but that’s where we find them.
Rosie is pacing. Megan and Noah are too close on the couch, so at peace and at home in each other’s presence that I feel a little guilty for having seen it, having spied on what it looks like to be happy.
“Look who I found,” Lila says, and everyone turns toward us.
“Grace!” Rosie is a tiny blond blur, hurling herself into my arms. “Where have you been?”
“You know where she was, Rosie.” The accent is thick and the voice is deep and I know without turning that Alexei is angry. He closes a door behind him.
Heavy draperies cover the windows, pulled tight to block the light of the little camping lanterns that are scattered throughout the room. We’re a long way from the cave in the hills where Alexei took refuge last summer, but we’re still hiding, I realize. Alexei. And me. I just have to do my hiding in plain sight.
“How …” I start but trail off when I hear the singing.
“‘Hush, little princess …’”
I look at the closed door, but I don’t try to move past Alexei.
“How is she?”
“She’s crazy,” Alexei says, as if he can’t believe that I forgot.