I swallow and force out the word. “Yes.”
“We were thick as thieves when we were girls. Me. Your mother.” Karina turns. Her entire body stiffens, and when she speaks again it’s like the words are laced with acid. “And her.”
I know who she means, but still I have to ask, “Ann?”
Karina spins on me. “Don’t say her name!”
She’s rocking now, a back and forth so subtle it might be missed by someone who doesn’t know, someone who hasn’t been there. But I see it, and I know it’s like a ticking clock. Karina is going somewhere deep inside her mind and we might be running out of time.
“What happened, Karina?” I ask softly.
She walks to the window. Light from the street falls through the parted curtain and slants across her face. But she’s not looking outside, I know. Alexei’s mother is looking back.
“Do you know about the little princess?”
She doesn’t turn as I say, “I know Amelia lived.”
“Oh, yes,” Karina says, brightening slightly. “She lived and she grew up. Did you know that? And she had a baby and then her baby had babies. They were in the Society—they had to be. So we—my friends and I—we wanted to find them.”
The longer Karina speaks the younger she seems. It’s easy to imagine her as a little girl, gathering with her two best friends, deciding to search for treasure.
“And then …” Karina steps closer, out of the light. “We found them. Oh, how I wish we hadn’t.”
Alexei’s hand is warm on my back. “How did you find them?” he asks.
“There were whispers,” Karina says, her voice low.
“What kind of whispers?” I ask.
“The families who took the babies home kept records, you know. They made notes and plans for the day when Amelia would need to claim her throne. But it never happened. Maybe because peace came and no one dared to disturb it. But I think …” She steps a little closer. Her face actually glows. “I think Amelia was happy. No momma wants to change that. So the records were hidden or lost, but we found them. At first we thought that her descendant was … her. But we were wrong, weren’t we? It isn’t her.”
She practically spits the final word.
A part of me wants to spit, too.
“No,” I say. “It isn’t her.”
“It’s Caroline. She is the heir. She told me when she came to see me.” Karina smiles. She giggles like a little girl.
“What did she tell you?” I ask, but Karina is turning back to the window, singing softly.
“‘Hush, little princess …’”
“Karina!” I snap, because I need to keep her here; I don’t dare let her slip away.
“She wanted to know about the song,” Karina says.
“What about it?”
“She didn’t know all the verses. Most people don’t. But my grandmother knew about Amelia. She believed Amelia should have been put on the throne—many in the Society did, you know? Many do to this very day. And so Grandmother used to tell me stories about the princess and sing the song. She made me learn it when I was just a little girl. I so wanted Alexei to be a girl so I could teach him. Isn’t it a pity?”
It’s like she doesn’t know her son is in the room. And maybe she doesn’t.
She brightens again, looking at me. “Has Caroline taught you the song?”
“Why don’t you remind me?” I say. “Please, could you sing it now?”
She does and I listen very carefully.
Hush, little princess, dead and gone.
No one’s gonna know you’re coming home.
Hush, little princess, wait and see.
No one’s gonna know that you are me.
Hush, little princess, it’s too late.
The truth is locked behind the gates.
Hush, little princess, pretty babe.
The sunlight shines where the truth is laid!
“That’s it?” I ask when Karina’s finished. “That’s all she wanted? To learn the song?”
“She said she had to go to Adria. She needed proof,” Karina says. “Nothing was ever going to happen without proof.”
I don’t dare look at Alexei. I don’t dare to let myself believe. But the fact remains that my mother was looking for something. She came here. She found it. And if I could find it, too …
Maybe I could get someone else killed, I realize, and I feel sick.
Alexei doesn’t see it, though. He just asks, “What kind of proof?”
“The bodies, of course!” Karina sounds like she’s just been invited to a birthday party. “She said she’d found the bodies … or she thought she knew where the bodies would be. She was going to have to come back to Adria to be certain.”
And now I find myself hurtling back in time—to Paris and the bridge and the desperate look in Ann’s eyes.
“The tomb,” I say, turning to Alexei. “In Paris, Ann asked about a tomb.”
“What tomb?” Alexei asks.
“The king and queen and little princes. Their bodies were lost in the war. If Mom needed proof she was Amelia’s heir—”
“Then your mom needed DNA,” Alexei fills in.
“So if she really found the proof—”
“Then she found the tomb. And for whatever reason, she went to the palace and told Ann about it.”