Alexei’s voice is as hard as my heart. “And Ann tried to have her killed.”
Karina starts to shake. Her voice is too high. “I told her not to go. I warned her. I said that she wasn’t our friend anymore. I said that she had changed. And she was the one who sent me to that place. She did it. She—”
“It’s okay, Karina,” Alexei says, reaching for his mother. “It’s okay.”
“Caroline said she’d get me out. Caroline said that she was going to come to Adria and get her proof and then she was going to get me out!”
Alexei’s mother is shaking. Tears fall from her eyes. Her voice breaks. “Did she send you to get me out?”
“Yes,” I say. “She did.”
And in a way it’s even true.
We’ve held Karina for too long and I can see her slipping, descending into whatever peaceful place she’s built inside her mind. When she starts to sing again, “‘Hush, little princess …’” I know it’s not for me.
She walks to a chair and curls up like a kitten, singing herself to sleep.
Alexei covers her with a blanket and then takes my hand, leads me outside.
We’re halfway to the palace before he speaks again, leaning low to look into my eyes.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t go back there.” It’s like he’s been fighting with himself for ages, trying to keep from fighting with me, too, but it has to be done and we both know it.
“I have to,” I say.
“You’re Grace Olivia Blakely. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“This isn’t optional,” I tell him, but I’m really arguing with myself.
“Yes.” Alexei shakes me slightly—like he’s trying to shake some sense into me. “It is. Go to the US embassy. Come with me to Russia. Come with me to Moscow. We’ll get on a plane. We’ll borrow Noah’s mother’s van and drive all night. I don’t care. Just get lost, Grace. Run away. Disappear and I’ll go with you.”
“I can’t.”
When Alexei presses his palm into my cheek, I can feel it like a brand.
“She killed the king, Gracie,” he says, voice low. I don’t bother to mention that there’s blood on my hands, too.
I look into his eyes. “She won’t kill me.”
“How do you know?” he challenges, and I pull away.
“Because I’m playing her game. And she’s winning.”
I’m not surprised that I don’t sleep. When I close my eyes, I see the king fall. I hear the crowd gasp. I can feel Ann’s gaze upon me, and I know she saw it coming. She’s seen everything coming for ages, and it’s far too late for me to catch up.
So I throw off my covers and ease into the dark, still halls. Walking, pacing. It feels like I’m stuck inside the castle from “Sleeping Beauty,” dormant but alive and waiting for the right moment to wake up.
I shouldn’t be surprised when I find myself in the big sitting room where Ann invited me to tea right before the Night of a Thousand Amelias—right before Jamie almost died.
These are the windows where the bodies of the royal family hung two hundred years ago. The Society would have cut them down from here. They would have taken them through this room, out into the palace, and then … where?
Where did my mother find them? There are hundreds of miles of catacombs beneath the city—maybe thousands. The Society has a secret underground headquarters and their own private island. There are caves in the hills and lakes and a sea so big and so blue that it feels like this is the end of the world.
The Society wanted to keep the bodies safe, and they did it, I have to think. They just did it a little too well.
“Karina Volkov is crazy.”
I’m not surprised to hear Ann’s voice. I’m not even afraid to turn and see her by the doors. I didn’t lie to Alexei. She has me right where she wants me. I’m not a threat to her, and she knows it, so for the moment I really don’t have anything to fear.
“Don’t look so shocked, Grace,” Ann says, sidling closer. “There’s nothing that goes on within the palace that I don’t know. And, besides, I told you this was my favorite room. Did you really think I wouldn’t know you had stopped by?”
“I’m just leaving.” I start toward the doors, but Ann blocks my way.
“Stay.” It’s an order. The smile that follows is false. “Tell me, how is my old friend?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I try, just because that’s what’s expected. I’m supposed to lie and Ann’s supposed to sneer and neither of us is supposed to give a single inch.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t know that you ran out of the palace earlier in a rather dramatic fashion? Did you think I wouldn’t know who you were following? I don’t want you to see her, Grace. She’s too dangerous and you’re too important.”
“I’m leaving,” I tell her. I’m almost to the door when Ann speaks again.
“The authorities know she’s here, Grace. And I’m beginning to think it’s time for Karina Volkov to go back where she came from.”
“Why?” I snap. “Hasn’t she suffered enough?”