“You never came to the Festival of the Fortnight?” He gapes.
“No,” I say.
“Never?” Noah asks, not letting it drop. “Little Grace never crawled out of her window and ran away to see the bonfire?” he teases. “Or set the bonfire … or tossed petrol upon the bonfire …”
“No,” I say, sounding almost defensive of Past Me. “Mom would have killed me.”
There’s a huge group of people coming up behind us, singing songs I’ve never heard. Noah and Megan and I step aside to let them pass, but one of them knocks into me anyway. He mumbles something, slurring his words, and his breath smells like liquor.
As the drunk moves along, I look at Noah. “Mom said it wasn’t exactly ‘kid friendly.’”
Noah nods. “I can see her point.”
When we reach the streets that surround the palace, the crowds grow thicker, heavier. Somehow hungrier. We are tossed and pushed and shoved. Noah holds both of our hands, keeping us lashed together, until we finally find a place beside one of the barricades, right in front of the palace. I turn and look up at the tall iron fences, the almost impenetrable facade.
“You do know about the War of the Fortnight, don’t you, Grace?” Megan asks me.
I look at the palace and try to recall the night last month when I accompanied my grandfather to an official state function. I remember walking through the ornate ballroom, studying the walls that were covered like patchwork with priceless paintings of kings and queens. That night, the prime minister told me the story of one of those kings. But at the time that same prime minister was also trying to kill me, so, in hindsight, I’m not exactly eager to take his word for it.
“Remind me,” I say, and Megan and Noah share a look.
Noah rubs his hands together, trying his best to be dramatic.
“Okay,” he says. “Picture it! Adria. Almost two hundred years ago. A terrible drought has crippled the land. Rivers are dry. Crops have failed. The people are hungry — literally starving for revenge. And since they can’t take it out on God, they go after the next best thing …”
Reverently, Noah turns, and we all look at the palace. I can feel his countenance change. He isn’t teasing; no one’s laughing anymore.
“One night, the palace guards left their posts and threw open the gates, and an angry mob pulled the king and his family from their beds,” I say, almost to myself.
Noah and Megan stand beside me. Together, we ease a little closer to the fence.
“The king,” Megan says. “The queen. Two princes, and a baby girl who wasn’t even a month old yet. Five of them. They pulled them from their beds, and they killed them.” She points to a line of windows in the center of the palace. “That’s where they hung their bodies.”
For a second, I think about Alexei and the crowds that have taken over Embassy Row. What would it take for that mob to pull him from his bed? How easy would it be? But then I remember that there are some questions to which you never want to know the answer.
“And that, Gracie” — Noah leans against the barricade and eyes the palace — “was the start of the War of the Fortnight. Fourteen days that changed Adria forever.”
Fourteen days, I think. Noah seems amazed that change can happen so quickly, but I know better. It doesn’t even take that long. The whole world can change far faster. In the time it takes a thirteen-year-old girl to point and fire a gun.
Some people in the crowd carry torches, and the air is filled with smoke. Gaslight shines from sconces that adorn the palace’s fence. The light that surrounds us is the color of fire.
In the distance, I hear a child laugh. A mother yells. And I close my eyes, try to block out the din of chaos that fills the air. I want to run, to leave. I don’t know why, but I know I need to get away from these people before it is too late.
Frantically, I push away from the fence and am just starting to turn, to leave, when the trumpets sound. The sound is so foreign and ancient and regal that I stop. Then I remember where I am, standing outside an ancient palace, looking through the fence at history.
The crowd stands still. It’s like even the fire in the torches stops moving. Everything is absolutely quiet as the palace doors open.
That is when I notice the rich red carpet that runs from the doors to the gates. A few weeks ago, that was where I ran, clutching a ball gown in my hands, away from the Scarred Man and my mother’s memory. But tonight the people who exit through those doors are walking slowly toward the hordes that gather on the other side of the fence.
The king is in the center, the queen to his right. On his left stands the crown prince of Adria. And beside him his wife, Princess Ann.
The royal family keeps walking until they reach the fence, and then the most amazing thing happens. Slowly, the gates open wide until there is nothing between the crowds and the four royals who stand, almost at attention, as if daring history to repeat itself.
Two hundred years ago, someone threw open those gates and the people of Adria rushed in. But now the gates stand open and the royal family looks out.
I expect cheers from the crowd, applause of some kind. But the people outside the palace stay silent, as if imagining that centuries have not passed. As if they have traded places with their ancestors and are pondering this chance to do things differently.
But I know better. I know you never really get a second chance.
The king leads his family toward four black wreaths that sit on stands before them. They each pick up a wreath and carry it through the gates. Slowly, the royal family members raise their wreaths and place them in front of the palace, directly beneath the place where the king’s ancestors once hung for all to see.