“Mom!” Megan cries, and her mother swallows her up. Megan and her mom look alike. They both have the same sleek black hair and huge brown eyes. But Megan’s mom wears her hair in a sleek bob. When she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear just like I’ve seen Megan do a thousand times, something about it makes me want to cry.
My mom will never hug me again, never worry about me or whisper in my ear or tell me everything is going to be okay. Things will never be okay again, and I have no one but myself to blame.
So I blame everyone.
“What are you doing here?” I say.
“Grace …” Ms. Chancellor starts toward me slowly. She knows me well enough to know I’m looking for a fight. I don’t care where it comes from. That’s probably why one always finds me.
“It’s my fault.” Megan moves out of her mother’s grasp. “I called them. I … We need help.”
Megan isn’t wrong, because Megan isn’t stupid. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
“No. I …” But I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to say. That I’m sorry. That I’m wrong. That I am the thing that goes bump in the night and they’d all be better off far, far away.
My voice cracks. My eyes fill with tears.
And then Ms. Chancellor can’t be held back anymore. “Oh, Grace.” She rushes toward me and pulls me into her arms. It’s almost like a mother. It’s almost like I’m loved. Even if I don’t deserve it.
“Let me look at you,” she says, pushing me gently away and eyeing me from head to toe. “Are you okay? When you ran away in Paris …”
“I’m okay.”
“Where did you go, sweetheart? What did you—”
“Hello.” Alexei’s mother’s hair is still wet from the rain. Her eyes are big and blue, just like her son’s. But when Ms. Chancellor turns and takes her in, it’s like she’s looking at a ghost.
“Karina?” She’s not entirely wrong. Alexei’s mother is thin and pale, and the nightgown she wears beneath one of Noah’s jackets is an eerie, dirty shade that probably used to be white. “Karina, where …”
Karina looks at Ms. Chancellor, and for a moment, there is a light in her eyes. Recognition is starting to dawn, but then it fades away again, like a sun that can’t quite find the strength to rise.
Ms. Chancellor turns on me. “What have you done?” she asks, and I snap.
“Do they know you’re here? Is that why you came?”
“Grace—”
“Is the Society trying to kill me?”
At the word Society, Karina shivers like someone just walked over her grave. Noah goes and slides an arm around her, leads her to the other side of the barn.
“Are they?” I persist when Ms. Chancellor’s silence is too much.
“The Society is not why I’m here. Or not precisely.”
“Then why?”
As soon as I’ve said the words, I regret them. I can see it in Ms. Chancellor’s eyes. Good news never brings anyone to my door.
“Grace, your grandfather …”
The barn doors are open, but it’s like her words suck all the air from the room. I can’t stop myself from swaying, unsteady. Alexei’s arm slides around my waist, anchoring me to him while Ms. Chancellor goes on.
“Sweetheart, he went to the palace, and …”
“They killed him,” I finish for her, but Ms. Chancellor hurries to shake her head.
“No! He’s alive. But they say he had a heart attack. He can’t be moved, or so they claim. I haven’t seen him. They won’t let me see him.”
Ms. Chancellor is always calm, always cool. But it’s like her chocolate-colored eyes are starting to melt, and for the first time I realize what I’m seeing. This isn’t a concerned member of my grandfather’s staff. This is the woman who has been with him for decades, working by his side, living under his roof. This is the woman who loves him, and my heart breaks just a little more.
“Why are you here?” I ask again, my voice softer.
“The Society has brokered an … arrangement.”
The last time I saw the Society, the central question seemed to be whether they should kill me or just step aside and allow the royal family to do it. I don’t have to hear about their arrangement to know that I won’t like it.
“There may be a … solution,” Ms. Chancellor says. “The Society would like for you to return to Valancia. They would like—”
“To kill me?”
“To end it,” Ms. Chancellor says. “I told them where they could shove their offer, but then your grandfather …”
She can’t finish, and I can’t blame her.
“What kind of arrangement?” Alexei asks, and for the first time Ms. Chancellor seems to realize we’re not alone.
“I’m not certain of the details, but Prime Minister Petrovic assures me that they have arrived upon a … compromise. They consider it something of a truce.”
“This is the same Society that was perfectly willing to let me die just to keep the status quo in Adria,” I remind her.
“Yes, dear. I know.” Ms. Chancellor sounds like a woman who knows entirely too well—who’d give anything to forget.
“I don’t trust them,” I say.
“Oh, neither do I,” Ms. Chancellor agrees.