Take the Key and Lock Her Up (Embassy Row 3)

My breath fogs against the thick glass windows, blocking out the city and the walls. They could be anywhere out there, beyond those gates, and …

Karina’s voice comes back to me. I can almost hear my mother sing.

“‘The truth is locked behind the gates …’”

And I know.

My mother didn’t come to the palace to tell Ann about the bodies.

My mother came to the palace to find them.

When morning comes, the king’s still dead, but it takes Thomas a moment to remember. I can actually see the grief pass over him, watch as reality seeps in. And I know the moment he realizes that it wasn’t all a dream.

“Get up,” I tell him, and he bolts a little, afraid. In spite of everything, I manage to smile. This must be what Noah felt like on my first night here when he dragged me from the safety of the embassy to Lila’s party on the cliffs. That was a lifetime ago, I think as I plop down on the edge of Thomas’s bed. I’ve changed out of my pretty blue ball gown, and I no doubt look like what I am—a worried, guilt-ridden girl who might never sleep again.

“What are you doing here?” Thomas rubs his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Get dressed.” I throw him a T-shirt. “It’s two hundred years ago, and I need your help.”

Thomas doesn’t call me crazy. He doesn’t even tell me that we’re wasting our time. But that doesn’t mean he understands.

“Tell me again,” he says when we reach the sitting room where Ann served me tea last summer and explained that these were the windows where, two hundred years ago, everything started.

“My mom found the lost tomb,” I tell him. “Which was bad because tomb means bodies. And bodies mean DNA. And DNA means proof. And so that’s why your mom wanted her dead,” I say so matter-of-factly that I have to stop and make myself remember who I’m talking to. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” the prince tells me. “I always knew, you know? Not that she’d done … this. But that she could. I think a part of me always knew.”

“I never knew,” I tell him.

“About what?”

“About any of it,” I have to admit. “I thought my mom was an antiques dealer, a collector who had been raised in Adria. I had no idea that this”—I gesture at the ornate room before us—“was even possible. People don’t live like this.”

The prince eyes me. “I live like this.”

And it’s true. This is the only life he has ever known—will ever know. For the first time, I realize I’m not the only one whose destiny is completely out of my hands, and a part of me kind of feels sorry for the prince. But that’s not the reason why we’re here.

“I always thought my mom came here to tell your mom she found the bodies, but last night I realized … what if my mom actually came here to find them?”

“Grace—”

“If my mom came here to find the bodies, then we can find the bodies.”

“Grace, they’re gone. They were smuggled out of the palace centuries ago. Everybody knows that.”

“Do they?” I have to ask. “I mean, think about it. Some people snuck into the palace and cut the bodies down, yes. That we know. But looters were everywhere that night. The whole city was filled with mobs. War was raging.”

“Yeah. And the bodies got lost in the chaos.”

“Have you ever tried to carry someone who’s unconscious? Well, I have—”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Alexei’s heavier than he looks,” I add quickly. “And carrying him was hard. I could barely drag him twenty feet. Think about it. Why drag four dead bodies across the city when you have a whole palace to hide them in? Especially if you know that you can always come back once the dust settles and give them a proper burial?”

I know my theory makes sense, but the prince doesn’t quite believe me, I can tell. He’s looking at me like I’m confused or naïve. But not crazy. Never crazy. And I kind of love him for it.

He’s still shaking his head, though. He’s still trying to make me see.

“You don’t get it, Grace. The palace is huge, yes, but every inch of it has been remodeled and modernized and refurbished in the last two centuries. I mean, two hundred years have gone by. If the bodies were here, don’t you think someone would have found them before now?”

Sometimes I really hate common sense. That’s why I go to such great lengths to avoid it.

There’s a desk in the room with an old-fashioned pen set and really fancy paper. I rush toward it and draw the Society’s symbol the best I can, then hold it up for Thomas to see.

“Look at this,” I say.

“Okay.”

“Have you seen it anywhere in the palace?”

“No. Why?”

“I think it might mark the hiding place or be some kind of clue. Think hard. Maybe it’s carved into some wood or etched into stone or … something.”

“Grace, the palace is huge. There’s no way—”

“The truth is locked behind the gates!” I practically scream.

There’s a look that people get when they don’t want to give a crazy person bad news. We need our delusions, or so it seems. The prince just met me, and already he knows how fragile I am, how breakable. And he doesn’t want to be responsible for my final, fatal crack.