Take the Key and Lock Her Up (Embassy Row #3)(26)

“Awesome!” Rosie exclaims after a moment. “I mean. It’s true? Really? Because I’ve been calling that for weeks, haven’t I? I mean, that has always been my own personal theory.”

“No,” Noah says, shaking his head. “That’s crazy.”

“Yeah. It’s true,” I say. “A nurse smuggled Amelia out of the palace, and then the Society hid her among their own babies. Some Society member took her home that night and raised her. No one ever knew which baby girl she was. They just brought her home and kept her safe until she grew up and had a kid of her own. And then that kid had a kid. And so on and so on, and then my mom …” I take a deep breath. “My mom found out that she was one of those kids. My mom was Amelia’s direct descendant. I am Amelia’s descendant.”

“So you’re a …” Rosie starts, a mischievous gleam in her eye.

“Yes, Rosie. I’m a princess.”

Noah can’t help himself. He laughs. And then Rosie bursts out laughing, too. Even Megan can’t hide a giggle, and the pressure that Alexei and I have been living under—the constant worry and fatigue and stress—it’s too much. And we both snap. Laughter pours out of us. For a second, I feel young.

Noah is trying to take a deep breath. He’s trying to speak. “Do I need to bow?” he asks. “I really think I should bow.”

He tries to stand, but I grab his hand. “If you get out of that seat, I’m going to kick you really, really hard.”

“Fine. Your Highness.”

And just that quickly, the laughter fades. The truth of the matter settles over us like a fog.

No one is laughing anymore.

“So the royal family tried to kill Jamie,” Rosie says, so matter-of-fact that any other theory sounds stupid. “Right?”

Everyone is looking at me. “I think so. I mean … probably. It’s just …”

“What is it, Gracie?” Alexei slides into the seat beside me. I can feel the warmth that radiates off him, centering me.

“The Society,” I say.

“What about them?” Megan sounds almost afraid, almost like a part of her knew this might be coming.

“When I was with the Council of Elders, I thought they might help. They’re the ones who saved Amelia after all. But they didn’t want to help. In fact, they seemed to think that my existence—that Jamie’s existence—might severely threaten the stability of Europe. And they are very committed to a stable Europe.”

“So you think the Society might want you dead, too?” Noah asks me.

For the first time I wonder if Noah’s mom was there. At the meeting of the elders. I might have just called Noah’s mom a killer, but he doesn’t look concerned.

“So, long story short, there are a whole lot of people who might want you dead,” Rosie says in an entirely too-cheerful summary of my situation.

Megan is too quiet.

“What?” I turn to her. She’s maybe the smartest person I know, and something in her silence scares me.

“That explains it.” Megan’s voice is almost a whisper, part awe and part fear.

“Explains what?” I ask.

“The embassy,” she tells me. “That night, The Night of a Thousand Amelias … the embassy was crazy. No one would tell me why, but it was obvious something had happened. My mom wouldn’t let me near the residence, but everything was insane. I’ve never seen the marines like that. It was like a war zone.”

“What’s it like now?” I ask. For the first time I let myself remember that all my family wasn’t evacuated that night. Grandpa is still there.

“How is it different?” I have to know.

But Megan just shakes her head, almost like she’s slowly waking from a dream. “I don’t know. It just is. I mean, for one thing, Ms. Chancellor is never around. At least, I haven’t seen her. I think she might be gone. Moved. Transferred or something. I don’t know. And there are way more guards posted. My mom has been working like crazy. I tried to snoop around and figure out what’s up, but they’re using next-gen encryption, and protocols like I’ve never seen. I do know that your grandpa brought in a bunch of security experts to revamp the cameras and gates and fences and everything. The passage that opens up into the basement? That’s long gone. They put up wire around the walls! Oh, and all the Adrian citizens who work at the embassy? They’re gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?” I ask.

“I mean fired. Or farmed out, given jobs at other embassies on the row. Replaced. No one gets in unless they’re a US citizen who has been through all kinds of CIA background checks and/or is on a very short leash.”

Megan takes a deep breath.

“The place you left, Grace? The building where your mom grew up and you spent your summers when you were little? It’s not an embassy anymore.” Megan looks me in the eye. “It’s a fortress.”

I never had a home. Not really. Or that’s what I liked to say—liked to think. We moved so many times and so often that I never even tried to put down roots. But that’s not true, I’ve come to realize. My mother’s roots were always on Embassy Row. And she planted mine there, too. It’s more than a building, more than my grandfather. More even than the secret, ancient heritage of a grandmother I never knew. Like most things, I didn’t know it until it was gone. And Megan’s words make me miss the only home I’ve ever known.