Take the Key and Lock Her Up (Embassy Row #3)(56)

“How is everyone?” I ask.

“Your grandfather is doing very well. He’s sitting up and speaking and feeding himself. The doctor said she expects him to make a full recovery.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“And everyone else?”

“Noah and Lila’s mother tell me that they’re well. They are … concerned, but unharmed.”

“Megan?” I ask.

“Aside from trying to hack into the palace’s security feeds so that she can track your every move?” Ms. Chancellor raises an eyebrow and I know that she’s not teasing, not guessing. “She’s fine. Rosie, too.”

I swallow and nod. I can’t bring myself to say his name. Turns out I don’t have to.

“Alexei has a … visitor.” Karina, I think, but neither of us dares to say her name aloud. Ms. Chancellor eyes me over the top of her glasses. “I don’t believe they’re staying at the embassy, but I know that he is well.”

It’s supposed to give me comfort, let me rest. But all I can remember is the look on his face, the hurt that filled his eyes as I turned my back on my embassy and on him. They say if you love something to set it free. Alexei’s free now. And I’ll never love again.

Behind us, Ann is speaking in rapid Adrian, something about finding a picture of me where I look the right kind of ordinary and then leaking that to the press along with a story.

I turn and look at my reflection in the three-way mirror the seamstresses set up before they began their work. My dress is blue. Royal blue. Ann is certain that the people of Adria are going to see me in it and take that as a clue. The waist is narrow and the skirt is long. They’ve already decided to put my hair up and that I shouldn’t wear too many jewels to the gala.

But I can’t help thinking about another party and another time.

“Remember my pink dress?” I ask, and Ms. Chancellor meets my gaze in the mirror. Her smile is a little nostalgic. A little sad.

“It was beautiful.”

Was being the operative word. It was beautiful before I saw Dominic and ran from the palace in a daze, before I stumbled down the streets of Adria and crawled through the rain. Before I set into motion this terrible sequence of events. Before I knew better than to leave well enough alone.

“I should have stayed home. If I hadn’t seen Dominic … if I hadn’t heard him with the prime minister … if I hadn’t …”

“Look at me, Grace.” Ms. Chancellor’s grip is solid. “Look at me and listen closely. You did not do this. This is not your fault. These events were set into motion two hundred years ago, and you are simply trying to bear this weight as well as you can.” She tips my head up, makes me look into her eyes. “This is not your fault,” she says one final time.

I only wish I could believe her.

“Well, what have we here?”

A kind of panic fills the room at the sound of the deep voice. At first, I think it must be because a man has dared to invade such a feminine space, but all around us, seamstresses fumble and maids curtsy and even the air is changing.

As soon as I turn, I see why.

Even Ms. Chancellor drops into a curtsy—one far lower than the one I’m supposed to give a duchess.

“Grace,” she whispers, and I realize I’m still standing atop the little stage the seamstresses use, looking out in my blue dress. I’m just starting to remember where and what I am when the king reaches me in two long strides.

“We meet again, Ms. Blakely.”

“Uh …” I drop into my curtsy. My head is bent when I say, “I’m honored, Your Majesty.”

“Stand up, girl. Let me look you over.”

I do as the king says because … well … he’s the king. But he doesn’t seem like a king in this moment. His smile is too broad, his laugh too loud as he reads my bemused expression, then asks, “How’s the old man? Pinching all the pretty nurses, I’d bet.”

It takes me a minute to remember the camaraderie he shared with my grandfather the night we met.

“He is much improved, Your Majesty. I’m told he should make a full recovery.”

“Excellent. Very glad to hear it.”

Slowly, I force myself to look up, to meet his gaze.

He doesn’t seem evil. He doesn’t look like a monster who would see everyone with my DNA exterminated just to keep his place on the throne. But I know better.

No one in this palace is my friend.

“Is this for something special?” The king gestures at my new blue ball gown.

“You know it is, you big flirt,” Princess Ann tells him with a laugh. “Now, shoo. No boys allowed.”

“Even sovereign rulers?” he asks.

“Especially them,” she says, playfully pushing him toward the door.

“Five decades on the throne and this is how they treat me, Ms. Blakely. Makes me wish I’d been a teacher.” His voice drops. He almost sounds a little wistful. “I would have liked to have been a teacher.”

And then the king of Adria is in the hall. He is walking away.

He didn’t chose to wear the crown, I realize. But he has chosen to keep it.

It’s all I can do not to take his head.





The walls around the palace are at least twenty feet high. Higher in places. But they’re short compared to the wall around the city. When darkness falls, I ease out my third-story window and drop onto the brick ledge below, but I’m not even a little bit afraid. I should be, I know. If I were normal. If I had good sense. If I were sane.