Take the Key and Lock Her Up (Embassy Row #3)(62)

When the butler starts toward me, though, I know what I have to do.

“Good morning, miss,” he says with a bow. “Is there anything you might require this morning?”

I stay silent a little too long, but the butler doesn’t move. My tells are too obvious, too automatic. I’ll never lose them now, I think as I realize my hands are shaking and my heart has started to pound.

“Miss?” he says.

“Prince Thomas …” I start. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen him?”

“Why, yes, miss.”

“Because I didn’t ask him to—Wait. What?”

“His Highness is in the south corridor, miss. Is there anything else you might need?”

I’m too numb to speak. It’s not until the butler turns and starts back up the stairs that I ask, “How do you get to the south corridor?”

I’ve found the prince, but as I rush through the crowded halls of the palace I realize I have no idea what I’m going to say when I reach him. Do I explain? Do I pander or condescend?

Some might tell him that he’s crazy—that he didn’t see what he saw or hear what he heard. But I could never do that to another human being, so I make up my mind to do the craziest thing of all: tell him the truth.

I don’t know what to expect. Maybe the prince is rallying the troops, alerting the media, running away? Maybe he wants to get as far from the crazy new girl as possible. I certainly wouldn’t blame him. I’d love to run away from me, too, most of the time.

This is a boy who has just learned that he has no actual claim to the throne he’s been promised since birth, that his spouse has already been chosen for him, and that everyone he loves might want me dead.

Maybe he’s decided to agree with them.

I may be running into anything, I realize, and still, as I turn the corner, I’m utterly surprised by what I see. Because not only is the prince standing in the corridor, looking out the massive windows, but he is not alone.

“Hello, Ms. Blakely,” the king says. “We’ve been expecting you.”

For a moment the whole thing is so surreal that I forget where I am—who I’m talking to. But then Thomas gives me a silent signal and I drop into the world’s most awkward curtsy before the king.

Before the man whose family wants me dead.

As I slowly rise, it’s all I can do to keep myself rooted—to make myself calm. The prince should be screaming for the palace guards, but it is just another morning as far as anyone could tell.

They don’t look like king and heir, surveying their kingdom. They look like a grandson who has sought out his grandfather, needing a little advice.

My anxiety turns to full-on panic.

Then I see the object in the prince’s hands, and my panic turns to rage.

“What is that?” I shout, but I already know what it is. I recognize the color and the shape and now, in hindsight, the brief recognition in the prince’s eyes last night when Megan mentioned my mother’s puzzle box and pulled it from her backpack.

“You got that out of my room? How dare you? That’s mine! I’ve given up my life for you people. The least you can do is leave me a sliver of privacy.”

“I didn’t go into your room,” Thomas says, defensive.

“That was my mother’s—give it to me.” I lunge for the box, but the prince steps back, out of reach.

I don’t care that I sound like a petulant, spoiled child. I still snap, “Give it to me now!”

But when I lunge for the prince again, I find a seventy-year-old monarch standing in my way.

The king’s voice is kind but strong. He doesn’t sound like a killer when he tells me, “This box was not your mother’s, Ms. Blakely.”

For a second, I’m so stunned that I recoil. That’s one of the curses of being me. I’m never really sure that I’m not lying.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” I say. I need to be strong. “But you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No, I’m the one who is sorry, Ms. Blakely. I should explain. This is not your mother’s box, you see. I know because this box is mine.”

The king turns and takes the box from his grandson. Carefully, he pushes and pulls the ornate carvings until, with a snap, the box pops open. He tips it on its side, and out slides a very old-fashioned key. He holds it up before me.

“Do you know what this is?” he asks.

“A key?” I say. I’m not trying to sound flippant. I’m just so tired and worn that I can’t help it anymore.

The king smiles. “Not just any key, Ms. Blakely. This is a key to the kingdom. And I mean that quite literally. It fits these gates, you see.”

But he’s not pointing toward the front of the palace. He’s pointing toward the tall iron gates that stand at the end of the south corridor. I realize that there is a sort of courtyard on the other side, and that is where the king leads us.

“Two hundred years ago the palace was smaller,” he explains. “And, these were the gates that the guards threw open the night the royal family was killed and the coup began.”

As the king speaks, I can’t help but remember the ceremonial opening of the gates that kicked off the Festival of the Fortnight. The king must read my mind. “We just don’t tell that to the tourists,” he says with a wink. “It’s not the gates that matter, after all. The whole thing is symbolic. Now.”