I do my best not to sound crazy.
All around us, the crowd swells and crashes closer, jarring Jamie and pushing him against me.
“Gracie, I —”
But the words don’t come. He doesn’t chastise or patronize. I’d give anything to hear my brother say there is no Scarred Man. I’d even give anything for it to be true.
Because what happens next is worse. So, so much worse.
Jamie looks at me, surprise etched on his face. It’s like he’s dragged his feet across the carpet and gotten a shock, stubbed his toe. Then the look morphs into dread and understanding.
It’s the look of someone who — at last — believes me.
“Gracie?” He opens Spence’s jacket, then stumbles forward.
My brother is falling. I see the red splash of blood that is spreading across his white T-shirt, covering his side. A scream rises in my throat, but the sound is lost amid the chaos of the festival.
Was he stabbed? Was he shot? No one is screaming and running away. So it’s almost peaceful as I watch my brother crumble.
I’m reaching for him, but he’s so much bigger than I am, too heavy for me. I feel him slip through my grasp, dead weight.
Dead.
I scream, “Jamie!” But then he stops falling. His arm is dragged around a man’s neck as the dark figure takes Jamie’s weight. The man’s mask covers his face, but I know the blue eyes that stare back at me.
My heart pounds as Alexei yells, “Run!”
My brother isn’t dead, but he’s still bleeding. Even in the dark, I can see the color fading from his face. And yet he stays upright, his arm slung around Alexei’s broad shoulders. His feet move, but I know it’s only because Alexei refuses to let him slip away. I push ahead through the crowd, trying to make room, blaze a path, but to where I have no clue.
“They shot him,” I say, glancing back toward Alexei. “Or they stabbed him. I don’t know!”
Alexei’s mask is gone, forgotten. And Jamie looks up at his oldest friend and says, “I’m okay …”
“Shut up,” Alexei snaps. “Save your strength.”
“I’m fine.” Jamie struggles to pull his arm from around Alexei’s shoulders, but when he does he stumbles, and Alexei catches him.
“I’ve got you,” Alexei says.
“I know,” Jamie replies.
This is how boys make up, I decide. Some bloodshed, a mob, and a few terse words, not a single one of which is sorry.
“Can we save the man hugging for later?” I snap. For once, it seems, I am the mature one.
When I look back, I see the blood that covers Jamie’s shirt. He’s trying to press against the wound with his free hand, but it’s not working. My brother is going to bleed to death, die right in front of me. And I can’t watch that happen. Not again. Not to somebody else I love.
“Stop!” I tell Alexei, and rush to press against Jamie’s side. His wound isn’t like mine. It’s deeper. The blood is almost black, and the harder my brother’s heart pumps, the more it tries to kill him.
“We cannot stop here,” Alexei says. I’m not sure Jamie even hears us. Sweat beads on his brow and his skin looks like ashes. “It’s not safe.”
Alexei’s right and I know it. But still I stay by my brother’s side. I rip off my cardigan and push it to his wound.
“We have to get to the embassy,” I tell him.
“We have to get to a hospital!” Alexei shouts.
But I’m shaking my head. What was a wild theory five minutes ago is now unequivocal fact. “They thought Spence was him. That’s why they killed him. And they’re not gonna stop. They’ll find him at the hospital, Alexei. They’ll find him, and …”
Alexei searches the crowd, but for what I don’t think either of us knows.
I think about another night in another crowd. I was stabbed, but now I know it was no coincidence, no accident. Maybe I wasn’t simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was stabbed! And maybe Jamie was, too. Maybe he was shot. I can’t even tell amid the darkness and the blood. Is the threat on some rooftop or just behind us, closing in?
“We have to get to the embassy,” I say one more time, searching the crowd for Dominic. Dominic will know how to field dress the wound. He’ll keep Jamie alive, keep me safe. He won’t let Caroline’s children die. Of that much I am certain.
We just have to find him and get to him and stay one step ahead of whatever or whoever is out here, hunting us.
“We should go into the tunnels,” Alexei says, and maybe he’s right, but at least among the crowd we are somewhat sheltered. We are in a forest of people, dodging among the trees. And I can’t imagine that whoever is after us doesn’t know about the tunnels — that they won’t be able to follow us there, inside the darkness and the echoing chambers. And, besides, I’m finished hiding. If I’m going to die it’s going to be in a place where I can see the stars.
“Grace,” Alexei shouts. “Gracie!”
Jamie’s eyes are closed, but he’s still breathing.
We’re running out of time.
I turn, searching the crowds for Noah or Lila or Megan, for someone on my grandfather’s staff. We need a bulletproof car. We need fences and shelter and a fortress.
A palace.
I start pushing through the crowd, shouting, clawing my way toward the gates. The windows are right in front of me. I can see them, and even though I can’t see her, I know she’s up there, watching through that one-way glass.