It’s too hot in the barn. There are too many people watching, too much riding on one more-screwed-up-than-average teenage girl. I want to go back to when my biggest worry was whether I could trust the Scarred Man. I want to go back in time, but I can’t. So I settle for going outside.
The rain has turned to a hard, wet drizzle. Water’s not really falling from the sky anymore; it simply fills the air. It’s like walking into a cloud—or a fog. In a way, it’s how I’ve been feeling for ages.
Megan’s jacket is hanging on a nail by the door, and it’s the most natural thing in the world to pick it up and slip it on. Outside, water clings to me, soaking my hair and chilling me to the bone, but I barely feel it. It’s like I’m already numb as I ease farther and farther from the open barn doors and the light inside. I stand under the overhang of the barn’s roof, staring at the wet night, thinking. And then I want to scream. I want to fight and kick and claw until the rest of the world hurts as much as I do.
I want to make it bleed.
But I can’t. So I do the next best thing.
Megan’s phone is heavy in my hand when I pull it from the jacket’s pocket and dial the number that I wish I could forget.
As soon as the voice says hello, I know it’s a mistake. But I’ve always been my own worst enemy, and that, of course, is saying something.
“Where is he?”
Princess Ann’s cold laugh fills the line. “In a hurry, Grace? I suppose that makes sense. It’s foolish of you to call, you know. This can be traced. You’re being careless.”
My carelessness is the least of her problems, and of mine.
“If you hurt him, I will kill you,” I say. My voice is calm and even. “And, just so you know, that’s not a threat. This isn’t the frantic ranting of a delusional girl. I’m not talking crazy, Your Highness. I am crazy. And if you harm my grandfather in any way—if even one snow-white hair is out of place, I will hunt you for the rest of my life. And I will kill you.”
At the other end of the line, Ann giggles. For a moment, she sounds like the girl who used to be my mother’s best friend. She seems like the person in the photos that my mom kept all those years. But just that quickly, that girl is gone.
“Oh, Grace—” she starts, but I don’t let her finish.
“And then I’ll kill your son.”
A different kind of silence fills the line now. Ann isn’t laughing anymore.
“We want the same things, Grace,” she tries, but I shake my head. Finally, it’s my turn to laugh.
“I find that incredibly hard to believe.”
“We both want you to be safe and happy. We want you to be able to stop running.”
“You’re right,” I tell her. “I do want to stop running. Maybe I should just go ahead and kill you, hurry this process along.”
“Oh, Grace. What good would that do? I’m not in line for the throne, and you’re no killer,” Ann tells me, but she’s wrong.
I am a killer. And I know it. What I did to my mom was an accident, but does that make any difference? My soul is already charred, my moral account overdrawn. Would one more death really matter? Would two? Maybe I should set Valancia on fire—burn the whole world down. Maybe then I could stop running.
“You people are going to let him go,” I tell her.
“Oh, are we?” Ann says.
“You are if you don’t want the world to find out that you aren’t the rightful rulers of Adria.”
I don’t want to be a princess. I don’t want the spotlight and the chaos and the duty. But more than that, I want the people I love to be safe, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen. Even this.
“That would be a very hard thing to prove,” Ann tells me.
“But not impossible.” Even as I say the words, I know they’re true. “If it were impossible to prove, then none of this would be happening. My mother found proof, and you’re terrified I’m going to use it to expose you all.”
“Do you have it?” Panic fills Ann’s voice.
“Release my grandfather and you won’t have to find out.”
A long pause fills the line until Ann laughs again. “Oh, Grace. You always were a bright girl. Foolish, but bright.”
“You’re right. I am foolish. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter if you trace this call. I’m through running, but you might want to hide. You took my grandfather, and now I am coming for you.”
“Oh, Grace. Why would you do that when there is a far easier solution?”
I’m pretty sure that’s how the serpent sounded in the Garden of Eden. I’m starting to feel a lot like Eve, and yet I can’t help but snap, “What?”
I don’t believe her. I’ll never, ever trust her. But I’m not going to lie awake all night, wondering what she might have said. I’ve had enough what-ifs for a lifetime.
Still, the last thing I expect is for Ann to say, “Come home, Grace. Come home and meet me and we’ll discuss it.”
It takes a moment to be certain that I haven’t misheard.
“I might be crazy, but I’m not stupid,” I tell her.
“Talk to Ms. Chancellor, then. Ask her what you should do.”
“Gracie?”
Alexei is standing in the rain that’s falling harder now.
“Gracie, who is on the phone?”
I don’t say another word to Ann. I just hang up. She doesn’t deserve a good-bye.