Centuries have passed, and people are still dying.
But if these two women are to be believed, I may be the only one who can stop it.
I should feel high on power, but I just feel sick with grief. For the people who are already gone and for whatever future I might have had right up until this moment.
“If I take your deal, it will be a trade,” I say. “I’ll move into the palace just as soon as my grandfather leaves. Not before.”
The PM and Ann share a look. Then the PM smiles. “That is acceptable.”
“You are a monster,” I tell her, but she isn’t insulted. Not even a little bit.
“I’m the monster who just guaranteed that you and your children and your children’s children will never have to worry about this bomb going off ever again.”
She seems so proud of herself as she and Ann turn to leave.
I hate them. I hate them so much.
Mostly because they’re right.
I wake up early. Well, that’s assuming I sleep at all. Which I don’t. Not really. I know the marines are outside 24-7, keeping watch and standing guard. But my ghosts are already inside the embassy. My mother’s bed creaks beneath my weight. Shadows dance across my walls. The tree outside my window is gone now, chopped down and hauled away, partially to keep people from crawling in, partially to keep me from crawling out. And I know it doesn’t matter. There’s no place left for me to run even if I tried.
I don’t have a panic attack. Dr. Rainier should be proud of me. I just sit in the middle of my mother’s canopy bed, my arms wrapped around my legs. Rocking. But I don’t scream and I don’t cry. I wait quietly for morning, for the nightmare to be over. But some nightmares never end.
The sun isn’t up yet, but the sky’s getting brighter when I grab some clean clothes and pull my hair into a ponytail.
The embassy’s still asleep.
The lights are off and the phones are silent.
But I know I’m not alone.
There’s one room downstairs with the door cracked. A little light seeps out into the hall, and I’m quiet as a mouse as I creep close and look inside.
“Gracie?” the voice is low and weak, but it’s the only sound, and it echoes in the stillness of the halls.
The room used to be the formal parlor. It’s where Megan and Ms. Chancellor wrestled me into my first puffy pink dress. But now there is a hospital bed near the window. The antique rugs have been rolled up and the floor is so sterile it shines. But it’s the man I can’t stop looking at.
He is smaller than I remember—frail. His white hair doesn’t shine like snow. His skin is the color of ashes.
But he is alive.
And he is home.
“Gracie, come here. Let me look at you.”
I ease toward the bed.
“Grandpa, I—” I start, but he shushes me and glances toward the corner.
There, curled up on one of the most uncomfortable couches in the embassy, is Eleanor Chancellor. There’s a crocheted blanket across her lap and her high heels lie discarded on the floor.
“You’ll wake the guards,” Grandpa says with a smile and a wink in Ms. Chancellor’s direction.
He tries to laugh. It makes me want to cry.
When I reach the bed, he takes my hand and pulls me closer. The Tennessee is thick in his voice when he says, “Oh, Gracie, what did you do?”
“I …”
“Tell me you didn’t agree to any craziness for the sake of this old man.”
“Jamie’s okay,” I say, because it feels like the only thing that matters. It seems like ages since I’ve seen my brother, but I know this in my gut. “Jamie’s okay now.” I run my hands through Grandpa’s hair, push it off of his cold forehead. “And you’re okay. And now everyone is going to be okay.”
“What about you, Gracie?” Grandpa asks.
I lean down and kiss his cheek.
When he drifts off to sleep, I don’t bother telling him the rest: that I forfeited the right to be okay three years ago.
Only the marines and the sky are awake as I head out onto Embassy Row.
The buildings are all dark. A few delivery vans and police cars pass, but I keep walking, head down, certain of where I have to go.
As I walk through the gates, the sun starts to crest the hills that circle the east side of Valancia. The light is the color of gold, and the whole city shines. My mom’s hometown looks so beautiful, here at the top of this hill. Now I understand why Dad and Jamie had to bring her back here—why this is where she was laid to rest.
Adria isn’t just where this story started; it’s also where it has to end.
“Hi, Mom.”
My mom isn’t here. This is just a slab of stone with her name on it, some remains that share my DNA. Caroline Blakely, beloved daughter, wife, mother. Her tombstone doesn’t say anything about her being a princess—that that’s the reason why she’s here.
No.
I’m the reason why she’s here.
I remember this, and just that quickly my breath goes away. I fall to my knees. The grass is damp with a heavy morning dew that seeps through my old jeans. Suddenly, I’m not on a hilltop in Adria; I’m on a dark street in the US, looking through a window, about to make the biggest mistake of my life.
“Grace, no!” my mother yells, and I close my eyes, refusing to see the scene that fills my mind.
My breath comes too hard. It’s like my lungs don’t work, and my body wants to draw in on itself. I’m aware only of the damp ground and the cold headstone and the utter emptiness that is left when all your hope is gone.