She practically spits the final word.
A part of me wants to spit, too.
“No,” I say. “It isn’t her.”
“It’s Caroline. She is the heir. She told me when she came to see me.” Karina smiles. She giggles like a little girl.
“What did she tell you?” I ask, but Karina is turning back to the window, singing softly.
“‘Hush, little princess …’”
“Karina!” I snap, because I need to keep her here; I don’t dare let her slip away.
“She wanted to know about the song,” Karina says.
“What about it?”
“She didn’t know all the verses. Most people don’t. But my grandmother knew about Amelia. She believed Amelia should have been put on the throne—many in the Society did, you know? Many do to this very day. And so Grandmother used to tell me stories about the princess and sing the song. She made me learn it when I was just a little girl. I so wanted Alexei to be a girl so I could teach him. Isn’t it a pity?”
It’s like she doesn’t know her son is in the room. And maybe she doesn’t.
She brightens again, looking at me. “Has Caroline taught you the song?”
“Why don’t you remind me?” I say. “Please, could you sing it now?”
She does and I listen very carefully.
Hush, little princess, dead and gone.
No one’s gonna know you’re coming home.
Hush, little princess, wait and see.
No one’s gonna know that you are me.
Hush, little princess, it’s too late.
The truth is locked behind the gates.
Hush, little princess, pretty babe.
The sunlight shines where the truth is laid!
“That’s it?” I ask when Karina’s finished. “That’s all she wanted? To learn the song?”
“She said she had to go to Adria. She needed proof,” Karina says. “Nothing was ever going to happen without proof.”
I don’t dare look at Alexei. I don’t dare to let myself believe. But the fact remains that my mother was looking for something. She came here. She found it. And if I could find it, too …
Maybe I could get someone else killed, I realize, and I feel sick.
Alexei doesn’t see it, though. He just asks, “What kind of proof?”
“The bodies, of course!” Karina sounds like she’s just been invited to a birthday party. “She said she’d found the bodies … or she thought she knew where the bodies would be. She was going to have to come back to Adria to be certain.”
And now I find myself hurtling back in time—to Paris and the bridge and the desperate look in Ann’s eyes.
“The tomb,” I say, turning to Alexei. “In Paris, Ann asked about a tomb.”
“What tomb?” Alexei asks.
“The king and queen and little princes. Their bodies were lost in the war. If Mom needed proof she was Amelia’s heir—”
“Then your mom needed DNA,” Alexei fills in.
“So if she really found the proof—”
“Then she found the tomb. And for whatever reason, she went to the palace and told Ann about it.”
Alexei’s voice is as hard as my heart. “And Ann tried to have her killed.”
Karina starts to shake. Her voice is too high. “I told her not to go. I warned her. I said that she wasn’t our friend anymore. I said that she had changed. And she was the one who sent me to that place. She did it. She—”
“It’s okay, Karina,” Alexei says, reaching for his mother. “It’s okay.”
“Caroline said she’d get me out. Caroline said that she was going to come to Adria and get her proof and then she was going to get me out!”
Alexei’s mother is shaking. Tears fall from her eyes. Her voice breaks. “Did she send you to get me out?”
“Yes,” I say. “She did.”
And in a way it’s even true.
We’ve held Karina for too long and I can see her slipping, descending into whatever peaceful place she’s built inside her mind. When she starts to sing again, “‘Hush, little princess …’” I know it’s not for me.
She walks to a chair and curls up like a kitten, singing herself to sleep.
Alexei covers her with a blanket and then takes my hand, leads me outside.
We’re halfway to the palace before he speaks again, leaning low to look into my eyes.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t go back there.” It’s like he’s been fighting with himself for ages, trying to keep from fighting with me, too, but it has to be done and we both know it.
“I have to,” I say.
“You’re Grace Olivia Blakely. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“This isn’t optional,” I tell him, but I’m really arguing with myself.
“Yes.” Alexei shakes me slightly—like he’s trying to shake some sense into me. “It is. Go to the US embassy. Come with me to Russia. Come with me to Moscow. We’ll get on a plane. We’ll borrow Noah’s mother’s van and drive all night. I don’t care. Just get lost, Grace. Run away. Disappear and I’ll go with you.”
“I can’t.”
When Alexei presses his palm into my cheek, I can feel it like a brand.
“She killed the king, Gracie,” he says, voice low. I don’t bother to mention that there’s blood on my hands, too.