I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. I couldn’t even tell my father, and even now, no one knows the things I’ve done. If I get my way, no one ever will.
Lady Sachelle is talking with Archduchess Levanter, and as she finishes her conversation and turns away, she’s still smiling. Then she sees me coming toward her, and the smile vanishes from her lips.
“How lovely to see you again so soon, Lady Sachelle.” I cup her elbow, and she winces. “Oh, dear. Did you hurt yourself?”
Sachelle pulls out of my grasp. “So soon? What do you mean?”
She stares at me blankly, but she’s not as good an actor as she’d like to think. Her hands are clenched so tightly that her knuckles are white.
“That was a clever move you made last night. My knee looks like your elbow.”
Instead of answering me, she turns away, but I catch her hand. I’d like to push her up against the nearest wall and ask her what the hell she thinks she’s playing at, but people are watching. “You’re tangled up with a dangerous group of people. What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, who?” she asks, tugging her hand from mine.
“Despite what you think, they’re not your friends. Whatever you’re doing with them you need to stop now before someone gets hurt.”
“I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Leave me alone or I’ll speak to my father about you.”
My eyes narrow. I tried asking nicely. I’ve already lied for her once, to the King himself, and I’m done bargaining. “Don’t threaten me, you little fool. I’m the only reason you’re not in a prison cell right now. Or should I go and speak to the King, and he can summon your sick father to the palace and ask him why his daughter is flirting with treason?”
For the first time, fear flickers in her face.
“I didn’t think so. Do some hard thinking about your loyalties, Lady Sachelle. I’ll be watching you.”
3
Sachelle
All night, I lie awake in bed, listening for the sound of the soldiers coming to take me away. I picture the blood draining from Dad’s face as Mr. Rasmussen tells him they’ve come for me, to arrest me, because I’m an enemy of the King. In my mind, I see Dad clutch his heart, struggling to breathe and his eyes bulging. Finally, he collapses on the ground, his face paper-white and his lips blue. Dead.
I put my pillow over my face and moan, willing the terrible image to recede. Mum’s told Tamsen and me again and again that we mustn’t do anything to upset Dad. One bad shock, the doctor’s said, and he could die.
If only Jakob Rasmussen hadn’t seen me. The eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess Balzac can’t shout in the streets that protesters have been arrested in the King’s name for no good reason. I thought I could do my part in secret. Paint signs, even if I can’t hold them up. I don’t love or miss Chairman Varga, but he was right about one thing.
“King Gregor and Queen Penelope were terrible for this country,” I whisper in the darkness.
I said it, the thing that no one, no one, wants to admit.
They ran the country into the ground and put almost as many people in prison as the People’s Republic. Their son, the handsome and smiling King Anson, looks great on the cover of all the magazines and newspapers, but if he’s not going to fix what makes Paravel the most backward country in Western Europe, then he’s going to have another revolution on his hands.
Now that Mr. Rasmussen is watching me, I’ll just have to be more careful. It has to be me who steals those palace plans that will hopefully get Briar out of jail, because no one else can walk into the administrative offices unchallenged.
I still remember the ribbon of illicit delight when Briar and I whispered together about Varga and the People’s Republic and everything they were doing wrong. Her father worked in a factory, and for weeks before Varga died and the republic came to an end, there’d been nothing for him and the other workers to do but label engine parts, and then take those labels off and put on the same ones. Mum couldn’t get basic things for us like toilet paper or toothpaste, when ten years ago that hadn’t been a problem. Then Varga died and Prince Anson escaped his prison and was crowned King. He had supporters that no one knew about. People who believed in him when everyone else had forgotten him.
Briar and I promised each other that if ever the other was in trouble and we could do something to help, we would do it, no matter what. She needs me. I can’t let her down.
After breakfast, I dress in high heels, a wool skirt and a blouse and ask Dad’s driver to take me to the western side of the palace.