Garnet's Story (5 page)

“Of course,” the Electress says, not looking particularly disappointed at the evening's turn of events. Then she addresses the room like this is her house and her party. “Let us leave the Duchess in peace and hope that her surrogate will survive this night. I know the loss of a surrogate all too well, and I would not wish it upon any of my fellow royalty.”

That statement is ridiculous on several levels—first of all, she isn't really royalty, and secondly, she would
absolutely
wish for a surrogate death to befall a rival House like
ours. But it gets everyone to leave and for that, I'm grateful.

“Shall I stay?” Coral asks, gripping my elbow.

“What?” I say. “No.” Then, realizing that came out harsher than I intended, I add, “You should go home with your mother. I will . . . inform you of the surrogate's status tomorrow.” I smile for good measure.

“Oh. Yes, of course.” She beams at me as her mother comes to take her away.

Slowly, the concert hall empties. I don't know if I'm supposed to stand by the doors and see everyone out, but I don't have the energy, and what's the point of having a rebellious reputation if I don't put it to good use when I need to?

I stand on the stage, alone. The surrogate's blood spreads out over the polished floor, surrounding her cello like a red lake, and that seems wrong, because she clearly loves this cello. I slip out of my tuxedo jacket, pick up the instrument, and start wiping the blood off of it. But my hands are clumsy and I end up smearing it around rather than cleaning it.

There is a loud bang as the offstage door flies open. Annabelle rushes toward me, her eyes filled with tears as she takes in the blood on the floor, the cello in my hands. She looks up at me, her face full of terror and with a trembling hand writes:

Dead?

“No,” I say. “She's in the medical room. I think Lucien is taking care of her. It didn't . . . look good.”

She claps a hand over her mouth and the tears spill over and fall down her cheeks. Then she rushes forward and yanks the cello out of my hands.

“I was just trying . . . trying to clean it,” I say, but she can't write with one hand full of cello. So she glares at me with a heated intensity, and then points fiercely at her own chest and I know she's telling me that's her job. There's a protectiveness to the gesture, something that reminds me of Lucien's face when he stared at the girl's bleeding figure on the ground. Annabelle loves this surrogate, too.

She whirls around and carries the cello out of the concert hall, and I stand onstage alone, until Mary and some other maids arrive to clean up the blood.

I
STAY UP ALL NIGHT, SITTING IN MY PARLOR, STARING AT
the arcana cupped in my hands, willing it to buzz.

Is she okay? What happened? Am I in trouble? Should I have foreseen this? Was I too busy sulking about my engagement to notice something was wrong? Will Lucien release the details of my tryst with Cyan? Does Annabelle hate me?

Questions repeat themselves over and over again, a revolving circle of the same thoughts and fears.

How did this happen to me? Here I am, completely frazzled over the welfare of a surrogate. I don't think I could even tell you what any other surrogate I've ever seen looks like. Blond, brunette, redhead . . . they are like dolls, dolls with blurry faces who don't matter because who are they
anyway? Nothing. Property. But Lucien's face. And Annabelle . . .

I don't even know her name. Do they have names? I think they're given numbers for the Auction. Maybe they're born with numbers. Are they even born in the normal way? I've never seen them as truly human until I heard the girl cry out in pain tonight.

Am I a terrible person?

Pale gray light seeps under the curtains, the sign of a new day beginning. I rouse myself and am just about to give up and get into bed, when the silver tuning fork buzzes and rises up out of my palm.

“Is she okay?” I ask, before he has a chance to speak.

There is the faintest pause on the other end, and I think maybe I've surprised him in some way.

“Yes,” he says, and he sounds impossibly weary. “She will live.”

I exhale, and it feels like a breath I've been holding all night. My head buzzes with relief.

“That's good,” I say.

“It is.” Again, there's a hint of surprise in his voice.

“What?” I demand, too tired and frazzled to be polite. “Did you think I didn't care? Do you think I'm not human?”

“No,” he replies. “I think you are royal.”

I sense a veiled insult but I don't understand it.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you do not see the world the way most of the people in this city see it.”

I frown. “This city loves the royalty.”

Lucien chuckles through his weariness. “Oh, Garnet,”
he says. “You know nothing of this city. You know the Jewel and the Bank. The Jewel tolerates you because of your high status and the Bank loves you because you sell papers.”

No one has ever,
ever
, spoken to me this way. I open my mouth to set him straight and let him know who is who in this relationship, but then all the air seeps out of me and I realize he's right.

I'm nothing. I'm a very fancy, very expensive waste of time.

“Why did you even ask for my help, then?” I say.

He sighs. “I did not ask you. I blackmailed you.”

Right. I dig my knuckles into my eyes.

“Lucien, what is so important about this girl? Why do you care about her so much?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Besides the fact that you have me shadowing her every movement?”

“You have done a mediocre job of that, at best. And having someone followed or watched does not mean I care about them. I keep tabs on more people than you could ever conceive of. Why do you think this girl is any different?”

“Your face tonight,” I say bluntly. “When she was bleeding and . . . and crying. It was obvious.”

Another pause. This one stretches so long, I grow impatient.

“Do they have names? The surrogates, I mean,” I say. “Where do they come from?”

“They come from the Marsh,” he says curtly. “Surely you know that. And yes, they have names.”

“All of them?” I wish I hadn't asked as soon as the
question leaves my mouth.

“All of them.”

“Well, what's hers, then?”

Lucien huffs. “Why do you care, Garnet of the House of the Lake, heir to the Duchess, member of a Founding House?”

“Don't throw titles at me. That's not who I am.”

“It isn't? Then please, enlighten me. Tell me who you are. Tell me why you are worthy to know her name.”

“Worthy?” I stand up, my pulse racing. “Are you telling me I'm not worthy to know the name of some surrogate?”

“That is exactly what I am telling you. You split people into two groups; those who are royal and those who are not. Have you ever stopped to consider what the ‘nots' feel about you? That they are human beings in their own rights, with hopes and dreams and feelings? And that they outnumber you ten to one at least?”

I don't know what to say to that. Because he's right.

“Do you know what happens to surrogates, Garnet?” Lucien continues, and his voice drops to a snakelike whisper.

“They . . . they make royal babies,” I stammer.

“And then?”

I hesitate. “I don't know.”

“They
die
. Every. Single. One. Childbirth is lethal to them.”

I have to repeat that last sentence over three times in my head before I understand it.

So every single girl I've ever seen on a leash, or at a ball, or sitting mutely at a dinner table . . . they're all dead.

“That—that can't be right. Why would . . . how could that happen?”

At this, Lucien laughs outright. “Did you even think about the surrogates until I asked you to watch one? Could you describe one for me, besides Violet?”

“Violet?” I say.

Silence.

“Is her name Violet?” I ask again, in a more commanding tone.

“Yes,” Lucien replies grudgingly.

“Oh.”
Violet.
Violet plays the cello. Annabelle cares about Violet. These sentiments seem different when I put them together like this. The surrogate is Violet.

If Violet has my little sister, Violet will die.

“So . . . what's the plan? Are you trying to figure out some way for her to have a baby and survive?”

“No.”

“Then what? Come on, Lucien. Please. Trust me.”

The wait for him to answer feels interminable.

“Can I?” he asks finally. “What possible promise could you make that I would be certain of?”

I think hard for a moment. Lucien doesn't care about money or jewels or anything like that. He seems to care about people.

“I'll swear on Annabelle,” I say. “If I do anything to get the surrogate in trouble, she'll be punished tenfold. And I'd never do anything to hurt her.”

“Hm.” Lucien sounds impressed. After a moment, he says, “I accept this promise.”

“Great, so what's the plan?”

“The plan,” he says dramatically, “is to get her out of the Jewel.”

H
IS PLAN IS CRAZY.
I
MPOSSIBLE.

It's Lucien, so obviously he didn't tell me any specifics, but there's no way he could get her out of my mother's house. Still, I keep looking for ways he might be able to do it. Sneak her out through the servant tunnels? Kidnap her at the Winter Ball? Hide her in a delivery crate?

And he won't tell me where he's taking her or what he plans to do with her once he gets her there. He might be the most infuriating person I've ever met.

Violet stays in bed for several days after the miscarriage—Lucien
does
tell me about that, about why she was bleeding so much. I didn't know being pregnant could be that dangerous. When she does leave her room, I only ever
see her when she goes out into the garden. I watch her wander through the neat rows of shrubs from one of the upstairs windows. She seems to like the west wall, or at least she always sets out in that direction. Then she'll disappear into the wilder parts of the garden or into the hedge maze.

Meanwhile, my opportunities to watch her grow more limited. My wedding plans are in full force. Mother has decided that now I should be involved in every stage of the process, as if getting married weren't punishment enough. I'm forced to sit through endless china showings (Coral would probably faint from delight), and food tastings (those actually aren't so bad), and Mother insists I help her with the ever-changing seating chart.

Coral and I are forced to attend various lunches and tea parties and dinners, sometimes with our mothers and sometimes without. It's nice to get to know her a little before I marry her, but it's also awful because she's just not that interesting.

Mother makes arrangements one afternoon for a tailor to come and begin work on my tuxedo. Obviously I wander around the library for a little while first, just to make sure I'm not on time. As I meander through the rows that hold all the dull histories of the various Electresses and Exetors, I hear two voices; Carnelian and another girl. My pulse speeds up and I move closer.

“I'm not up to anything,” the other girl says, and I know it must be Violet. I've never heard her speak before, but something about the voice sounds like her. “I just . . . like books.”

I hear Carnelian snort. “Right,” she says. “We'll see.”

I'm not going to let an opportunity to speak to the girl I've been watching for almost two months slip by.

“Is there a problem here, ladies?” I ask. They both look startled as I emerge from the stacks.

“What are you doing here?” Carnelian asks. “I thought you were supposed to be getting measured for your tuxedo.”

I put on my best surprised face. “Am I? Why, it completely slipped my mind.” I look Violet up and down. She seems jittery, though anyone cornered by Carnelian would be. “Are you tormenting the surrogate, cousin? Better not let Mother catch you.”

It feels strange calling her the surrogate now that I know her name.

“I'm not afraid of her,” Carnelian says, jutting out her chin.

“Yes, you are,” I say. “Hey, where's that companion she bought you? I heard you never leave his side.”

Her face turns red and she looks like she might cry. She shoots Violet a scathing look, as if it's Violet's fault the companion isn't around, then turns on her heel and storms off.

Somehow I've managed to speak to Violet alone. I'm quite proud of myself even if it was accidental. I wonder if she knows her fate, that she's supposed to die giving my Mother what she wants. I wonder what she thinks about Lucien, if he feeds her only bits and pieces of information, too.

But I can't say any of that out loud.

“She always was a little sensitive,” I say, staring after Carnelian and shrugging. “Oh, I'm Garnet, by the way.”

“I know,” she says, and I have to laugh.

“Of course you do.” I give her one of my most elaborate bows. “Shall I escort you back to your rooms?”

“Oh, um, that's all right,” she says. She looks even more frightened of me than of Carnelian.

“I insist,” I say, taking her elbow. It feels just like any other girl's elbow. I hate that these sorts of things keep surprising me. As if I previously assumed surrogates were monsters in human skin, or mechanical, or made out of glue and string.

“Tell me,” I say as we make our way out of the library. “Who do you hate more? My father or my mother?”

I'm pretty sure she's had no contact with Father, but I'm dying to know what she thinks of Mother.

“Excuse me?” she says, shocked.

“I'd have to go with my mother,” I say. Three is patrolling the halls and he stands at attention as I pass, the buttons on his Regimental coat gleaming. “My father is as dull as a post, so at least he's easy to overlook. But there's just no ignoring my mother.”

Violet doesn't respond, and I find myself rambling, saying anything that pops into my head, hoping to get some reaction, some sense of who this person is and why Lucien cares about her so much.

“She's gotten even worse since Carnelian came to live here. Poor kid. First her father dies, then her mother commits suicide. Very shocking. Scandalous for the House of the Lake.”

“Carnelian's mother killed herself?” she gasps.

I nod as we take one of the back staircases up to the second floor. “She was a strange woman, my aunt. Strange
and sad. I never really got to know her well—my mother despised her. I think Carnelian hates her and misses her in equal measure. It makes her a very unpleasant person to be around.”

I think this is the most I've spoken about Aunt Opal since she died.

“Why does she hate her?” Violet asks.

“Because her mother left her all alone,” I say. In the light of this conversation, I actually find myself feeling bad for Carnelian.

“Why did the Duchess despise your aunt?”

Is she serious? My aunt was in the news long before she took a rope and wrapped it around her neck.

“Because she left,” I say. “You do get the papers in the Marsh, don't you? Aunt Opal was not House of the Lake material. Especially not after she turned her back on her royal lineage and ran off with some newspaper man from the Bank.” I grin, because I can't believe Mother acts like
I
am the most disgraced member of this family. “Really, my mother has had it quite hard. A crazy sister, a broken engagement—to the Exetor, of all people—and . . . me. Ah, here we are.”

We've arrived at her chambers and I knock on the door. Annabelle opens it and looks very surprised to see me with her charge.

“Annabelle,” I cry, wrapping an arm around her, so Violet will see that we are friends and I'm not all that scary. Annabelle blushes and tries to curtsy but I'm in the way. If Violet weren't here, she'd probably whack me with her slate for being so improper.

“I've returned the surrogate safe and sound,” I say, and she ducks her head in thanks. “It was lovely meeting you,” I say to Violet. “Officially. I'm sure I'll see you again soon. And stay out of Carnelian's way if you can help it,” I add, giving her a wink. “I think she's got it in for you.”

My words ring truer in my ears than I thought they would. Though they haven't interacted all that much, I do get the strong feeling that Carnelian detests Violet. But then I shrug it off and head to my tuxedo fitting, because really, what could Carnelian possibly do?