The Black Key (21 page)

W
HEN WE RETURN FROM THE CLIFF, WE FIND THAT
Hazel's flowers are white, like mine were.

She bends down and they grow taller, reaching toward her fingertips, their cheery faces brushing her skin before withering to die, even as new ones grow to take their place.

“What do you feel?” I ask, wondering which elements she can connect with.

“Everything,” she whispers. “I can feel the grass growing and hear the wind whispering and there's something shimmery and flowy, like . . . like water.”

I clasp her shoulders in my hands. “Stay out here for a little while. Everything is going to be different from now on. Enjoy this moment. It's the beginning of your new life.”

In so many ways,
I think. It's a new city. It's a new world.

I don't want to leave my sister but there's something I have to do. Or, more accurately, a place I need to visit.

I turn to Raven, but she's a step ahead of me. The benefit of having a best friend who can sometimes read your thoughts.

“Garnet and I will stay with her,” she says. “Go.”

I wonder if she knows where I'm going, or just that I need to go. Either way, I smile and embrace her, squeezing her tight. “We did it,” I whisper.

“We did,” she whispers back. Hazel has sunk down to the grass and is staring at a rosebush with a look of wonder on her face. A bud blossoms suddenly, a swirl of color unfolding as its petals grow. I leave her to the awe of nature and head inside.

Garnet and Cora have moved the Duchess's and Exetor's bodies aside and are stacking the rifles up in a pile in the center of the room. Carnelian sits on the edge of the dais beside Ash, still looking shell-shocked.

Ash stands as I enter.

I sway a little on my feet, suddenly overwhelmingly tired. But this day isn't over yet.

“Hazel?” he says, coming over to grip my elbow.

“She's fine.” I keep my eyes on his, not wanting to look at the bodies on the floor. “I have to . . . I have to go someplace. In this palace. A secret place. I have to . . .”

I don't know what I have to do. All I know is that I want to go back to Lucien's workshop. I don't need to destroy it anymore, now that the Society has won. But I want to see
that there is still some piece of him left in this world.

Ash's arm snakes around my waist, as his lips press against my temple.

“Wherever you need to go,” he says. “I'll be with you.”

We leave the throne room and walk back down the empty halls to the front doors, hand in hand. I take a right and am about to lead him to the antechamber when I stop.

“I want you to see,” I say to him, the guilt surging up in a hot wave inside my chest. “I want you to see the awful thing I did.”

I open the door to the room of mirrors. Ash gasps and steps inside, his face alight with astonishment, fractured in the broken mirrors. Some have been removed so there are blank spaces, as if servants stopped cleaning up halfway through. But there are still plenty of keys lining these walls.

“You did this?” he asks.

“The night before the Auction. There was a royal dinner and I came with Carnelian. I was . . . I was mad, frustrated, ready for this to be over. I didn't think anyone would see it. There are hundreds of rooms in this palace. I thought I was being so clever.”

My throat swells up and I stop talking. I wasn't being clever. I was being foolish and Lucien lost his life because of it.

Ash looks at me as though he can read my thoughts, my guilt printed clearly on my face. “So what should your punishment be?”

“I don't know,” I murmur. I stare at myself in an oval mirror. One of my eyes is fractured, my mouth a diagonal slash.

Ash tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear and cups my face in his hands. “Do you really think Lucien would want you punished for this? Don't you think he'd be proud? You made his mark on the place where he was enslaved for most of his life.”

“I killed him,” I croak.

“No,” Ash says firmly. “The royalty killed him.” I can see he knows I don't believe him. “You made a choice, Violet, one that had consequences. Like saving me. Like saving Raven. Not all choices result in what we want, or even what we expect. But what you've done, what Lucien has done, what me and Raven and Garnet and everyone at the White Rose and everyone in the Society has been trying to do, is give everybody, no matter their station or their status, a chance at making choices for themselves. Some things are bigger than just one person.” He enfolds me in his arms and whispers into my ear. “But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. To lose him. To feel pain. And that's okay. Just . . . don't hate yourself for it.”

A fat tears drips down my cheek and bleeds into the fabric of his shirt.

“Come with me,” I whisper.

I open the picture of the dog in the antechamber and climb through the hole to the staircase. Ash doesn't ask any questions, he just follows after me, and we climb the stairs. Lucien has left markings, as he said, white Xs that tell me where to turn and which halls to take. After what feels like an hour, we are standing outside the door to his room.

I open it with trembling hands. Lucien's bedroom is a mess. This must have been where he was when he was arrested. Blankets and clothes are scattered about and the
dresser has been knocked over. But the closet is untouched, hiding the workshop behind it.

It's only a few feet away, but it may as well be a mile. It may as well be on another planet.

My legs have turned to stone and melted into the floor. I can't move. I can barely breathe.

Ash has no idea what this place is, what it could mean, and yet he threads his fingers through mine, not hesitating to stand by my side. And in that moment, I know that while I may have lost Lucien, the effects he has had, on me, on my life, on my friends and the people I love, will last forever.

Keeping Ash's hand firmly in my grasp, I take a step forward. Then another. Then I'm walking—no, almost running to the closet. I throw the doors open, push aside the lady-in-waiting gowns, and pull the arcana out of my hair. I press it into the indentation in the door's center.

It opens with a click. I stand on the threshold, my skin tingling. The lights flicker on inside.

“Violet?” Ash asks again.

“Wait here,” I say. “Please.”

I open the door wide and leave Ash behind, knowing he'll listen to me, knowing that even if he doesn't understand why, he trusts that I'm asking him for what I need.

I step into Lucien's workroom and the memory hits me like a blow to the stomach. The clocks on the wall tick casually, unaware that their owner is never returning. The books, the papers, the beakers . . . all of it is as it was that day Lucien showed this place to me, back when I was Imogen and Coral was still alive.

My gaze lands on the easel in the corner and I let out a
tiny cry, somewhere between a gasp and a sob. The picture Lucien was painting, the one that was just the outline of a girl. The one I thought was of Azalea.

It's me.

Lucien has drawn my face in perfect detail, right down to the little point of my chin. I'm looking slightly to the left, smiling in a way that is at once sweet and mischievous, like perhaps I'm about to do something reckless. My hair tumbles over my shoulders, and my eyes . . . he got their color just right. I see tubes of various shades of purple scattered across his worktable.

I gaze at it, guilt and grief and love warring inside me. The tears are falling thick and fast and I don't bother to wipe them away. My head spins and my legs weaken, so that the room swirls in my vision and I know I'm about to collapse.

A pair of strong arms grabs me, pulling me upright. Ash's familiar scent is like its own embrace, but it only makes me cry harder. The weight of this whole day crushes me and I sob until there is nothing left to cry. Ash doesn't say a word. He just lets me get it out.

Finally, I straighten up, gulping for air. I smile at him blearily and he wipes the tears from my cheeks.

“This place is . . . incredible,” he says. “And so very
him
.”

I swallow hard. My hands snake down his arms, gripping his wrists. I look around the room one more time. “He told me to destroy it. If we lost. He made me promise.”

“Well,” Ash says. “I'm glad that's one promise you don't have to keep.”

The exhaustion hits me again, and suddenly all I want is to be with my sister.

“Let's go,” I say. But as we turn to leave, my eye lands on something shiny. The copper spring that Lucien was toying with when he talked to me about his wall of clocks, the one he unwound and tossed aside on the table. I pick it up and slip it into my pocket.

Then I take my arcana out of the door, and Ash and I and walk back to join our friends and my family.

W
E BURY OUR DEAD THE NEXT DAY.

The Royal Palace has become the new headquarters for the Society of the Black Key. People started filtering in yesterday at sunset—servants, Society members, friendly Regimentals, Paladin. Sil came with her group after “making neat work of that damned wall,” as she put it. Sienna followed later, and I was so relieved to see her I hugged her tight and she actually hugged me back.

Ochre arrives in the morning with a group of boys around his age, and Hazel and I tackle him, falling to the ground in a mess of hugs and laughter and tears.

“Why didn't you tell me about the Society?” Hazel asks, punching him in the arm.

“I did!” Ochre protests, holding up his hands to block her. “You didn't believe me.”

“Wait till you see what I can do,” Hazel brags.

“Is it like what Violet can do with water and stuff?”

“When did you see that?”

“I've been part of the Society for ages, Hazel,” he says importantly.

“Stop it, you two,” I say with a wide grin, wrapping my arms around both their shoulders. “I'm just happy we're all together again.”

There is a meeting that night about what to do with the remaining royals. Many, as Lucien had said, want executions across the board. Others, like Sil, insist the royals should pay with hard labor.

Finally, an agreement is reached. A tribunal will be set up, with representatives from each circle present, and the royalty will be judged for their crimes.

I sit apart from the main crowd, with Ash, Raven, Garnet, Ochre, and Hazel, an idea chewing at the edges of my mind.

I get up and motion to Sil to follow me. She does, without question, and I take her to Lucien's workshop.

“Well,” she says after several long moments of silence. She shakes her head. “If anyone were to have a place like this, it would be him.”

“I think maybe there are things here that could help the Society. Or the new government, whatever it will be called.” I run my fingers across the prototype of Annabelle's slate. When I glance up, Sil is looking at me strangely.

“You know,” she says, walking over to the bookshelves
and peering at the various titles. “I've known Lucien for almost five years. The first day I met him, I blew him off my porch with Air.”

“You did?” I say.

“What would you do if a lady-in-waiting showed up at your front door? In a place you thought no one could find?” Sil says, but her mocking is gentle. “He didn't like me much after that. Of course, we had to get along, for Azalea's sake.”

“I know,” I say.

“But Azalea never brought us together the way you did,” Sil says. I stare at her, dumbstruck, but she's refusing to look at me, flipping through an old, leather-bound tome. “I saw a change in Lucien, even before I met you myself. The way he used to talk about you . . . if I heard one more damned Violet story, whether he was proud or worried or just bothering me with that arcana to complain about you . . .” She chuckles at the book. I'm having difficulty breathing. “He'd lived in that circle for so long. I don't think he realized how much it had affected him, even if he never wanted it to. But you did. You held up a mirror and reminded him that he was just as worthy of saving as the surrogates.”

“Of course he was,” I whisper.

“You say that like it's an easy thing to believe,” she says with a snort. “And then he showed up at my door again, with not one but two surrogates, a companion, and a royal.” Sil lets out an exasperated sigh. “I was so mad. Well, you know, you were there. That wasn't the plan. Saving those people, a pregnant surrogate, a companion, it was such a risk. Lucien and I, we were so wrapped up in what we were supposed to be doing, we forgot
why
we were doing it. I
thought it was just revenge—that's all I wanted at first, and I think he did, too. Revenge for Azalea. Blood for blood.”

She finally meets my gaze. Her eyes are red and glassy. “We were wrong. You showed us what really mattered. You changed us both. I wish I could make you see that, Violet.” She turns away, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “He was a fool, to be sure. But you can't say he didn't love you.”

I sink into the armchair. Sil quickly busies herself with examining papers and looking at beakers and saying things that don't make sense to me, like, “The Apothecary will be very interested in this,” or “Got to make sure the Feroner gets a look at these.”

Lucien is gone. The revolution is over. It's time for me to exercise the freedom we fought so hard for.

“Sil?” I say hesitantly.

“Mph?” she replies, not looking up from a beaker filled with simmering blue liquid.

“I . . . I want to leave. There's something I want to do. I know there's so much work to do here, and things to figure out, but . . .”

She gives me her most penetrating stare.

“Spit it out,” she says.

“I want to see the ocean.” It's been tugging at my heart, the desire to see over the Great Wall, to see what's out there. To get to the edge of this little piece of my world and climb the wall the royalty built. To see what hasn't been seen in centuries.

Sil's pale eyes soften with understanding. “You do what you have to,” she says, patting me on the shoulder, before turning back to Lucien's table.

W
E BURY THE FALLEN IN THE LAWNS SURROUNDING THE
Auction House, the Paladin burying our own separately, under a little copse of trees.

Twenty-five in all. Indi, Olive, little Rosie Kelting . . . Ginger died, too. As we cover them with earth, a myriad of flowers grow up over their graves, each girl's flowers sprouting from the earth one last time. I see Indi's lemon-yellow blossoms entwine with Olive's dark green ones.

“I want to see the ocean,” I say to Raven.

She grins at me. “So do I. We're all coming with you.”

“We?” I ask, startled. She glances over to where Ash and Garnet stand, a little apart, watching this private funeral from a respectable distance.

Raven sighs dramatically. “If we left without them, they'd just follow after us anyway.” She throws an arm around my shoulder. “When do you want to leave?”

I
T'S ANOTHER DAY BEFORE WE ARE READY TO SET OUT.

I expect Hazel and Ochre to come, to be eager to go home to the Marsh, but to my surprise, they both staunchly refuse.

“I can't go back,” Hazel says. “Everything is different now. I . . . I
mean
something. I matter here. I can't go back to the Marsh like everything is the same because it's not. I'm not.”

“Yeah,” Ochre agrees. “Besides, the Society needs me.”

Stubborn,
Lucien's voice whispers.

Just like me,
I think.

“All right,” I say. I won't argue with them. They need to
make their own choices now.

“Be safe,” Sienna says.

“Don't do anything stupid,” Sil adds. “It's still dangerous out there. There's fighting in the lower circles.”

“I wouldn't worry about us, Sil,” Garnet says cheerfully, clapping her on the back. “Don't you know we've got the most powerful Paladin in recent history as our guide?”

“Second most powerful,” Sil grumbles, and we all laugh.

We leave through the ruined south part of the wall, the one by the Auction House. It takes us the better part of the day to make it across the Bank, which has surrendered rather quickly to the fall of the royalty, though there's a hefty amount of destruction all around us. Many stores have been looted or burned.

When we reach the wall, Garnet glances at me. “Can you get us through?” he asks.

“Of course she can,” Ash says, and I grin.

I join with Earth and welcome the thick, mighty sense of being rooted in something deep and ancient. I feel the stones of these walls, greeting them like old friends, and when they begin to break apart, I fill up with a blissful power. This one isn't nearly as thick as the wall that surrounded the Jewel. I make only a narrow fissure, just wide enough for us to climb through.

The scene that meets our eyes is one of widespread devastation. Maybe because there were more things to explode in the Smoke. Factories have been leveled. There are bodies in the streets and constant outbreaks of fighting.

I'm grateful when we reach the wall to the Farm. At first, this circle seems untouched by the violence. Until we
come across the first burned-out farmhouse, the fields surrounding it dead and blackened. It takes several days to cross the Farm.

We reach the wall to the Marsh late at night. My feet are sore and my back aches, but when I draw on Earth, my strength returns. The wall is black against the night sky, but I don't need to see it to break it. It is too dark to continue into the Marsh so we camp in the shadow of the wall.

I wake at dawn. The air is chilly, drops of dew forming on my hair like crystals. I stare at the pearlescent strip of gray in the distance that grows lighter. Then a streak of orange appears, underscored with slashes of pink and gold. Slowly, a symphony of color plays out in the sky, nature welcoming the beginning of a new day.

I have always loved sunrises. There is something hopeful about them.

After a quick breakfast, we set off again. Raven and I agree to visit our families on our way back—I fear if I see my mother now, I may never leave her.

At first, the Marsh appears to be deserted. But then I realize that most of the laborers must have been in the other circles. We see the elderly, and children with young mothers, or children with no mothers at all. The Great Wall looms in the distance, but it never seems to come any closer.

Until suddenly, the mud-brick houses end and we stand at the edge of a vast expanse of dry, cracked earth. The Wall rises up before us. It is larger than I imagined, larger by far than any of the other walls in this city, and I know I would never be able to take it down on my own.

It grows more massive the closer we get to it. The wind
blows sharply across the empty plain, whipping specks of dirt and dust up around us. We walk and walk and the Wall looms higher and higher. By the time we reach it, it hurts my neck to look up to the top.

I turn to my companions. “I can't break this one down.”

Garnet's eyes are wide.

Ash looks slightly stunned. “It's . . . so . . .”

“Big,” Raven finishes.
Big
doesn't seem like enough. The stones are gray and murky brown. Some are covered with lichens or moss. She reaches out and runs her hand over its rough surface, then gasps.

“Follow me,” she says, taking off at a jog. Garnet rushes to catch up to her and Ash and I take up the rear.

Whatever Raven's looking for, she doesn't find it for nearly half an hour. “There!” she cries triumphantly, pointing at what appears to be just more wall.

But then I see the contrast, the shadows, the place where steps have been carved into the stony surface.

Up, up, up they go, to a dizzying height that sets my head spinning. But I have to see.

At first, the stairs are wide and smooth, but the higher we go, the narrower they become. By the time we are halfway up, my thighs are in agony and there's a painful stitch in my side. The drop below me is terrifying, worse than in the sewers when we had to climb that rusty ladder to get into the Bank, worse than the top of the golden spire in the Auction House where Sienna and I sent up the flare. Three-quarters of the way up and everything below has turned miniature—minuscule houses, baby trees. I can see straight across the Marsh, to the wall of the Farm.

“How long . . . do you think . . . it took to build this?” Ash pants.

“Twenty-five years,” Garnet says.

Raven gives him a surprised look.

“What?” he says. “You think I could have lived with my mother all my life and
not
known that? She loves to—” He stops himself and clears his throat. “She loved to say how our family ‘built' it. Funded it, yes, but I'll be damned if a single member of the House of the Lake ever touched a brick or stone.”

“They are now,” Raven points out.

Garnet looks at his own hands like he's never seen them before. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess you're right.” Then he shrugs. “Well, there isn't a House of the Lake anymore. So I'm no one, really.”

“Don't ever let me hear you say that again,” Raven snaps. “After all you've given up. After everything you've done.”

“Can we keep moving, please?” Ash says. He stands with his back pressed against the stone, his skin taking on a grayish tinge.

“You didn't have to come,” I say as we plod forward. Each step makes the muscles in my legs burn.

“Yes, I did,” he says through gritted teeth. “I want to see what's out there, same as you.”

“I didn't know you were so afraid of heights.”

He lets out a breathy laugh. “I didn't either. This isn't just high up. I feel like . . . I don't know, like we're walking straight into the sky.”

When we reach the top, it truly does feel as if we've
emerged into some other world. The top of the Wall is easily twenty feet wide, the stone pockmarked. The wind is vicious up here, but something about it pricks at me, like little fingers, pinching and nibbling as if to get a sense of who I am. I walk to the other side, shaking with trepidation.

The lip of the Wall comes into view, and then there it is. The ocean. Exactly as we saw it on the cliff. I hear a gasp, and Raven's hand slips into mine.

It is gray and blue and endless. White-capped waves crash onto a long strip of beach, hundreds of feet below. The Wall stretches away in every direction, and for a moment, I could easily believe there is nothing else out there, that this island is the only thing in the world besides water.

Then I see the ships.

Their hulls are rotting, their masts splintered, the sails eaten by wind and water and time. But they are there. Maybe a dozen of them, gathered together in a cove near the Wall. Perhaps the royalty kept them for sentimental reasons. Or they have simply been forgotten, lost to time. The only thing that matters is, they are here. Which means the royalty came from another land, as Sil's book said.