The Black Key Read online

  “Lucien,” Sil says, clasping her hands together and resting her chin on them, “in any other circumstance I’d agree with you but . . . I don’t think there’s any way the Duchess will recognize her.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because she looks freakishly like a different person.”

  I didn’t realize Sienna had come in from the kitchen. She reaches out and gently takes a lock of my hair. “Color and Shape?” she asks me. I nod. “Did it hurt?”

  I grimace.

  Sienna grins. “Ash is going to flip his—”

  “What do you mean, like a different person?” Lucien interrupts.

  “I used the Auguries,” I say. “On myself.” Tears spring to my eyes and they sizzle with residual heat from the Augury. “Please, Lucien,” I say. “Help me. Help me help my sister.”

  I remember my Reckoning Day, the last time I saw my family as a whole. How angry Hazel was with me, how she thought I’d forgotten her. She didn’t understand that I wasn’t allowed to write to her, that Southgate had rules.

  I understand the rules of the Jewel. And I won’t let my sister think she’s been forgotten again.

  Five

  THE SILENCE THAT FOLLOWS IS BROKEN ONLY BY THE loud thumping of my heart.

  “Let me talk to Garnet about this,” Lucien says in a clipped tone. “Wait and don’t do anything rash.”

  The arcana falls silent onto the floor. I pick it up and hold it with trembling fingers. “I can’t leave her there,” I say, sinking onto the couch. Raven sits beside me. “She’s all alone. I can’t . . .”

  “I know,” Sil says, a softness in her voice.

  We sit there for what feels like hours. The arcana never buzzes. Finally, I rouse myself.

  “I’d better go see Ash,” I say. “He must be wondering where I am.”

  I don’t think he’s going to take the news particularly well. Just as I stand, the arcana rises in the air.

  “So,” Garnet says. “I hear you’re planning a covert operation.”

  “Hazel’s in danger,” I say. “I have to be there. I have to do what I can.”

  “Well, you’re in luck,” Garnet says. “Because I happen to know of a royal House that is hiring help.”

  “You do?” I say.

  “Yes,” he replies. “Mine.”

  Raven and I exchange a quizzical glance.

  Garnet continues. “My wife needs a lady-in-waiting of her own.” Raven stiffens almost imperceptibly at the word wife. “Coral has been trying to hire one for months and Mother rejects every one she finds. Up until this point I’ve stayed out of it because there is no point in fighting with my mother over something so trivial, and honestly, I could not care less about Coral having a lady-in-waiting. But now it seems we need one. So I will merely inform everyone tomorrow that I’ve hired you. It’s a very typical me move, a nice touch of arrogance, a dash of indifference for my mother’s wishes.” I can imagine the gleam of mischief in his blue eyes. “I’ll let you know which train to get on tomorrow. I’m sure there will be a new group of servants coming in—everyone is going crazy preparing for the Auction. I’ll send out word that we’re expecting you.”

  “Thank you, Garnet,” I say fervently.

  “Don’t mention it. Hey, is Raven there?”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” she says, stepping forward with a grin.

  “Business before pleasure, always. Do you have time to talk?”

  Raven laughs. “I’m not the one with the crazy wife and the overbearing mother. I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  “Yes, but you’ve got Sil, and she isn’t exactly a bucket of rainbows, is she? Kidding, Sil!” he says quickly before Sil can retort.

  Raven takes the arcana to the front porch. I say good night to Sil and the girls and head to the barn to break the news to Ash.

  HE’S BY THE GOAT PEN, ONE OF THEM NUZZLING HIS HAND searching for an extra treat, when I enter.

  For a moment, I just stand and watch him, the strength of his shoulders, the curve of his arms, the gentleness in his touch as he rubs a black-and-white-spotted goat behind the ears. I breathe in the calm before I break it.

  “Ash?” I say timidly.

  He turns around and lets out a strangled yelp when he sees my new face. “What—Violet?”

  “It’s me,” I say, stepping forward. He comes closer, inspecting my eyes and nose and hair with a little bit of wonder and a lot of confusion.

  “The Auguries?” he asks. I nod. “Why?”

  I explain what Lucien told me about the danger Hazel is in, and how Garnet is going to hire me to work in the palace. I see his face turn from incredulous to downright stormy.

  “You’re serious,” he says. “You’re leaving the White Rose. You’re abandoning your own plan and going into the Jewel, into the heart of danger.”

  I swallow. “Yes.”

  “Fine.” He turns and climbs up the hayloft ladder, tossing a few things he keeps up there down, an extra shirt, his pocket watch, the photograph of his family that he took from Madame Curio’s companion house. Then he climbs back down the ladder. “I’m coming with you.”

  “What? No, Ash, you can’t.”

  “And you can?”

  “I don’t look like me! I don’t have a million Regimentals trying to find and execute me. Garnet will look after me. I’ll be safe.”

  “Garnet has his own role in this revolution,” Ash says. “He can’t put everything on hold just to watch over you.” He starts shoving the items into a small satchel. “Everyone in the whole damned city has a role in this revolution, except me.”

  He throws the bag over his shoulder and glares.

  “So when do we leave?” he asks.

  I wait for a few moments, until his breathing has calmed slightly. Then I step forward and place a hand on his cheek.

  “Ash, you can’t,” I say. “You’d never make it past the Bank.”

  “Stop trying to keep me safe all the time, when you clearly don’t show the same consideration for yourself.” The chickens cluck nervously as he begins to pace around the barn. “You’re always telling me to stay here, be patient, be protected, but what if that’s not what I want? What if I want to do more, no matter the risk? And you feel like you can just waltz off to the Jewel because Hazel is in danger and expect everyone to understand. Well, I don’t, Violet. I don’t understand.”

  “She is in danger,” I say.

  “We’re all in danger!” Ash shouts, and Turnip whinnies, shaking her mane. He runs his hand down her long neck to calm her. “Don’t you even see the hypocrisy here? Don’t you get how unfair it is, that you are allowed to risk everything and I am not? The companions are my surrogates, Violet. They are my people and they are hurting, too, but they aren’t special in any way, so who cares? Who cares if they are bright, talented young men being abused and manipulated? They’re pretty little things who are only good for screwing, right? Why should their voices matter?”

  “That’s not what . . . this is Hazel, Ash. My sister. You’d do the same for Cinder.”

  It was the wrong thing to say and I know it immediately. Ash’s head whips up, his gaze so fierce it makes me shrink away.

  “Don’t,” he says coldly.

  My cheeks burn. “I’m sorry. I’m just saying we all have people we’re willing to sacrifice for.”

  “And who do I have left, Violet? You. Just you.” He takes the bag off his shoulder and drops it on the ground. “But you seem to think you are the only one allowed to make hard choices. And you don’t seem to get that your choices affect other people, including me.”

  He stares at me for a few seconds before shaking his head, turning on his heel, and storming out into the night.

  WHEN RAVEN STOPS BY THE BARN TO GIVE ME BACK THE arcana, she knows that something is wrong.

  I barely even need to explain the fight with Ash. My whispers must have been broadcasting at full volume. She moves aside the straw dummy Ash has her practice things
like chokeholds and punches on and pulls me over to sit on a hay bale, wrapping her arm around me.

  “He’s scared and angry,” she says. “And he wants to help.”

  “I understand, but it’s like he doesn’t even realize the danger he’d be in if he left! I’m not saying I don’t believe in him—”

  “Aren’t you?” Raven asks. There is no judgment in her tone but the question ruffles me anyway.

  “What do you want me to do, say, ‘Yeah, Ash, great idea, go on off to the Bank and fingers crossed no one recognizes you’?”

  “There are people he cares about in this city, too. And here in this house, it’s all about the surrogates. We never talk about the companions. No one does. Not Lucien, not Garnet . . .” She cocks her head. “We all have our own battles. I don’t want you going back to the Jewel any more than he does. I just know you well enough to know when fighting is pointless.” She nudges me with her shoulder. “You better take care of yourself. And Hazel. And keep an eye on Garnet for me.”

  I smile, though the argument still weighs on me. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I wonder what his wife is like.”

  “Pretty dull, from what he’s told us.” Garnet generally avoids mentioning Coral if he can help it. Especially around Raven.

  She hops off the bale. “So you’ll be a servant again. Hey, maybe it’ll be an advantage. Maybe you can see if there’s any discontent in the royal Houses, you know, and use it for our cause.”

  I know she’s just trying to help, to be positive. And I appreciate it. “Yeah,” I say. Then I pause. “Is . . . is he back at the house?”

  “No,” Raven says. “I don’t know where he is.”

  I give her a parting hug and get ready for bed. I climb up into the hayloft, carrying the satchel with Ash’s things in it with me. I lie down, close my eyes, and wish for sleep. But all I see is the Electress pouring poison into Hazel’s water glass. Or hiring someone to push her down stairs or suffocate her in her bed or . . .

  The Duchess never lets Hazel out though, I remind myself. Shouldn’t her confinement be enough to keep her safe?

  I open my eyes and stare at the slats in the ceiling, trying to will away my frustration and second-guessing. I always thought doing the right thing would be easy. If not easy to act on, at least easy to identify. But now I’m abandoning my own plan for something rash and half thought-out. I don’t even look like myself anymore.

  There’s a creak on the ladder and I sit up.

  “Ash?” I whisper. I feel his weight as he crawls over to me. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I didn’t—”

  “Shhh.” He presses his lips to mine gently and I shiver. I pull him toward me, grateful for his comforting presence, the warmth of his body, the scent of his skin.

  “I don’t want to fight,” he murmurs.

  “Me neither.”

  His fingers trace down my neck, over my collarbone. I’m only wearing a thin slip, and goose bumps blossom over my skin as his fingers move down toward my stomach.

  “Have you ever thought about . . . after?” he asks quietly.

  “After?” I ask, only half paying attention because his fingers have circled my belly button and are moving toward my right hip.

  “After all this.” His lips are on my neck. “After you save Hazel. After the fighting and the tearing down of walls. After this city has been thrown into an upheaval unlike it’s ever known. Say we win. The royalty don’t run this city anymore. What do you want?”

  “I don’t know,” I say as his hand squeezes my thigh. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “All this planning and you don’t even have an idea of what you want after?”

  “Maybe I don’t believe we’ll win.”

  “Maybe you’re just frightened of the future.”

  I find the depression at the base of his neck and kiss it gently. “And what is your plan for the future?”

  His hand freezes on my knee. “Nothing,” he says, pulling away from me.

  I’m immediately alert. “Hey,” I say, reaching up to twine my fingers in his hair, keeping him close. His eyes reflect the barest hint of moonlight that makes its way into our bed. “You can tell me.”

  He sighs, then says, “I want to be a farmer.”

  I wait for more explanation but he doesn’t continue.

  “Is that . . . all?” I say, not wanting to offend but feeling a bit confused.

  “You don’t think that’s stupid?” he says. “You don’t think after all the fine things people like you and I have had access to, the clothes, the food, the wealth, that I’d want something more?”

  “I think all those fine things we had came with too high a price,” I say. “I’d be happy never to see cloth-of-gold again in my life. Where would you want to farm? I mean, besides the Farm, obviously.”

  He adjusts himself so that he’s stretched out beside me, head propped up on one hand. “There’s an old ruin of a place about five miles outside the Whistler’s village. Ochre showed it to me once. It’s a good spot for hiding the younger boys who’ve joined us, you know, a day or two before the Auction, when they won’t be returning home after their work day. But I thought . . . I thought I could fix it up. Maybe Sil would sell me a couple of chickens and a goat. Get some seeds. It would be nice to work with the earth. And I like animals. I’d like a life of growing my own food, making my own things. Having a real home.”

  Tears spring to my eyes, as I realize I’m not anywhere in this picture he has painted. “Oh,” I say in a raspy voice. “That sounds nice.”

  “Are you crying?” Ash says, aghast.

  “No,” I say too quickly, scrubbing the tears away.

  I can almost hear his brain click. “Do you think I don’t want you there with me?” he asks.

  “No,” I say again, but it’s a clear lie.

  “Violet. I did not write you out of my life,” he says, “but I would never want to assume my plans would line up with yours. You have the right to choose what you want for yourself.”

  “But what if that sounds nice to me?” I say. “What if I want to help you fix up that old place? I bet I could convince Sil to give us Turnip, since she likes you better than Sil anyway. And I could have a chrysanthemum garden, like the one my mother used to have in our kitchen windowsill. I could use Earth to help you with planting crops, and Water, too, to tend them. I could use Fire to keep the house warm in the winter, and Air to keep us cool in the summer.”

  I can see it, I can see it so clearly it’s an actual ache in my chest. A little front porch with a wild garden blooming all around it. A white house with blue shutters. Ash and I working in the soil, ending each day tired and sweaty and covered in dirt, but happy. Having a place of our own.

  When Ash speaks again, his voice is thick. “That sounds . . . perfect.”

  “Of course, Raven will have to live nearby,” I say.

  “And Garnet, too.”

  “And Indi.”

  “Sienna?”

  “Yes, but not Olive.”

  “No,” Ash says with a laugh. “Not Olive.”

  I sigh and lean back against the heavy blanket we sleep on. “I want that life, Ash. I want it so badly I can taste it.”

  “So do I,” he murmurs.

  I allow my mind to spin out, to imagine a world where my sister doesn’t have to live in fear of her own body and the power it holds, where my brother isn’t forced to work in an assigned profession. I try to imagine the walls falling down, the city integrated, its people no longer divided but unified.

  I fall asleep with the taste of Ash’s lips on mine, and fantasies of a better future dancing in my dreams.

  The next morning, however, Ash’s good mood has vanished, all the tenderness of last night gone, replaced with tension and anger at my leaving.

  I can tell he’s trying to hide it, but there’s a tightness around his eyes and mouth, a sharpness in his tone.

  Ash isn’t the only one who is tense. Even Indi is on edge. Onc
e Garnet contacts me about the train I need to take, there are no smiles to see me off except for a forced one from Raven.

  I stand by Sil’s cart and give each girl a hug, promising to see them soon, reminding them to keep studying the blueprints. Ash crushes me against him and whispers fiercely in my ear.

  “Please be careful. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” I whisper.

  “I wish there were some way I could tell Rye to keep an eye on you,” he says.

  “Do you think he’ll recognize me?” I ask.

  Ash tucks a lock of my newly blond hair behind my ear. “No,” he murmurs. “Plus he’ll be too busy with Carnelian to pay much attention to a new servant.”

  “Should I tell him who I am?”

  “I don’t know. It could be dangerous.” Ash’s jaw hardens. “And watch out for Carnelian.”

  “Right.” I’m not looking forward to living under the same roof as her again.

  “I’m serious, Violet. She’s sharper, more intelligent, than you give her credit for.”

  “Well, I’m happy to avoid her completely,” I say. I don’t want to talk about Carnelian anymore.

  We kiss one last time before Sil gets in the cart and I climb up beside her.

  Raven raises one hand in farewell. Ash stays on the porch, watching the cart until we pass under the trees and the White Rose is swallowed up behind us.

  “You certainly know how to wreak havoc,” Sil says.

  “I don’t want to fight with you, Sil,” I say wearily.

  She nods and gives the reins another flick. We ride the rest of the way in silence. I can’t help wondering—what if I’m too late? What if Hazel dies today? What if something is happening to her right now? Turnip’s pace is infuriatingly slow. The fields stretch out in rolling waves of yellowish brown, never changing.

  When we finally reach Bartlett Station, my back is aching from the tension. Sil waits with me until the train pulls up.

  “You’ve got your papers?” she says, and I hold up the forged documents that will allow me to get as far as the Bank. I have to take three different trains today to get to the Jewel. I’m wearing the brown dress, the one that looks like a servant’s garb.